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0:01
- [Narrator] The end of the Second World War was met with riotous jubilation at victory over the access powers and with the establishment of the United Nations that was the dream of a new world order of freedom, prosperity and peace. Even the advent of the atom bomb, the decisive weapon that ended the war was celebrated for it was believed that was so powerful it would render warfare obsolete. And yet even before the guns fell silent, concerned whispers were being shared
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in the halls of power regarding the capitalist allies of the West and the communists in the East who hit the two had been united against fascism. With then no longer being a common enemy to unite them, age old rivalries and fears began to reemerge. The Western allies of Britain, Canada, France and America had not forgotten that the Soviet leader, Stalin had worked with the Nazis to carve up Eastern Europe before Germany invaded Poland in 1939,
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they were also concerned about Stalin's refusal to surrender his grip on territories in Eastern Europe, which the red army had liberated and his land grab in Asia during his last minute intervention in the Pacific theater against Japan. Stalin himself, as paranoid as ever was convinced that the Western allies deliberately delayed the D-Day landings in order to bleed the Soviet Union of its people in an effort to weaken the vast country. The fact that American soldiers
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had fought in the Russian civil war against the communists in 1919 only helped fuel his belief that after Napoleon and Hitler, the next leader to take a massive army into the Soviet Union would be American. With both America and the Soviet Union having suffered devastating surprise attacks in the war, they were both determined it would never happen again. They readied their armies to fight what would prove to be one of the most abstract conflicts in history, the Cold War.
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Welcome to "Wars of the World."
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(dramatic music)
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So just what is a Cold War? To put it simply, a Cold War is a state of political hostility between countries or alliances of nations that is characterized by threats of open warfare, the distribution of propaganda to spread their respective ideologies and indirect military confrontation through a third party. We generally associate the term with the period of hostility between the US and the Soviet Union and their respective allies between the end of the Second World War
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and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. However, history is full of examples of such international unrest. And even today, there are countries who would be considered to be in a state of Cold War with one another, such as India and Pakistan, Israel and Iran, and of course, North and South Korea. What makes the US Soviet Cold War so unique is just how far reaching it was, affecting every continent on earth and the possible ramifications for all mankind if it ever turned into a hot war.
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The advent of jet powered aviation, rocketry and nuclear weapons meant that for the first time virtually the entire globe was a potential battlefields. For that reason, it remains perhaps the most dangerous time in recorded human history.
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The Cold War is considered to have begun shortly after the surrender of Nazi Germany during the Postdam Conference, in which the three main allies, Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States met to discuss what to do with post-war Germany. And to an extent Europe itself, even before the war had begun, the Soviets had been building their Eastern block by annexing the smaller countries around its borders, such as Estonia and Latvia. And they sought to secure the countries
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they liberated from the Nazis to bring them into that block, expanding their influence with puppet rulers. Short of starting another war, there was little the two Western powers could do to stop Stalin from achieving his aim and thus Albania, Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Czech Slovakia, Hungary and East Germany all fell under the influence of Moscow. Yugoslavia also became allied to the Soviets after their revolution, but retained a greater degree of autonomy than the other countries.
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On March 3rd, 1946, Britain's Wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill uttered the now famous words to an audience in Westminster College, Missouri, that, "an iron curtain has descended across the continent." However, with the surrender of Japan in September of 1945, the US began to take a much harder line with the Soviets, especially across occupied Germany, which had been divided into four zones under the rule of the victorious powers. Germany's capital city, Berlin
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was equally divided amongst the victors, but was located deep within the Soviet zone. Something that was the source of much frustration to Stalin who believed the city should be entirely his, for it was his troops that fought the bloody last battle there in 1945.
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At first, Berlin was controlled by a joint committee, but soon the Western allies began to permit the areas of Germany under their authority to reunite into a single democratic entity, which became the nucleus for the future country of West Germany. Having the capital of this new country in Soviet controlled territory was intolerable to Stalin. And so on June 24th, 1948, he ordered all the land routes to West Berlin be closed in an effort to force Western powers to withdraw
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and finally hand all the city to him. In the meantime, the people of West Berlin would slowly begin to starve. The Western powers still reeling from their appeasement of Hitler's aggression in the 1930s, decided to confront Stalin head on, but instead of invading the Eastern half of Germany, they instead organized a massive airlift to feed the population of West Berlin. Thousands of aircraft, including demilitarized bombers from the war were pressed back into service to fly supplies into Berlin
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through three air corridors. At the height of the operation, planes were landing and taking off from Berlin every 30 seconds. American pilots involved in the operation famously constructed makeshift parachutes with which to drop sweets to German children as they flew overhead, while British flying boats were use to carry salt since their holes were designed to resist its corrosive nature. Stalin was initially undeterred by the airlift, given the intensity of the air operations,
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he argued that the Western powers couldn't keep it up indefinitely and especially on behalf of a former enemy. However, the days soon gave way to weeks, which in turn gave way to months, eventually Stalin was the one who had to concede by reopening the land routes on May 12th, 1949. The first major confrontation of the Cold War had been won by the Western powers, but this was only the beginning.
