Cold War Strategies

Cold War Conflicts HIST 1301 | History Cold War Strategies There were several fronts and techniques used in the West and East's Cold War. Until the end of World War II, many of the nations in Latin America, Asia, and Africa had been under European colonial rule; both sides sent aid and technical help to these regions. By depriving nations of an economic incentive to ally themselves with the Soviet Union, the United States intended to restrict the spread of communism. For many impoverished individuals, communism was appealing. A country's riches was supposed to be used to provide for all of its population, and under the Soviet system, individuals had access to public transportation, work, housing, healthcare, education, and education. Even if living standards were lower than in the West, communism was an alluring choice for the impoverished who faced the continual danger of starvation and homelessness and saw no way out of their predicament. Both sides employed propaganda to undermine the legitimacy and reputation of the other and to bolster support for their respective political ideologies and programmes via the use of literature, visual images, and cinema. The United States supported Radio Free Europe, which started transmitting news to the Eastern Bloc nations in 1950, while Radio Liberty started transmitting to the Soviet Union in 1953. Flyers and posters praising the better quality of life in democratic, capitalist nations were printed by Radio Free Europe and the Free Europe Committee, an American government-established group of business executives and lawyers. The flyers and posters were dropped from weather balloons over East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. In addition to praising communist ideas of a classless society where everyone is treated equally regardless of race or gender, Soviet propaganda emphasised the USSR's aim for international peace. People across Asia, Africa, and Latin America were drawn to this message. These promises also drew in some African Americans who were facing racism and segregation in the US. In fact, opponents of the American civil rights movement frequently criticised it for having a communist bent. Propaganda occasionally took the shape of sports contests, as opposing sides showcased the superiority of their systems through the deployment of their swimmers, runners, weightlifters, and gymnasts. Sports and news programmes closely monitored the quantity of medals that Soviet and American athletes earned in the Olympics. Exchanges of cultures occurred at various eras. Soviet ballet dancers performed around the country, and American symphony orchestras and jazz musicians travelled to the former Soviet Union's member states. Each side emphasised its technological prowess and inventiveness. Vice President Richard Nixon of the United States proudly displayed American technology to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in the shape of a model kitchen during a 1959 exhibition in Moscow. In reaction to the labor-saving devices on show, Khrushchev asked if American families also had devices that eliminated the need for them to put food in their mouths and swallow it. The two nations also fought for supremacy in space. The first satellite, Sputnik, was launched by the Soviet Union in 1957, which dealt a severe blow to American prestige. President Dwight D. Eisenhower responded by urging Congress to create an organisation dedicated to space exploration in 1958. In that year, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was founded. The Soviet Union sent its first astronaut into space in 1961. The first humans to set foot on the moon were Americans in 1969. Another crucial instrument was espionage, which was employed by the USSR with the KGB, its spy agency, and the US with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which was established in 1947. In addition to monitoring the other countries, these organisations planned, supported, and executed acts of sabotage and the killing of those who were thought to be enemies of their own. In order to overthrow other governments and install leaders who would be sympathetic to their respective countries, the CIA and KGB both trained combat troops, incited revolt and insurrection, and stoked unrest in other countries. For instance, in 1961 the CIA trained rebels in Cuba with the intention of toppling Fidel Castro's communist regime on the Caribbean island. In a similar vein, during the Vietnam War, the KGB supported communists in Vietnam who were trying to overthrow the South Vietnamese government. Massive nuclear arsenals were the two sides' primary methods of containing the other's aggressiveness, and they also represented the most deadly arena for competition. The Soviet Union's 1949 atomic bomb explosion put an end to the United States' monopoly on nuclear weapons. The United States created the hydrogen bomb in 1952 and tested it on the Pacific atoll of Eniwetok, a move that was opposed by some of the atomic experts who had worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II. The bomb unleashed on Hiroshima was not quite as strong as this rocket, with a thousand times the power. The Soviet Union had to produce a weapon similar to the one the United States had developed. Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) were developed in the 1950s by both the USSR and the US. The ability to launch missiles with nuclear warheads from within the borders of a satellite nation or the home country made it insufficient to defend against nuclear attack with an air force that could intercept bomb-carrying aircraft. While nations in the Eastern and Western Blocs built bunkers to defend their populations in the event of nuclear war, neither side had a great deal of confidence in their capacity to win. Both the US and the USSR soon realised that developing a massive capacity for retaliation—the power to cause so much destruction that the other side would never explode the first bomb for fear of its own destruction—was essential to ensuring their survival. This defence strategy became known as "mutually assured destruction" (MAD) in the US. The adversaries' massive military forces amassed during the Cold War, coupled with their billion-dollar battleship, submarine, and fighter jet arsenals, assured they had the capability to wage a conventional war as well, in case their nuclear stockpiles proved ineffective in averting a confrontation.