Wars and ConflictsΒ permalink
Cold War Blame?
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Message 1.Β
Posted by kennyr (U2647470) on Wednesday, 21st December 2005
Is it fair to blame one side for the cold war or is a mixture of both sides?
The USSR for not leaving eastern Europe? Did they really have the intention of making friendly states as neighbours for defence? They wanted Russian style communism, not just communism (Tito).
Or the USA for becoming obsessed with containing communism across the world, and policies like the Truman Doctrine / the Marshall Plan. -
Message 2
Posted by henrylee100 (U536041) on Wednesday, 21st December 2005
my own take is that the cold war was started by the US that needed to keep its economy rolling on military contracts. See nobody really wanted to actually go to war, but at the same time it was imperative that military spending continue, thus someone came up with the brilliant solution of waging a cold war, a war in which you keep investing in weaponry but don't actually have to fight. If the USSR had not existed, something like it would have had to have been invented. See what happened after the USSR fell apart, the cold war ended and a few years later a new war was started: the war on terror. Now who's to blame for this one, definitely not the USSR which is no longer with us. History is sort of repeating itself here, like back in the late 1940's if the US was really interested in wiping the USSR off the face of the earth they could have done that. The USSR tested their first nuke in 1949. By that time hte US already had stockpiles of A-bombs and swarms of B-29 bombers capable of delivering those bombs to targets anywhere within the USSR. They never did that, because the point was never to destroy the USSR, the point was to have a cold war with it. Same thing is now happening with terrorists. Everyone know where the money is coming from, if they really wanted to pull the plug on Al Quaeda they could have done so a long time ago but nobody's trying to win in this war on terror, the point is to keep it going as long as possible. We now know all the US abbreviations were aware that the 9/11 atack was in the works, none of them lifted a finger to stop it. Question is why, are they really that ineffective? Doubt it, the attack had to happen to make the war on terror official, to convince the people of its reality.
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Message 3
Posted by Mr Pedant (U2464726) on Wednesday, 21st December 2005
I can't see how any state but the USSR could be responsible for the Cold War starting.
Once it was underway both East and West can take blame for the way they conducted the clash of ideologies particularly where proxies were concerned. -
Message 4
Posted by TimTrack (U1730472) on Wednesday, 21st December 2005
You could make the case that Nazi Germany was responsible. Soviet fear of a powerful Germany was not entirely un-reasonable given what had happened pre-1945.
On the other hand I, for one, am quite glad that the US stood with us during the Soviet era. -
Message 5
Posted by kennyr (U2647470) on Wednesday, 21st December 2005
didnt the USA convert a lot of its rearmament work over to consumer goods after WW2?
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Message 6
Posted by OUNUPA (U2078829) on Wednesday, 21st December 2005
.... 'would have had to have been invented'-you are an incredible man within the English Grammar,Henry...like those in USA who needed in military contracts....'USSR' is still being existing with us in a shape of modern Russia and her President - a former KGBer who had served into the 5th Department of KGB which was supposed to fight against all sorts of ideological enemies....he was a terrorist in the real meaning of his 'job'.He was neither Agent 007 nor Shtirlitz
and I have no see the reasons of which he would be changed his own views on some things with all of these outcomes....
IT IS THE REALITY. -
Message 7
Posted by Scarboro (U2806863) on Thursday, 22nd December 2005
I would start with the statement that the USSR under Stalin was an "evil empire", and the British leadership were correct in this assessment. Having said that, some of the blame for the cold war does rest with the British.
Prior to 1939 there was strong anti-French pro-German sentiment expressed by elements of the aristocracy, including Edward Prince of Wales. The reasoning was that Germany would be an effective buffer against the Stalin, and that Germany should be encouraged to fight it out with the Russians. The French were unsure of Britain's commitment to fight in 1939, and until Churchill replaced Chamberlain this was understandable.
Near the end of WW2, Churchill was pushing to accept a German surrender in the West and to rearm the Wehrmacht to fight the Russians,if the Germans could eliminate Hitler. Operation Market Garden was his attempt to beat the Russians to Berlin.
At the time the US were rather naive, and thought that one did not turn on one's allies so quickly. So they refused to support Churchill's plan.
The Soviets had British intelligence thoroughly penetrated, and were fully aware of Britain's feelings. So their post-war moves that led to the cold war were not entirely one-sided. -
Message 8
Posted by Erik Lindsay (U231970) on Thursday, 22nd December 2005
my own take is that the cold war was started by the US that needed to keep its economy rolling on military contracts. See nobody really wanted to actually go to war, but at the same time it was imperative that military spending continue, thus someone came up with the brilliant solution of waging a cold war, a war in which you keep investing in weaponry but don't actually have to fight. If the USSR had not existed, something like it would have had to have been invented. Β
That strikes me as a pretty silly series of speculations. Reflect: When the Korean war began in 1950 (just 5 years after WW2 ended, and only 3 years or so into the real cold war) the US was completely unprepared to fight. It's war industries had shut down so completely that many G.I.'s were obliged to utilize WW2 uniforms, equipment and food. The American soldiers and marines in the Far East were untrained (MacArthur's was responsible for that, but he never expected another war to break out. Who did?) and the UN had nothing that could stop the T-34 tanks because everything available was left over from WW2.
