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Cold War – Overview, 1945-1991
In this course, Dr Thomas Tunstall Allcock (University of Manchester) provides an introduction to the Cold War, 1947-91, the period of geopolitical tension between the Soviet Union and its satellite states (the Eastern Bloc) and the United States and its allies (the Western Block). In the first module, we provide an introduction to the topic as a whole, considering how we should actually define the Cold War, and its diplomatic, economic and ideological dimensions. In the second and third modules, we think about the origins of the Cold War, before turning in the fourth module to consider the importance of the Korean War (1950-53) on the conflict. In the fifth module, we think about the domestic impact of the Cold War, before turning in the sixth module to consider how the Cold War began to incorporate tensions in Africa, Asia and South America to become an increasingly global conflict. In the seventh module, we consider the importance of the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) to the development of the Cold War, before turning in the eighth module to the most important conflict of them all – Vietnam (1955-75). In the ninth module, we consider the development of the war between 1968-75, a period of easing tensions between the US and Soviet Union known as Detente, before turning in the tenth module to the ratcheting up of tensions during the presidency of Jimmy Carter (1977-81). Finally, in the eleventh module, we think about how the Cold War came to an end.
Introduction
In this module, we provide an introduction to the Cold War as a whole, focusing in particular on: (i) what it means when we talk about the Cold War: how do we define it?; (ii) the ‘coldness’ of the Cold War: the lack of direct military conflict between the US and Soviet Union, but its ‘hotness’ when considering indirect conflict between the two superpowers, e.g. Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan; and (iii) the diplomatic, economic, cultural, social, and ideological dimensions of the Cold War.
Hello.
00:00:06I'm Dr Thompson stole Alcock, Um,
00:00:06Elektra in American history at the University of Manchester
00:00:08and in a series of videos.
00:00:11I'm going to be talking to you about some of the key questions
00:00:13the most important issues related to the history of the Cold War.
00:00:17Now I think before we really get into this,
00:00:21it's important to note that this is a vast topic.
00:00:24There is a huge amount of research written about a whole
00:00:27range of different areas in relation to the Cold War.
00:00:29It's simply not gonna have time to cover every major question.
00:00:31I should also note as well.
00:00:34I'm history of the United States,
00:00:36and you might get a different perspective on some of these questions if you were,
00:00:38to example, to speak to a historian of the Soviet Union or China.
00:00:42Having said that, I do think that these videos will provide a useful starting point.
00:00:46Useful insight into some of the most
00:00:52important questions that we encounter when studying Caldwell
00:00:53and before we get into those questions is also really important
00:00:58for us to think about how we define the Cold War,
00:01:02What is it we're actually talking about when we're talking about the
00:01:04Cold War applies to the second half of the 20th century.
00:01:07In some ways, this is quite straightforward In other ways.
00:01:13This is not so simple at all.
00:01:15Uh, we can provide something of a fairly concise,
00:01:16straightforward definition if we want.
00:01:20And one way of looking at that would be to say that this
00:01:23is essentially a state of prolonged
00:01:25serious tension between two major superpowers,
00:01:27which stops just short of war,
00:01:31we say stops just short of war stops to short outbreak of genuine fighting.
00:01:33That would be a hot war. We're not quite at that point, so we're calling it a Cold War.
00:01:37It's also a clash of two competing systems right in the Cold War,
00:01:43as we mostly understand that we're talking about
00:01:47a competition between on the one hand,
00:01:50the United States
00:01:51and on the other hand, the Soviet Union and allies to.
00:01:52And this is also a competition, therefore,
00:01:56between capitalism and democracy on the one hand and communism on the other.
00:01:58So it's about two systems really competing for how the world
00:02:02will operate during the second half of the 20th century.
00:02:05Even this, though, will change over time and even.
00:02:10This is a definition which is in many ways to simple.
00:02:12It's something that we will complicate as we go. Just for one obvious example.
00:02:16Although the cold will largely starts as this U.