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The blockade of Berlin had proven that the Soviets were a real threat to Western Europe, several Western European countries, such as Belgium and Holland had declared themselves neutral when Hitler invaded Westwood in 1940, but this proved to be no protection. And so that post-war governments began looking at forming military alliances to counter Soviet aggression. Britain and France had already signed a mutual defense treaty known as the Treaty of Dunkirk in 1947. And the following year,
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this was expanded to include the small banner looks countries. Barely a year after this, with the blockade of Berlin well underway, negotiations began to expand the alliance even further to include as well as additional European countries, the US and Canada, the results was the North Atlantic Treaty Organization known as NATO, which was established on April 4th, 1949 with 12 members states. NATO was founded on the premise of mutual defense with the key points in membership,
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being that an attack on one country by a foreign power constituted an attack on all member states. In addition, it would unify the command structure of all member states and provide an extensive common training program that turned 12 armies into one Titanic one.
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With both sides preparing for a possible confrontation, the Western countries felt reassured by the American possession of atomic weaponry, which they hoped would contain Stalin behind, his iron curtain. These weapons had effectively ended World War II and were considered so powerful that the Americans even banned Britain who had helped develop the weapons during the Manhattan projects from having them, although Britain would develop their own in the early 1950s.
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American president, Harry Truman had informed Stalin that they were working on a new super weapon, a Postdam, but Stalin already knew. His spine network had infiltrated the Manhattan project, and he demanded that his own scientists build on equivalent weapon. The first Soviet atomic weapon, the RDS-1 was strikingly similar to the American bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. On August 29th, 1949, the Soviets detonated the bomb and it proved to be even more powerful
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than the scientists working on it had predicted, being the equivalent of 22,000 sticks of TNT, more powerful than the Nagasaki bomb. The test horrified Western intelligence agencies unaware that the Soviet nuclear weapon program was so advanced, they expected it would take another five years for the Soviets to develop a bomb by which time they would have even more powerful weapons in the form of hydrogen bonds. The test only accelerated Western weapon programs
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in an effort to keep them ahead of the Soviet engineers. The first nuclear arms race in history was now underway.
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In the immediate post-war era and into the early 1950s, the only viable way of delivering a nuclear weapon to a target was with a heavy bomber. The US initially relied on the B-29, which delivered the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. But this was eventually replaced by the oh inspiring B-36 peacemaker, a 10 engined giant that was conceived to bomb Nazi Germany from the continental US if Britain was ever invaded and conquered. Eventually newer and more advanced jet types,
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such as the B-47 Stratojets and the now legendary B-52 Stratofortress were entered into service. The US had an enormous advantage over the Soviets with their bomb of fleets in that they were able to base them in allied countries, such as Britain, Italy, and Japan, closer to their targets than if they flew directly from the US mainland. This effectively boxed in the Soviets whose leadership demanded that a force of very long range bombers be developed to counter the American threats.
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These bombers would have to be able to attack the US and her allies from bases in Soviet territory. In the meantime, the Soviets had to contend with using an unlicensed copy of the B-29 known as the TU-4. One of the most impressive of these new bombers was the four engine, Myasishev M-4, which startled Western intelligence so much that when they saw the strange pods on the wings, they assumed they featured some advanced defensive weapon or technology.
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In reality, they contained small wheels to hold the wings up when on the ground. Unfortunately, Soviet engineering wasn't as advanced as the Western bomber manufacturers and the aircraft fell short of what was expected. Another Russian design bureau, Tupolev instead offered the TU-95, a design that could trace its roots back to the B-29 derived TU-4. While looking more like a World War II bomber, the TU-95 featured fuel efficient turbo prop engines, the blades of which spun so fast,
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they often broke the sound barrier at high speeds. This plane finally gave the Soviet bomber with which to truly threaten the US. Unlike the B-52, it is still used by Russian forces today. Britain was unable to afford a massive force of bombers to carry its nuclear weapons, like the Americans and Soviets, and so chose quality over quantity, developing three very advanced jet bombers known collectively as the V-Force. However, all three parties had to contend
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with increasingly sophisticated defensive weapons systems from the opposing side, such as supersonic interceptors, some of which even had nuclear weapons of their own and eventually surface to air missiles. Thus, all three countries began developing air to surface nuclear missiles, which would allow the bombers to attack their targets outside of the range of enemy air defenses. In order to protect them from being destroyed on the ground in a Pearl Harbor style surprise attack,
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the US kept large numbers of their bombers airborne and armed with nuclear weapons ready to strike at the Soviets in a moment's notice. However, this practice was stopped after a series of accidents, including a mid air collision between a B-52 and a tanker over Spain, in which four nuclear bombs rained down on the Spanish coast in 1966.
