The Cold War channel has been publishing episodes
for what feels like a long time at this point.
Since we first launched in March of 2019,
we’ve covered ten to fifteen years of Cold
War history, from the huge topics of the early
era including Potsdam, the Berlin Airlift,
the Death of Stalin, the Chinese Civil War
and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 to some
of the lesser known topics including the Huk
Rebellion in the Philippines, the Greek Civil
War, the MauMau Uprising in Kenya and Operation
FF in Egypt! So where does that put us now?
Well, it puts us in a new studio space, as
you can see! This change is going to provide
us with more flexibility, more space, and
allow us to continue to grow and try new things.
As for the history part, we are moving towards
the 1960’s and the building of the Berlin
Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the American
War in Vietnam, we figured we should give
a bit of a summary. Tie some things together,
and provide some context! So, let's get into
it. I’m your host David and this is...The
Cold War.
Let's start by talking a little bit about
dates. When talking about the Cold War timeline,
it is often widely accepted that the starting
date was 1947. By then, it was very apparent
that the wartime alliance between the Western
Allies and the Soviet Union was dead and gone
and a new era of global tension had set in.
But this channel deliberately started with
the Potsdam Conference in July 1945. The roots
of the Cold War very firmly took hold there;
a divided Germany under separate zones of
occupation was accepted at the way forward,
Soviet domination of the Eastern and Central
European countries it had liberated from Nazi
Germany was accepted, even though transition
plans to democratic governance were agreed
on, no matter how ill-fated. It was at Potsdam
that American nuclear capability was revealed
to the Soviets. Even if Stalin already knew
about it. Potsdam formed the division lines
that would separate Red from Blue for the
next half-century.
The creation of the United Nations in 1945
gave an international forum for disputes and
grievances to be discussed, debated and for
those deemed in the wrong, chastised. However,
the imposed necessity of the Security Council
and its permanent member nations crucial veto
votes meant that the overall effectiveness
of the organization was hampered from the
outset. Instead of a body that could help
mediate and overcome global conflict, the
United Nations was to become just another
battleground of the Cold War.
The Middle East saw a new nation emerge in
1947; the State of Israel was carved from
British Palestine, immediately creating a
deep and deeply destabilizing conflict in
the region. As the Cold War progresses, the
unsettled nature of the Middle East region
will forge new alliances and forge international
friendships where none had existed before.
By 1948, the Sovietization of the countries
behind the Iron Curtain was well underway.
Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania,
Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and even tiny Albania
were being dominated by communists in government,
either by questionable electoral means or
by outright coup. Moscow, devastated by the
German invasion in 1941, decided that it needed
the buffer states of Europe to prevent such
a calamity from happening again. Future wars
wouldn’t be fought on Soviet soil, so the
thinking went, so borders on maps were redrawn
and huge numbers of people were forced to
relocate so that ethnicities matched borders
on those maps. As the Soviet Union tightened
its grip over its new Socialist brothers,
they saw in occupied Berlin the opportunity
to test the metal of the Allies, who they
didn’t think would have the ability or desire
to stand up to the Soviet Union. The Berlin
Airlift clearly demonstrated the resolve of
the Western Allies that they would not let
Soviet influence spread further without putting
up a fight. This led to the Truman Doctrine
and its theories of containment, a set of
policies that would see the United States
begin to involve itself militarily and politically
on a global scale.
Now, despite this commitment to halting the
spread of Communism, 1949 saw the triumph
of Mao in China and the establishment of the
People’s Republic there. Communism really
did seem ascendant. The same year saw the
Soviet Union join the nuclear club, ending
American hegemony over atomic weapons. Suddenly,
and much faster than expected, the Soviets
had access to weapons that could wreak havoc
and destruction in the flash of an atom. What
was sparked from this was an ever-escalating
quest on both sides of the iron curtain to
build more, bigger, and more destructive weapons
of war as well as the tools to try and thwart
them.
The arms industries on both sides of the conflict
were working overtime, churning out jets,
tanks, submarines, missiles and rockets, all
with the stated intent of defending their
nations from the imminent attack expected
from the “other side”. That attack actually
came in 1950, but not in Europe as expected
but rather when North Korean forces crossed
the 38th parallel sparking the Korean War.
It is notable how seriously the use of nuclear
weapons was considered but ultimately deemed
too much of a risk of causing a global calamity.
Three years of fighting eventually ended,
the stalemate transforming into a defacto
peace. But that didn’t mean that planning
for war was suspended.