00:02:20S Soviet Union competition by the early 19 fifties,
00:02:22China will also have emerged as a rival communist superpower.
00:02:26And the US will constantly be negotiating
00:02:29its own relations with other Western powers to
00:02:31it's also important to think about the whole different way
00:02:35range of ways in which the Cold War plays out,
00:02:38the whole different range of effects it has on the world during this period.
00:02:40Because although there is not a direct conflict between the
00:02:46US and the Soviet Union or the US and China,
00:02:49there are a whole series of ways in which the Cold War is a military conflict.
00:02:52We see a range of what's known as proxy wars,
00:02:55where there are conflicts going in places all over the world
00:02:57in which the power superpowers are involved. Even if they're not fighting directly
00:03:00and these kinds of proxy wars are going to be a major feature of the Cold War,
00:03:05it's estimated that approximately 20 million people lose their
00:03:09lives in conflicts related to the Cold War,
00:03:12which for those people, the Cold War is not so cold for them.
00:03:15This is more of a hot war.
00:03:18Now, in addition to these proxy wars,
00:03:21it's also absolutely crucial to understand that this is a war in which the
00:03:23the opposing sides possess the capacity to destroy the world several times over.
00:03:27This is a war, a conflict between nuclear armed powers.
00:03:32So this constant competition,
00:03:36the constant state of tension between these rival powers, always has.
00:03:38The danger always has the risk of escalating into a nuclear exchange.
00:03:43And in fact,
00:03:48we're gonna see several points at which the world comes fairly close to this,
00:03:49most notably during the Cuban missile crisis.
00:03:52Finally, though,
00:03:55it's also really important to understand that the Cold War is
00:03:56much more than just a military conflict and military competition.
00:03:58It's about more than just armies, about an arms race, about weapons,
00:04:01about proxy wars.
00:04:05There are a whole range of diplomatic, economic,
00:04:06political and cultural angles to the Cold War,
00:04:09to both sides will be seeking to use a whole range
00:04:12of non military means to gain superiority over each other,
00:04:15and particularly to draw other countries to their own camp to their own site.
00:04:18Both will be competing for resources for trading partners,
00:04:23adding an economic dimension to the conflict.
00:04:27But there are also a whole range of diplomatic and cultural
00:04:30ways in which both sides try to appeal to potential allies.
00:04:32Both sides will use propaganda covert operations interventions to both,
00:04:35trying to win hearts and minds over to their side,
00:04:40but also to shape political and military developments
00:04:43in a way that benefits them the most.
00:04:46So we have a conflict which is about military superiority,
00:04:50about economic superiority, about diplomatic efforts.
00:04:54But cultural superiority about technological superiority will see this
00:04:58play out and things like the space race.
00:05:02We see it play out in things as simple as both sides trying
00:05:04to demonstrate which of their citizens have access to better consumer goods,
00:05:07a whole range of different ways, which is going to be important.
00:05:12And even this we've barely scratched the surface.
00:05:16So hopefully you you see what I mean when I said right at the start that
00:05:18we're only going to cover a select portion of the Cold War in these talks,
00:05:22but that's what we're gonna try and do is gonna try and do
00:05:26as much as we possibly can in the time that we have.
00:05:28And the place that we're going to start, which I think makes the most sense,
00:05:31is really with the beginning with the origins and thinking about How does
00:05:34the Cold War come about in particular the period that we're looking at?
00:05:37How do we get from the end of World War Two
00:05:40into a Cold War in just a very short space of time, and that's where we'll go next.
00:05:44
Cite this Lecture
APA style
Tunstall Allcock, T. (2020, February 05). Cold War – Overview, 1945-1991 - Introduction [Video]. MASSOLIT. https://massolit.io/courses/the-cold-war-1945-1991/the-korean-war-1950-53
MLA style
Tunstall Allcock, T. "Cold War – Overview, 1945-1991 – Introduction." MASSOLIT, uploaded by MASSOLIT, 05 Feb 2020, https://massolit.io/courses/the-cold-war-1945-1991/the-korean-war-1950-53