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Divided along the 38th parallel, the Korean peninsula became a tale of two nations after the end of World War II, with the Northern half of the country supported by the Soviet Union and the Southern by the United States. After the creation of two separate governments, the Soviets and Americans had largely withdrawn from the peninsula in 1949. However, the North lobbied Stalin to support a powerful military thrust into the South to achieve a quick victory
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so as to make it impossible for the US to intervene and thus unify Korea under one communist flag. Stalin approved, and in June of 1950, the world was stunned by a sudden North Korean invasion of South Korea sparking the Korean War. The United nations with the United States as the principal party rallied armed forces from 21 countries, including Australia and the UK to repel them. The allied forces pushed the North Koreans back North, who prior to their landings,
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were on the verge of defeating the South. American and allied forces pursued them across the 38th parallel and all the way to the Yellow River. But this in turn provoked China who launched a massive invasion in support of the North Koreans and in doing so prolonged the war until 1953, by which time an estimated 2.8 million had died. The fighting in the Korean War mimicked much of the fighting in World War II, including mass bombing raids against North Korean cities.
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The war saw the first jets versus jet air battles, which included Soviet pilots in MIG-15s secretly fighting American pilots. Although this wouldn't be revealed until many years later. Negotiations in 1954 produced no further agreements. And the frontline has been accepted ever since as the de facto boundary between North and South Korea.
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In 1945, West Germany was integrated into NATO, which the Soviets condemned as a de-stabilizing move in response, they had their Eastern European allies sign the treaty of friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance. More commonly known as the Warsaw Pact. The alliance was intended to counter NATO in Europe, but functioned differently to its Western equivalent. While the US influence in NATO was extensive, it was not absolute. Whereas the Warsaw Pact was essentially an extension
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of the Soviet's armed forces. In this way, Stalin was able to maintain his grip on the Warsaw Pact countries by denying them their ability to operate independently. And so while NATO countries were granted access to the latest US weapons systems under the mutual assistance program, the Warsaw Pact countries were provided with inferior versions of Soviet equipment, leading many to speculate that the Soviet sold the Warsaw Pact countries as mere cannon fodder
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to be expended in the opening days of a conflict with the technologically superior NATO armies.
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The Cold War was a time of unprecedented secrecy. Knowing what the other side was doing, offered enormous advantages in the diplomatic arena of the United Nations, where both sides regularly faced each other directly to challenge the other on their activities. The Cold War spy network has become the stuff of legend being glamorized in popular culture, but it was often nowhere near as glitzy as James Bond. On the contrary, it was a highly dangerous and often dirty endeavor
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where capture could mean either a lengthy prison sentence or in some cases simply vanishing off the face of the earth. As early as 1950, US and British aircraft began flying reconnaissance missions around and sometimes in Soviet airspace. The Soviets retaliated on April 8th, 1950, shooting down a US spy plane, the first of many that would be shot down by Soviet defenses during the Cold War. When in 1956, a Soviet Warship brought Nikita Khrushchev to Britain,
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the man who would replace Stalin when he died as the leader of the Soviet Union, a Royal Navy frogman named Lionel Crabb was found weeks later with his head missing. A Soviet diver later confessed to killing Crabb because he was spotted attempting to attach a device to the Soviet vessel. The Western powers were not afraid to deliberately violate Soviet territory in order to gather intelligence. RAF crews flying American RB-45 tornado reconnaissance planes flew routes that bombers would take
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to attack targets in Eastern Europe to study how dense the defenses were. Meanwhile, the US develops the secretive U-2 spy plane, which flew out extremely high altitude above Soviet defenses to spy on Soviet basis. However, Soviet defenses became more and more advanced. And on May the first, 1960, a U-2 was shot down inside Soviet territory and it's pilot, Francis Gary Powers was captured and put on trial much to the embarrassment of the US. The Soviets slacked the technology
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to build an equivalent U-2 but both sides would later start spying on the other with spy satellites. It was actually a picture by a Soviet spy satellite that gave the world it's first glimpse of the notorious Area 51 facility in Nevada. Nuclear powered submarines from both sides would also spend a great deal of time spying on each other. And on more than one occasion, they were collisions between vessels, perhaps the most serious of which, was when the Soviet submarine K-314
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collided with the American carrier USS Kitty Hawk in 1984. Spies from both sides would operate undercover. Apparently living normal lives in the country of their adversary while gathering data on military and political activity. In the UK, a group which came to be known as the Cambridge Five passed information to the Soviet Union during the 1950s. Despite being uncovered, their operation greatly shook the confidence the US had in British counter-intelligence, which saw the US briefly withhold
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some of its own intelligence from British sources. However, no side was ever clean of enemy spies within its ranks. While the Cambridge Five were being uncovered, the British had recruited Colonel Oleg Penkovsky of the Soviet military intelligence to provide them with information, while American's Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were arrested in 1950 for having been Soviet spies since 1942. Both were found guilty and executed by electric chair. Spies continued to be uncovered in all areas of society
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on both sides of the iron curtain, right up to and even after the end of the Cold War.
