Was the Cold War a direct result of the breakdown of World War II alliances?  Not really. In actuality, it took form in the late 19th century on the plains of Northern China and Manchuria.  Conflict arose when the American emphasis on business, markets, and profits clashed with the czarist emphasis on expansion and empire.

The US believed that its prosperity required an open door to trade in Manchuria. Nevertheless, when the Russians occupied the rich, industrial Chinese province in 1901, the Americans were unwilling to fight for their interests. Later, when the Japanese colonized the province in 1931, the Soviets appealed to the Americans for assistance.  Still, the US opted for a policy of balanced antagonism. Only when Nazi and Japanese aggression proved overwhelming did the US enter into a reluctant — and temporary — partnership with its longterm rival, the Soviet Union.

Memories of past contests reemerged when, in September 1945, Stalin honored a wartime agreement with the United States and invaded enemy strongholds in Manchuria, disarming the Japanese and confiscating arms and property worth between 800 and 900 million dollars.

Military and industrial equipment was dismantled and moved to the Soviet Union to aid in the rebirth of Soviet industry.

In return for early withdrawal from the territory, the Soviets demanded large-scale ownership of virtually every aspect of the Manchurian economy.

Stalin’s activities were rooted in the Soviet perception of reality. The United States and its allies were emerging from World War II with worldwide military superiority. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, was facing an urgent need to bolster national security and rebuild its wartorn economy. Since industrial capacity and  manufacturing ability had been severely damaged, any and all resources that could be used in the reconstruction and restoration of the motherland were to be acquired and mobilized so as to facilitate a rapid economic recovery.

Along with the industrial buildup, Stalin was obsessed with guaranteeing his nation’s vulnerable borders. Since German armies had invaded the Soviets through Eastern Europe twice in 25 years, he decided that it was best to exert control over all countries bordering the Soviet Union — countries like Manchuria and Iran. The idea was to create a Soviet sphere of influence that would provide protection against incursions.

Stalin’s interpretation of Russian interests impelled him to intervene in China where civil war was raging between the Nationalist or KMT forces led by Chiang Kai-shek and the Chinese Communist Part under the leadership of Mao-tse-tung.

Although Stalin had treaty obligations with the Nationalists, he feared a resurgent US presence in Manchuria if the Nationalists returned. So he stepped up support for the Communists, allowing 600,000 tons of light arms and ammunition to fall into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). This facilitated the CCP’s movement into Manchuria and enabled them to establish administrative control over much of the province.

While the Kremlin was fixated on a need to retain control over Manchuria’s raw materials and industrial resources, the United States was intent on developing a proAmerican China which would serve as a counterbalance to the Soviet Union.

The West clearly saw the implementation of Soviet policy as a communist threat. Speaking in March 1946 in President Truman’s home state of Missouri, Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Great Britain said: the Soviets covet “the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines.”

Churchill’s remarks set the stage for global confrontation, and were legitimated by Truman’s presence on the platform.

It’s St. Patrick’s Day today and in New York, where I live, everybody is smiling and wearing green.  Since I’m a Finnegan, I’m smiling too. But President Harry S. Truman wasn’t smiling on March 17, 1948, when he spoke before a hastily convened Joint Session of Congress. (The Truman Presidential Library has a podcast of the speech. Access it here.)

In his speech, Truman addressed European security and condemned the Soviet Union. He was concerned because Eastern Europe was already subject to the political influence of the Soviets, behind what Prime Minister Churchill of Great Britain called the Iron Curtain.

To counter the growing Soviet influence, Truman asked Congress to restore a peacetime military draft and to pass an Economic Cooperation Act, more commonly known as the Marshall Plan.

The Plan’s purpose was to provide billions of dollars in economic assistance to Western European countries devastated by World War II.

Most major cities  had been hard hit and some — like Warsaw and Berlin — were in ruins.  Industrial production as well as agriculture had been severely damaged.

Millions were homeless, roaming the streets without food or shelter.

Transportation — railways, bridges, and roads — had been destroyed by heavy bombing.

The only major power whose infrastructure remained intact was the United States. It had entered the war late, and was isolated from the war zone by geography. Still, many members of the 80th Congress were opposed.

The funding ended in 1952.  By that time, the economy of every participant state had surpassed pre-war levels, and Western Europe and the United States were solid partners. Over the next two decades, Western Europe enjoyed unprecedented growth and prosperity.

Was Europe’s economic growth attributable to Marshall Plan aid?  Opinions differ.  What do you think?

Comments are welcome.

From the end of World War II in 1945 until the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, the world was polarized by a global conflict between two wartime allies, the Soviet Union and the United States.

The Cold War’s impact was global in scope and created political divisions based on free world orientation, socialist orientation, or nonalignment.

The two superpowers — the United States and the Soviet Union — struggled for dominance. Their obsession with national security was reflected in strategies of containment, pact building, and military and economic assistance programs.

To many the Cold War was perceived to be:

• a contest between democratic and totalitarian political systems
• a clash between Marxist and capitalist theories of development/economic progress.

Superpower competition in the less developed world — the Third World — centered on tactics of covert action, insurgency, wars of liberation, and trade dependency.  Accompanying activity included escalating militarism and disproportionate allocations of revenue for arms build-ups.

The term competitive grand strategy refers to the rivalry between the individual grand strategies of the two superpowers as they competed for power and influence in the less developed world.

American grand strategy can be defined as an integration of military and economic objectives in the war against communism.

The military component of grand strategy was concerned with repelling the Soviet threat through a policy of containment.

The economic component was concentrated on protecting America’s desire for open markets.

At first these two prongs could be separated. By the end of the Eisenhower administration though the two were intertwined.

American grand strategy evolved into liberal grand strategy as the US became more explicit in its drive to foster democracy and capitalism abroad.

Soviet grand strategy focused on combating the threat of capitalist encirclement and on acquiring the resources necessary to develop economic and industrial prowess as a preparation for the ‘hot war’ that the Russians thought was inevitable as long as capitalism existed.

To summarize, after World War ll, the United States was obsessed with the war against communism and the idea of containment which scholars say “has truly been America’s grand strategy since the late 1940s.”

The overarching US objective was to prevent Soviet penetration of emerging nations.

The USSR, on the other hand, was determined to prevent ‘capitalist encirclement’ of its territories and was eager to prove its economic and industrial prowess.

By the mid-1950s, each superpower believed that the success of its grand strategy depended on “winning” the Third World. The competition to supply military and economic assistance, weapons, technology, and expert advice to the less developed world accelerated.

Cold War rivalry dominated the last half of the 20th century.