Alliances were formed on both sides; NATO
in the West, a defensive alliance born from
the wartime alliance but with a clear and
stated mission of standing up to the Soviet
Union. On the other side, The Warsaw Pact
was formed, not only as a counterweight to
NATO but also to help the USSR maintain its
own dominance over its European satellites.
When Stalin died in 1953, the wheels of change
were set in motion. The hardline authoritarianism
sponsored by Stalin began to fall to the wayside
as Khrushchev consolidated his power and tried
to liberalize somewhat. Well, at home anyway.
While the thaw took hold inside the Soviet
Union, bringing with it a flurry of internal
criticism, the same tried to happen outside
of the Soviet Union as well. Uprisings in
both Poland and Hungary were put down, one
far more brutally than the other, laying bare
the authoritarian nature of the Soviet Union
for the world to see. Despite this, Moscow
still hoped for some form of rapprochement
with the West. Communist China, unhappy with
the deviation from the path of global revolution,
began to pull away from the Soviet Union,
pursuing its own independent global revolution.
The British Empire, its power and resources
stripped bare and bled dry in the exertions
of the Second World War, began the process
of dismantling itself. The independence of
India immediately turned into a conflict as
the nations of India and Pakistan emerged
with ever deepening enmity between them. The
United Kingdom, despite the introduction of
many socialist policies at home, such as the
NHS, found itself fighting against communist
and ethnic insurgency in its empire. In both
Malaya and in Kenya, although British forces
won the battle, they would go on to lose the
war as independence was achieved. The United
Kingdom’s low point came in 1956 when it
found itself unsupported by its own ally during
a British attempt to maintain power and influence
in the Suez.
Washington for its part, dedicated to halting
the spread of communism, was pursuing a policy
that can best be summed up as the enemy of
my enemy is my friend. Through both covert
and overt mechanisms, the United States allied
itself to, propped up, or simply installed
autocratic and repressive governments in countries
where it saw the threat of socialism establishing
itself. By the early 1950s, the instigator
for some of these actions was becoming blurred.
In places such as Guatemala and Iran, regime
change was pursued not necessarily just to
halt the spread of Communism but also to further
US and Western business interests. In the
same vein, Washington found itself actively
working with former Nazis in both the new
West Germany as well as its own domestic scientific
research programs in order to gain advantage
over Moscow. This is a trend that will continue
throughout the Cold War period.
On both sides of the ideological divide, the
impact and role intelligence agencies became
more and more prominent. The formation of
the CIA and the NSA began a process of intelligence
operations and covert actions that would spiral
over the coming decades, resulting in some
of the craziest stories of the period. Soviet
intelligence services, embodied by the KGB
and the GRU, grew their influence, both domestically
and abroad, creating and running some of the
worlds most successful espionage networks
in history. From the Cambridge Five, to the
Rosenbergs, to Aldrich Ames, Soviet intelligence
services proved highly effective.
The early Cold War in Asia was marked by communist
insurgencies. In places such as Malaya, Indonesia
and Vietnam, left-wing movements fought for
national independence against colonial governments.
Even as early as the 1940s however, these
movements were not strictly ideological in
nature. As we have seen, and will go on to
see, many of these socialist movements were
at their core, nationalist movements with
ideology bolted onto it. This is yet another
trend that will continue throughout the entire
period, around the globe.
So that is a brief recap of where we are at.
Two sides, opposed to each other, maneuvering
and dancing around each other, using other
nations as pawns in the game. Marriages of
convenience were made by both sides, all in
the name of ideological protection. Two sides,
both with massive and expanding militaries,
ready to go to war with each but somewhat
restrained by the notion that a war would
likely be catastrophic for the entire planet.
As we approach our coverage of what was probably
the single most tense and dangerous moments
of the entire Cold War, we would like to thank
you, our viewers, for your continued support.
We genuinely couldn’t do this without you.
I for one have learned an immense amount about
a time period that I had thought I was already
relatively familiar with! I have had the opportunity
to meet with and interact with new people
from all over the world and I and the entire
team here at the Cold War appreciate the thoughts
and feedback we get from you every day and
every week. I would like to also take this
opportunity to say thank you to our team of
researchers and writers, Ilkin, Tristan, Turgut,
Arnaldo, Ryan, Matt and Lao, as well as our
producers extraordinaire, Kamran and of Nolan,
without whom no episode would ever get published.
As always, financial support is greatly appreciated
via paypal or via patreon at www.Patreon.com/thecoldwar.
Patreon support gets you such perks as early
access to videos and access to copies of our
scripts! This is the Cold War Channel and
don’t forget, “The trouble with a cold
war is that it doesn't take too long before
it becomes heated.”