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1956 was a troublesome year for both sides of the iron curtain. On the island of Cuba, located some 90 miles from the US mainland, communist rebels renewed their efforts to oust the pro US Cuban leadership. On April 29th, Cuban rebels attacked an army barracks, and although they were repelled, it emboldened rebel sympathizers so much that the communist leaders who were in exile returned to Cuba, among them was Fidel Castro. Just two years later,
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Castro would come to power much to the glee of Moscow. In the meantime, however, the new Soviet leader, Khrushchev had to deal with an uprising in Hungary, beginning on October 23rd and lasting over two weeks, the uprising was opposed to the ruling government who was seen as Soviet puppets. Soviet troops pulled into Budapest to put down the uprising, but not before over two and a half thousand people had been killed and over 200,000 Hungarians displaced as refugees.
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While the Hungarians were rising up, British and French forces were rallying in the Mediterranean to storm the Suez canal, which had been nationalized by the Egyptian president and was under threats by fighting between Egypt and Israel. It would transpire that the Egypt Israeli conflict had been orchestrated by London and Paris as an excuse to bring the canal back under Western control and keep it open to Anglo French shipping, who would otherwise have to sail around Africa
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to maintain trade with the far East. The Anglo French forces defeated the Egyptians and landed their troops on the banks of the canal, but it would prove a political disaster. The US President Dwight D Eisenhower was furious that he was not consulted beforehand and felt that the operation was a distraction from the Hungarian situation. He threatened to withdraw financial support to both countries if they did not withdraw. And so Britain and France retreated in embarrassment.
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For Britain, it finally proved they were no longer the great power they once were. And they would have to settle for being a major regional power in Europe. France on the other hand was furious with the American response and this signaled a marked deterioration in relations that threatened its membership in NATO.
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In the ongoing quest to one up the other, both sides of the iron curtain invested huge resources into developing faster and more effective ways to deliver nuclear bombs against the other. Bombers were still seen as the most effective way with extremely advanced and futuristic types, such as the XB-70 Valkyrie being developed, which in theory could bypass any defenses it came up against with its high speed, high altitude performance. However, rocketry was seen as the future,
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especially by the Soviets whose bomber force was always at a disadvantage in terms of technology and basis compared to the West. While the US did have its own rocket program, the Atlas, it was beset by a series of problems. In 1953, the Soviets began work on the immense R-7 multi-stage rocket, which was designed to carry a hydrogen bomb around 4,000 miles at over 20 times the speed of sound. After a failed launch test, in which the R-7 caught fire,
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a successful test was carried out on August 21st, 1957, the rocket flying 3,700 miles in a matter of minutes. Just two months later, the same type of rocket was used to launch Sputnik into orbit, the first artificial satellite. The launching of Sputnik had an important place in the ongoing Cold War, because it demonstrated how advanced Soviet technology was, affording them greater leverage in negotiations. It was also a matter of pride. In 1959, the R-7 became operational
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and the Soviets now had a way of threatening US bomber basis with destruction just minutes after the start of hostilities. And before the majority of US air forces could even mobilize. Having largely ironed out the problems with their own Atlas missile system, the US declared, they had an equivalent ability to retaliate just as swiftly as any surprise Soviet missile attack. This was the dawn of the ICBM, the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, which would from then on begin replacing bombers
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as the primary means to carry the nuclear deterrence of both sides. Like the bomber basis, however, ICBM basis were also vulnerable to attack since they were large static targets, submarines offered the solution. Nuclear powered submarines could patrol under water for weeks carrying an arsenal of nuclear missiles hidden from the enemy. This would prove to be the ultimate deterrent since not only could they carry large numbers of missiles, they were extremely difficult to detect.
