Cold War rivalry, 1945-1973
Origins of the Cold War: Truman Doctrine and Containment
By 1947, the wartime alliance between the USA and Soviet Union had broken down. The USA was alarmed by Soviet pressure on Turkey, Communist insurgencies in Greece, and the Soviet installation of Communist governments across Eastern Europe. President Harry Truman responded in March 1947 with what became known as the Truman Doctrine: the USA would support free peoples resisting subjugation by armed minorities or outside pressures. Congress voted 400 million dollars in military and economic aid to Greece and Turkey. The accompanying Marshall Plan (1948) provided around 13 billion dollars to rebuild Western European economies — partly to make communism less attractive by alleviating post-war poverty.
The Truman Doctrine (March 1947) committed the USA to containing communism by supporting threatened nations — the policy became known as containment. The Marshall Plan (1948) provided approximately 13 billion dollars for European reconstruction. Both policies aimed to prevent Western Europe from falling to communism through poverty or subversion.
The Berlin Crisis and Airlift, 1948–1949
Berlin, the former German capital, lay deep inside the Soviet occupation zone. In June 1948, the Soviet Union blockaded all land and water routes into West Berlin, hoping to force the Western Allies to abandon the city or accept Soviet terms for its future. President Truman’s response was the Berlin Airlift: for 323 days, American and British aircraft flew in all supplies required by the city’s 2 million inhabitants — at its peak delivering nearly 13,000 tonnes of goods per day. In May 1949, the Soviets ended the blockade. The airlift was a propaganda victory for the West, demonstrating American resolve and technological capacity.
In June 1950, Communist North Korea invaded South Korea. The United Nations (dominated by the USA after the Soviet Union was temporarily boycotting the Security Council) intervened under US command. The Korean War was a direct application of containment: UN forces, primarily American, fought to prevent the communist North from conquering the South. When China entered the war in late 1950, the conflict widened. An armistice was signed in July 1953, restoring roughly the pre-war border. Around 36,500 American soldiers died in the conflict.
The Nuclear Arms Race and NATO
Alongside the diplomatic and military confrontations, the USA and Soviet Union engaged in a relentless nuclear arms race. The USA had used atomic bombs against Japan in August 1945; the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb in September 1949, far sooner than American scientists had predicted. By the early 1950s, both sides were developing the far more powerful hydrogen bomb. The USA tested its first hydrogen bomb in November 1952; the Soviet Union followed in August 1953. The prospect of mutually assured destruction — that any nuclear exchange would destroy both sides — became the grim logic underpinning Cold War stability. To formalise Western defence commitments, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) was founded in April 1949, committing its members to treat an attack on any one of them as an attack on all. The Soviet Union responded by forming the Warsaw Pact in 1955. These rival alliances divided Europe into two armed camps for four decades.
The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962
In October 1962, American U-2 spy planes photographed Soviet nuclear missile installations under construction in Cuba, just 90 miles from the Florida coast. President Kennedy was briefed on 16 October. The discovery triggered the most dangerous episode of the Cold War — a 13-day standoff in which the world came perilously close to nuclear war. Kennedy established a naval blockade of Cuba, demanding the removal of the missiles. Soviet ships carrying further military equipment were on course for Cuba.
The Cuban Missile Crisis (October 1962) lasted 13 days. It was resolved when Soviet leader Khrushchev agreed to remove missiles from Cuba in exchange for a US pledge not to invade Cuba and (secretly) the removal of US missiles from Turkey. The crisis led directly to the establishment of a direct hotline between Washington and Moscow to prevent future miscommunication.
US Involvement in Vietnam
Vietnam had been divided since 1954 — Communist North Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh and a US-backed South. American military advisers were present from the late 1950s. The war escalated dramatically after the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964, when Congress passed a resolution giving President Johnson broad authority to escalate US military involvement. By 1968, over 500,000 American troops were deployed in Vietnam.
Television brought the Vietnam War into American living rooms in unprecedented detail. The Tet Offensive (January 1968), in which Communist forces launched coordinated attacks on South Vietnamese cities, shattered the US government’s claims that the war was being won. Anti-war protests grew on university campuses and in cities. The revelation that American forces had massacred civilians at My Lai village in March 1968 (revealed publicly in 1969) deepened public disillusionment. President Nixon began withdrawing troops from 1969 under his “Vietnamisation” strategy, and the last US combat troops left in 1973. South Vietnam fell to the North in April 1975. Approximately 58,000 Americans died in the conflict.