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8.3 Effects of the Cold War The only thing that kept the Cold War cold was the mutual deterrence afforded by nuclear weapons. —Chung Mong-joon, South Korean politician and business leader, 2013 Essential Question: In what ways did both the Soviet Union and the United States seek to maintain influence during the Cold War? Wit the start of the Cold War, new military alliances for mutual protection formed in different parts of the world. The threat of nuclear war, as noted above by Chung Mong-joon, kept the United States and the Soviet Union from starting a war that could end in unprecedented global destruction. But proxy wars, such as the ones in Korea and Vietnam, resulted in millions of deaths. In a proxy war, a major power helps bring about a conflict between other nations but does not always fight directly. These conflicts underlined the political and philosophical divide between the superpowers. The superpowers faced off in Cuba and several other Central American countries as well as in the African country of Angola. The combination of military, economic, and nuclear influence across the globe made the world a tense place for decades after World War I[—the war the two superpowers had worked together to end. Allied Occupation of Germany The conflict among the Allies after World War II was exemplified by the debate over how to occupy the defeated country of Germany. The Allies agreed to partition the country among France, Great Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union. The three Western Allies wanted to combine their zones into one state under democratic principles. Berlin Blockade The Allies also decided to divide Germany’s capital, Berlin, into four zones. The three Western zones would become a free city that was located within the Soviet zone of Germany. The Soviets wanted to stop these Western plans and control all of Berlin. They set up a blockade of the Western zones in Berlin to prevent the West from moving supplies into the area by land. The Western Allies did not want to risk a military confrontation with the Soviets and ultimately began the Berlin Airlift. Through this operation, 562 WORLD HISTORY MODERN: AP® EDITION the Allies flew supplies into Western zones between February 1948 and May 1949, when the Soviets lifted the blockade. Two Germanys After the blockade ended, Germany split into two states. West Germany became the Federal Republic of Germany. East Germany became the German Democratic Republic. The division of Europe into East and West was complete. Berlin Wall As citizens of East Germany saw the prosperity and democratic lifestyle of West Germany, many wanted to move to the West. Between 1949 and 1961, about 2.5 million East Germans fled. However, the East German and Soviet governments were determined to keep people in East Germany. They knew that the exodus to the West reflected poorly on the communist system, and it was hard on their economy. They first set up barbed-wire fences patrolled by guards along the perimeter of East Germany and between East and West Berlin. In August 1961, they began replacing the fences in Berlin with a wall, which became known as the Berlin Wall. Between 1961 and 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, soldiers killed about 150 people as they tried to escape over it. NATO, the Warsaw Pact, and Other Alliances Only a few years after World War II ended, the Soviet Union dominated the Eastern European countries they had occupied during the war. Communist governments in those countries—buoyed by support and the direct influence of Stalin—subjected their people to the same suppression and economic system as the Soviet Union. Many Western European countries feared such a dominant communist presence on their doorstep. Out of a desire to coordinate their defenses in case of a conflict with the Soviets, several Western nations created the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in April 1949. The treaty pledged mutual support and cooperation within the alliance against conflicts and wars. Its original members were Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and the United States. Membership in this Brussels-based organization expanded considerably in the decades after its founding. The Soviet Union’s response to NATO was the Warsaw Pact, created in 1955. Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the Soviet Union were the original members. Warsaw Pact nations combined their armed forces and based their army leaders in Moscow, the capital of the Soviet Union. These nations were known as the communist bloc. Two countries with communist political systems successfully resisted Soviet control. Albania, located next to Greece, joined the Warsaw Pact but withdrew in 1968. It became more closely tied to China. Yugoslavia, under the authoritarian leadership of Marshall Josip Broz Tito, never joined the Warsaw EFFECTS OF THE COLD WAR 563 troops across the border and entered the war against the United States and its allies. After three years of fighting and some four million civilian and military casualties, the war ended in a stalemate. The two parts of Korea remained divided, with a demilitarized zone in between. Vietnam War