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The ICBM changed the rules of the game forever. As more and more ICBMs became operational, the danger grew and grew since neither side could now confidently attack the other without sustaining massive damage themselves. It was Mutually Assured Destruction known appropriately as MAD.
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The arrival of the 1960s heralded a new phase in the Cold War, the Soviet Union after putting their first satellite in orbit, put their first man into space, in April of 1961. A month later, the US put their first astronauts into space as well. Recently elected President John F. Kennedy announced that the US would beat the Soviets to the moon, but just as this laudable ambition began, his administration found their attention sets on addressing the communist leadership
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on the Fidel Castro on Cuba. Despite being told by his advisors that Cuba offered no real threats to the US, Kennedy believed that ousting Castro and re-establishing a pro US government would show the Soviets that he was a force to be reckoned with. He therefore authorized a CIA operation to support anticommunist Cuban exiles based in Nicaragua in an attempt to invade and overthrow Castro. The CIA told Kennedy that once the invasion began, the Cuban people would join the exiles
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in fighting Castro's regime. This was a grave underestimation of how much support amongst his people, Castro had. On April 17th, 1961, the exiles invaded at a secluded spots on Cuba's Southern coast called the Bay of Pigs. The invasion was a disaster. Just 24 hours later, the exiles were captured by Castro's forces and there was no popular uprising against the communist leader. It did however, make Castro turn to the Soviet Union, demanding greater military supports
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to curb any future US backed invasion. The Soviet Union responded by secretly sending nuclear missiles to the island. Elsewhere, a massive wall was erected around West Berlin to cut it off entirely from East Germany to prevent the West of the city being used by defectors, attempting to cross the iron curtain or by spies attempting to penetrate it, known simply as the Berlin wall, it would come to symbolize the world division throughout the Cold War.
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That world division only seemed to be worsening as the 60s got into full swing. The two great communists superpowers, China and the Soviet Union were undergoing a period akin to a political divorce as the two nations deferred on key ideological points, leading to the severing of political ties. Meanwhile, France was growing extremely frustrated with its NATO membership. Since NATO refused to help the country hold onto its colonial possessions in Africa. They were also resentful of the influence
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the US had over NATO, the unwillingness for the US to share advanced nuclear weapons with them like they were with Britain and how the US was able to largely undermine French military exports to the alliance with their mutual assistance program. By the end of the decade, France would withdraw from NATO and demand American forces leave their country. In October, 1962, a U-2 spy plane over Cuba sponsored evidence of Khrushchev's missiles under construction. This sparked the Cuban Missile Crisis,
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a period of 13 days where the world looked sets to erupt in nuclear conflict. Kennedy ordered a blockade of Cuba to stop any more missiles being transported there while both sides engaged in often clandestine negotiations. In the end, Khrushchev agreed to withdraw the missiles in exchange for the US making a public pledge that they would not invade Cuba in the future. There was also a secret agreement to remove US missiles in Turkey. The whole affair was largely seen as a US victory,
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but in reality, it was a draw. Pulling back from the brink, the crisis had a profound impact on the foreign policies of both sides. There was more effort in the future to avoid direct confrontation, but this in turn meant that to tackle each other. The superpowers saw their efforts being increasingly redirected through third parties. One such place was the steamy jungles of SouthEast Asia, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.
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Vietnam was formerly known as French Indochina and was part of France's far East possessions leading up to the Second World War during which it was annexed by the Japanese. The Vietnamese formed resistance groups against the Japanese. The most prominent of which was the communist Viet Minh, headed by Ho Chi Minh. With the defeat of the Japanese, the Vietnamese believed that they could finally declare themselves a free and independent state, but the US supported France's ambition
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to reconquer the former colony, the Viet Minh fought a brutal guerrilla war against the French throughout the second half of the 1940s, the French relying heavily on American equipment in order to keep up their fight. In 1950, the Soviet Union and China recognized Viet Minh's democratic Republic of Vietnam in the North of the country as an independent state, while in the South, France's allies recognize the city of Saigon as the pro West Capitol of what would become simply
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the Republic of Vietnam. Fighting between the Viet Minh and the French continued until the bloody battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, where the French were dealt a humiliating defeat. A ceasefire was declared and the French withdrew granting independence to neighboring Laos and Cambodia in the process, while Vietnam remained partitioned. After a brief period of relative peace, fighting broke out in the South between government forces and a peasant army known as the Viet Cong,
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which was soon supported by Ho Chi Minh's, North Vietnam. Under President Kennedy and later President Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded him after he was assassinated, the US became increasingly involved in training and supporting the South Vietnamese. Until in 1964, a US Warship was allegedly attacked by North Vietnamese fast attack craft. In response Johnson authorized a massive buildup of forces, including combat units that would fight directly with the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese army.
