Chapter 17: The Uneasy Peace

Chapter 17 follows the events and policies that turned into the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Section 1 describes how the Soviet Union and the United States emerged from the war as the dominant world powers, but with very different political agendas. With its society and economy in ruins after the war, the Soviet Union's priorities were to rebuild the economy and to strengthen the western borders. The United States, however, emerged from the war powerful and prosperous, with the mission of spreading democracy and free trade. At the Yalta Conference and the Potsdam talks, the Soviet Union gained control of occupied Eastern European countries and the eastern half of Germany. With his western borders extended, Stalin warned against capitalism and pledged to protect Soviet security at any cost. President Truman responded by focusing on the containment of communism. Truman hoped that the newly established United Nations would support free governments, and he promoted the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan to bolster freedom in other countries and fight the spread of communism. A cold war developed between the Soviets and the Americans as they aimed at blocking each other's goals.

Section 2 tells how events in Berlin, China, and Korea deepened the division between the Soviet Union and the Western powers. The Berlin blockade, a struggle for power in West Berlin, convinced the Allies and Western Europe that a military alliance was necessary if Western Europe was to remain free. In April 1949 the United States, Canada, and 10 European nations formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Soviet Union matched NATO with the Warsaw Pact, a Soviet-Eastern European alliance. In China, Mao Zedong's Communist forces overthrew the Nationalist government, and fears of communism in the United States accelerated. When Communist North Koreans invaded pro-Western South Korea, Americans were convinced that the only way to preserve freedom was to build up its defenses. While the Korean War settled little in Asia, Truman's decisive actions in Korea enhanced the powers of the presidency.

Section 3 analyzes how the development of nuclear weapons influenced the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. When the United States learned that the Soviets had developed the atomic bomb, Americans reacted with panic. President Dwight D. Eisenhower responded with his massive retaliation strategy, which warned that the United States would launch a nuclear attack in the event of any Soviet invasion. Responding to international pressure to halt the arms race, Eisenhower initiated talks with the Soviets. However, when the Soviet Union launched an intercontinental missile and the Sputnik satellite, the United States stepped up the race in pursuit of missile power.

Section 4 explores how emerging nations impacted cold war conflicts. Struggling to win the loyalties of newly independent nations in Asia, Latin America, and Africa, the United States and the Soviet Union enacted new measures to win the cold war. Massive amounts of foreign aid and covert operations by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) helped the United States influence and shape the governments of emerging nations. The Soviets attempted to win loyalties by promising economic and military aid to pro-Communist governments. When the two powers collided over the issue of Soviet missiles in Cuba, the crisis came to the brink of nuclear war. Negotiations averted war, but the crisis renewed the arms race.