U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, following the Truman policy of containment, sent military advisers to South Vietnam to train the South Vietnamese army and to prevent a communist takeover by North Vietnam. Eisenhower’s successor, President John F. Kennedy, increased the number of advisers from 1,000 to 16,000. Some U.S. citizens believed America could not afford to lose a confrontation in Vietnam. They thought a communist victory would weaken U.S. prestige around the world. However, the United States was supporting an undemocratic and unpopular South Vietnamese ruler, Ngo Dinh Diem. In 1963, Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc publicly set himself on fire in Saigon to protest the South Vietnamese government’s favoring of Catholics over Buddhists. His protests inspired others. A military coup, with U.S. support, soon overthrew Diem. In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson sent more U.S. troops to South Vietnam. Johnson believed in the domino theory—the idea that if one country in the region became communist, other countries would soon follow. Johnson feared that China and the Soviet Union would bring all of Southeast Asia under communist rule. (Connect: Trace foreign intervention in Southeast Asian affairs through the Vietnam War. See Topic 6.2.) The Bay of Pigs Crisis Fidel Castro and other communist revolutionaries overthrew the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959. Castro soon set up a dictatorship in Cuba. On August 6, 1960, the new government started to nationalize foreign-owned industries, which was a common communist strategy. Cuba nationalized businesses and properties of the national telephone and electricity companies; Texaco, Esso, and Sinclair oil companies; and 36 sugar mills owned by U.S. firms. As a result of these economic losses for its citizens, the United States broke off trade with Cuba and cut diplomatic ties. Castro in turn accepted Soviet aid and aligned Cuba’s foreign policy with that of the Soviet Union. In 1961, newly elected U.S. President John F. Kennedy had grave concerns about the presence of a communist country located only 90 miles from the coast of Florida. Before Kennedy took office, a group of Cuban exiles who opposed Castro had asked for U.S. government backing to invade Cuba and overthrow Castro. Kennedy gave his support. The resulting Bay of Pigs invasion was a total failure. Even worse for the United States, it cemented the Cuba-Soviet alliance. The Cuban Missile Crisis In response to the Bay of Pigs, the Soviets began to support Cuba with arms and military advisors. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who came to power after Stalin, saw an opportunity in Cuba. In 1962 he shipped nuclear missiles to Cuba. Khrushchev felt justified in his actions because in the summer of 1961 the United States had placed nuclear missiles in Turkey, a U.S. ally that shared a border with the Soviet Union. EFFECTS OF THE COLD WAR 565 In October 1962, U.S. intelligence learned that more missiles were on their way to Cuba. Kennedy ordered the U.S. Navy to prevent the missiles from reaching Cuba. He called his action a “quarantine” because a blockade was technically an act of war. Regardless of the term, the two superpowers were on a collision course that threatened nuclear war. Ultimately, the two leaders pulled back from the brink. Khrushchev called back the Soviet ships and removed the missiles that had been delivered to Cuba. In return, the United States pledged to quietly remove its missiles from Turkey. After this incident, leaders of both countries realized that better communication between their countries was needed. In 1963, the two countries set up a Hot Line, a direct telegraph/teleprinter link between the U.S. and Soviet leaders’ offices. Source: CIA (1962) During the Cuban Missile Crisis, U.S. planes photographed evidence of Soviet missiles and sites in San Cristobal, Cuba. The image on the right is a U-2 reconnaissance photograph, showing Soviet nuclear missiles, their transports and tents for fueling and maintenance. Test-Ban Treaty People worldwide worried about deaths and environmental harm from nuclear war or nuclear testing. In 1963, the Soviet Union, the United States, and more than 100 other states signed the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty. France and China did not sign it. This agreement outlawed testing nuclear weapons above ground, underwater, and in space. The goal was to cut down the amount of radiation that people would be exposed to as a result of weapons testing. Underground testing remained legal. In 1968, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty called on nuclear powers to prevent the spread of military nuclear technology and materials to non-nuclear countries. Angola The Portuguese colony of Angola in southwest Africa won its independence in 1975, after 14 years of armed struggle. Like the Vietnamese, the Angolans had to fight a war to end their colonial status. However, Angola faced greater ethnic conflict than did Vietnam. The borders of Angola, like those of many newly independent African countries, had been set by European colonial powers with little regard for traditional 566 WORLD HISTORY MODERN: AP® EDITION 