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Over the next 11 years, the technologically superior US forces found themselves embroiled in a bitter guerrilla warfare with the communists. A massive air campaign known as Rolling Thunder, which was directed against North Vietnam and aimed to deny them the ability to carry on the war was ineffective by President Johnson imposing crippling rules on what the pilots could and could not do. This was intended to avoid killing Soviet advisors training the North Vietnamese,
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fearing it would create a situation like the Cuban Missile Crisis, but limited what US air power could achieve and cost hundreds of air men their lives. On the ground, American troops were fighting an extremely dense terrain that was wholly alien to them against an enemy that had lived on the land for generations and had enormous combat experience by 1964, after fighting the Japanese and the French. With opposition to the war growing in the United States,
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morale and discipline among the US service personnel was low, especially among conscripts, many of whom were just barely out of school, drug abuse and alcoholism ran rampant while some American soldiers committed war crimes against civilians for the loss of their comrades. In 1968, Richard Nixon was elected president and vowed to get America out of Vietnam. He stopped conscripts being sent to the country, and instead relied on volunteer troops
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training the South Vietnamese to take over the combat role. A process known as Vietnamization. On July 20th, 1969, the US achieved the ultimate goal in the space race by putting a man on the moon. However, at home, the Vietnam War was tearing US society apart. Many had already agreed that it was unwinnable. The question was how to withdraw and still save face.
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Nixon was without a doubt, a hardliner when facing the communists. So it came as a shock when it was revealed in 1972, he would conduct a historic visit to China taking advantage of the collapse of the relations between Beijing and Moscow. This visit is even more incredible when you consider American forces were still engaged in fighting North Vietnam that was supported by China. Nixon himself considered the week long visits one of the most important in the world
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while immediate results of the visit were limited. Long-term it laid the groundwork for China becoming a major trading partner with the US while further widening the rift between China and the Soviet Union, thus preventing them from combining their mights against the West. Just a few weeks after this visit, the US and the Soviet Union signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the first of the strategic arms limitation treaties aimed at reducing the threats nuclear weapons posed to the world.
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It would prove to be a year of renewed hope for peace by one way or the other, and this included Vietnam, where Nixon had lifted almost all restrictions on US air power committed against the North. Operation Linebacker II saw massive air raids aimed at crushing the North's infrastructure and forcing them to the peace table. The operations seemed to succeed with negotiators from both sides meeting in Paris and agreeing to a ceasefire on January 23rd, 1973. US forces began to withdraw,
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although contingence of air and Naval forces would remain in case of renewed hostilities. However, it all proved to be employed by the North to allow the Americans to withdraw. In 1974, the North renewed its assault on the South and despite threats that US forces would return on mass, the US began evacuating its own people, and a number of civilians out of the South, which fell to the North on April 30th, 1975. The city of Saigon was named Ho Chi Minh city in honor of the Viet Minh's leader
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who had passed away before the end.
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To the West, the authoritarian nature of Soviet rule, coupled with the relatively little information that came out to the world, convinced many that the people there were akin to robots lacking any sense of individuality and following instructions by the states without question. However, the reality was very different. And in fact, the 1970s, so growing unrest in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Contraband items from the West, such as music, films and even clothes became highly sought after.
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People would meet to listen to music from groups like The Beatles, in places similar to American speakeasies in the days of alcohol prohibition. Perhaps the most significant threats to Moscow's authority emerged in November, 1975, when the crew of the Russian Navy Frigate, Storozhevoy Mutinied in the hope of inspiring their comrades to join them. The mutineers were committed communists who believed their leadership was failing. During the mutiny,
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Soviet bomber crews were ordered to sink the ship, but they refused to kill their countrymen. Eventually the captain of the frigates managed to regain his command before anyone was killed. The leader of the mutiny was put on trial and executed. Along with the US, the Soviets engaged in further talks, aimed at more strategic arms limitations treaties. And in July of 1975, American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts docked their craft in space and shook hands in a moving gesture towards peace.
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However, neither side was willing to give up their ambitions of being the dominant global power. In 1976, the Soviets and Cubans worked to install a communist government in Angola, but the Soviet biggest gamble of the decade was invading Afghanistan on Christmas day, 1979.
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The Soviets had been a major influence in Afghan politics throughout the 70s and went about trying to modernize the country's society along Soviet lines. This meant the common man could own land and women had equal status. However, this violated the tribal laws of the country leading to a revolt against the Soviet backed government by the Mujahideen, the Islamic soldiers of God. The Afghanistan War was in many ways a reversal of Vietnam with the US training and equipping the Mujahideen soldiers
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with advanced weapons, such as the Stinger, surfaced to air missile system. The Soviet soldiers suffered many of the same problems the US had in Vietnam, having to contend with a primitive but tenacious enemy who almost never took prisoners. Like the US soldiers, morale amongst the conscripts, especially plummeted leading many to drink and drugs, which in turn contributed to acts of violence against civilians. This in turn only encouraged more of the Afghan people to rise up against the Soviets.
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Western leaders were outraged at the Soviet invasion, US President, Jimmy Carter, a newly elected British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher led a chorus of countries that boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympic games in protest. Nevertheless, the Soviets would be committed to the war in Afghanistan right through the coming 1980s.
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Against this backdrop, entered President Ronald Reagan on January 20th, 1981, Reagan was a no nonsense anticommunist who campaigned that Carter's administration had been too weak to contain the Soviets. Finding a key ally in the equally hotline, Margaret Thatcher the two of them presented a powerful front to contend with the Soviets leading to a renewed period of heightened tension. Reagan was never afraid to rattle the American sabers against the Soviets, authorizing massive military exercises
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around Soviet territory, designed to show that he meant business. He also began a major buildup of American forces and pledged supports to any group fighting for freedom against communist oppression, especially in Latin America. He also went to great lengths to vilify the Soviets, declaring they were an evil empire, likening them to the villains in the "Star Wars" movies. In 1983, he capitalized on the shooting down of a Korean airliner, flight 007 by a Soviet fighter
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to further Soule world opinion regarding the Soviets and galvanize support for his foreign and military policies, including probably what was his most ambitious projects for the US military complex yet.
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There can be little doubt that the policy of Mutually Assured Destruction had prevented open warfare between the superpowers from breaking out. However, for hardliners on both sides of the iron curtain, it was a wholly unacceptable situation. They viewed the situation as akin to living with a neighbor who is forever pointing a loaded gun in your face. Not only did this mean there would forever be a stalemate, which in itself would cost billions of dollars and rubles to maintain,
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but there was also the ever looming risk of an accident triggering a nuclear Holocaust, something that was only narrowly avoided on several occasions by all sides. When touring an American radar facility, that monitored Soviet nuclear missile launches, Reagan was horrified to learn that the US had no effective way to defend against the attack other than simply retaliating with their own nuclear weapons against the Soviets. He therefore ordered the US defense industry
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to begin working on developing ways to destroy Soviet missiles before they reached the US. A project he christened the Strategic Defense Initiative, but has since been remembered as the "Star Wars" program, because it involves satellite based laser weaponry. The Soviets viewed SDI as a seriously de-stabilizing move. If successful, SDI had the potential to allow the US to attack the Soviet Union without the threats of retaliation, thus negating the MAD policy. This was totally unacceptable
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and they began work on developing their own counter. Both sides spent vast sums of money on their respective programs, but ultimately very little came of it. However years afterwards, it was speculated that Reagan knew the SDI wasn't feasible. And that the real reason for it, was to damage the Soviet's economy. In this respect, there is a case to be made that it was incredibly successful.
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While many found themselves caught up in the Reagan area patriotism and anti-Soviet sentiments, a new voice was dissenting against the global situation. In 1983, the American ABC network aired the harrowing movie, "The Day After" chronicling the effects a nuclear war would have on a small Midwestern town. A year later, the BBC followed suit with a similar movie, "Threads". United State Networks considered "Threads" to be so important that in an unprecedented move,
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it was shown in its entirety without commercial breaks. Both movies helped invigorates growing movements aimed at ending the nuclear arms race, such as the British campaign for nuclear disarmament. These moments began to filter through into pop culture with music videos, such as Frankie goes to Hollywood's "Two Tribes" featuring caricatures of the American and Soviet leaders in a wrestling match. In Britain especially, protests at military bases
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when nuclear weapons were housed often became violent while everyone agreed that the movement's goals were noble, Reagan and Thatcher's supporters reiterated that unless anything changed drastically in the second half of the decade, then nuclear weapons were needed to contain the Soviets on their side of the iron curtain.
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In 1986, an incident occurred that most historians agree triggered the start of the end of the Cold War. In the nights of the 25th to 26th of April, there was an explosion at the Chernobyl power station in Ukraine. This was hardly the first nuclear accident in the Soviet Union, but this one spread radioactive particles all over Northern Europe, which made it impossible for the Soviets to hide it. While it was a civil incident, it had far reaching military consequences,
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as the world began asking more and more serious questions about nuclear energy, nuclear weapons and how they were handled. Mere months after the incidents, Reagan met with Soviet leader, Gorbachev, and both sides agreed to remove the intermediate nuclear missiles from Europe. In the Soviet Union, economic problems fueled by the enormous Soviet military budgets were crippling the country and in an effort to address them, Gorbachev introduced the policy of Glasnost, a policy of openness,
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where for the first time, the average person was able to openly criticize government policy, being free to talk openly led for calls for troops in Afghanistan to be brought home safely. And for some parts of the Soviet Union to become independent. In East Germany, the word reunification began to be spoken again and thousands amassed on the Berlin wall, demanding it be torn down. In November, 1989 with an almost party atmosphere, the wall was torn down,
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allowing open access between the city and East Germany, which formerly unified with West Germany in 1990. A month later, revolutions rocks, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Romania toppling their communist governments. In March of 1990, Lithuania declared itself independent from the Soviet Union, and less than a year later, other Soviet states such as Belarus and Kazakhstan began to follow. His rivals saw Gorbachev's reforms as spelling the end of the Soviet Union
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and on the 19th to the 21st of August, 1991, a group of hardliners staged a coup in Moscow, but failed. On Christmas day in 1991, the red flag of the Soviet Union was lowered from the Kremlin and replaced with the red, white and blue colors of the new states of Russia. A number of new countries were formed out of the disillusion of the Soviet Union, many of whom inherited nuclear weaponry, but these were handed over to Russia by 1996.
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While nuclear war was avoided, it is almost impossible to estimate how many people died as a result of the Cold War and its related activities. It is difficult to know just what constituted a Cold War conflict or not. One example of this is, Libya, which while not communist was anti-American and thus supported by Moscow, there are also significant parts of the Cold War story that remained secrets. So we are yet to get the full narrative. The extraordinarily high tempo of military operations
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the world over also led to many accidents. Just recently in March of 2020, the wreck of the submarine, USS Stickleback, which sank on May 28th, 1958 was discovered off the coast of Hawaii. The submarine sank after a collision with a destroyer while both were participating in Naval exercises. Additionally, while the bombs never fell on Washington, Moscow, London or Paris, the economic price of the Cold War placed incredible monetary burdens on all the participants
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and had a wide reaching impact on their societies. The social scars of living in fear of nuclear Armageddon for years still remain in many of these countries. Yet 1991 was hardly the end of troubles between these two worlds and their factions, Cuba remains communist to this very day and has had to enjoy an extremely rocky relationship with the US. Communist rebels continue to be a threat in parts of Africa, South America and Asia. While the fall of communism had a part to play
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in the Yugoslav Wars of the 90s, a period of conflict that saw some of the worst atrocities committed in Europe since the Second World War. After 1991, there was hope that the world might finally do away with its nuclear arsenal of weapons, since they now appeared to be an extremely expensive Relic of the Cold War period. But while the number of individual weapons dropped off markedly, many argue that the game of nuclear one-upmanship has only intensified. China now has its own fleet
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of nuclear armed ballistic missile submarines. While India initiated a nuclear attack submarine construction program in 2015. Perhaps even more worryingly is that both Russia and the US continue to train and war game, the use of nuclear weapons in a limited capacity. This rang true particularly in the Trump era of US policy as Bloomberg correspondent, Hal brands explained in March of 2020, "The Pentagon is rehearsing for limited nuclear war to show that it can respond to Russian nuclear strikes
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in a proportional and thus credible manner that signals resolve without unleashing the apocalypse." Finally, it can't be ignored that despite something of a honeymoon period in the 1990s, relations between Moscow and Washington have deteriorated once again in the 21st century, primarily over the situation in the Middle East. Russia opposed US military action in Iraq in 2003, while the US opposed Russian intervention in the Syrian civil war in 2015. Coupled with the return of Russian bombers
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patrolling the North Atlantic, the suspicious poisoning of the scrip halls in Salisbury in 2018 and evidence of Russian interference in the British EU referendum and US elections. It seems that while the Cold War may be over, the legacy of mistrust remains.
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