I spoke with more than one G.I. and company commander in the US marines, army, and air force, and discovered, for e.g., that many American air force personnel had been forced to wear army uniforms when they were inducted into active service because the US hadn't enough air force uniforms to provide for the sudden expansion of a service that was only 2 or 3 years old. The bazooka missiles that were available were the old 2.76 inch ones that were ok in WW2 but absolutely worthless against the T-34's and the 75 mm artillery shells were anti-personnel and wouldn't penetrate. The combat rations were left over from WW2 supplies, and anyone who has ever eaten American K-ration dinners knows how bad they were when they were fresh -- imagine what they were like when they were 6 years old.
If that nation instigated the cold war to keep their war industries they certainly didn't give any indication of it. The armed forces were a mere shadow of what they had been and the ''military industries'' you refer to were on a peacetime footing....in fact, there were so many people available in the workforce that there was something of a recession in both America and Canada until that war broke out.
Russia was the country that had all its war industries running fullblast. They had maintained so great a military/industrial complex that they had enough materiel and equipment to hand massive quantites of both over to the North Korean Armies....and we had to try to deal with them with outdated equipment.
I think you're out of your mind. -
Message 9
Posted by Scarboro (U2806863) on Thursday, 22nd December 2005
<. in the late 1940's if the US was really interested in wiping the USSR off the face of the earth they could have done that. The USSR tested their first nuke in 1949. By that time hte US already had stockpiles of A-bombs and swarms of B-29 bombers capable of delivering those bombs to targets anywhere within the USSR.>
This is not quite correct. By 1950 the US had tested a number of weapons but apparently had an inventory of zero nuclear weapons. When the Russians threatened military action against Berlin, the US sent a number of bombers to Europe to create the impression that they were nuclear-armed, but in fact this was a big bluff.
Also when Douglas MacArthur demanded that Harry Truman release nuclear arms to him in Korea so that he could nuke the Chinese and advance to Beijing, Truman's refusal was partly based on principle and partly on the reality that he had none to send.
I think it is true that the USA had actually planned on the UN working to prevent future wars, and were trying non-aggressive methods of achieving world peace. That was then, and to a large degree it worked. They may have matured into a more cynical nation 60 years later however. -
Message 10
Posted by OUNUPA (U2078829) on Friday, 23rd December 2005
He isn't out of his mind,Eric.
Henry is a very clever and 'dangerous man' who trying to cover facts from history which are not suited to his own general line when he repeats,not in the first time,all these commies' fairy-tales about 'US military industries' and etc.
But 'USSR' was nothing more than the 'Great Military Complex'-the whole population of which was involved forcibly into the process of production the military stuff leaving the 'soviet people' to live in poverty...in order to suppress their will to resistance in such sophisticated way and forced 'em to fight for the interests of Kremlin rats in Korea,Afghanistan,Egypt and somewhere else....
As a result, no time was rested for simple people to think of what was going on around 'em .They were isolated from the entire world by double 'iron curtains',only the one chance was in their sight to survive -to fight their way for piece of bread from day to day blindly....while Elvis Presley did his Rock'N'Roll,and Americans were biulding water beds,electric hair-curles,jacuzzis the soviet 'citizen' dreamt about of getting a pair of jeans and a can of Coca.
And I want to ask -where were those 'soviet Elvis Presley'and other things? Americans deserve to think that it's no wonder the rest of the world thinks they can't topple some bas...ds without going to an encounter session about it first.. -
Message 11
Posted by desertfox (U2819982) on Friday, 23rd December 2005
I agree with Scarboro, in 1940, during the war between Finland and the USSR, Britian was sending troops to Scandinavia to fight both the Germans in Norway, and the Russians in Finland, however the Fins capitulated just before we got there, and so the troops were all sent to Norway, didn't do us any good though, but anyway. Also the US had no real right to invade Vietnam, it wasn't trying to peaxcekeep, as it does in the middle East today, it just hated communism. But then again so did we. No Offence to anyone about anything, ynow just trying to get my point across.
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Message 12
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Friday, 23rd December 2005
Re: Message 8.
Eric,
thank you very much for this enlightening reply.
I have no information if Scarboro is right that the US had no nuclear capability in 1950. ("inventory of zero nuclear weapons").
Nevertheless. What I make of it. Correct me Erik, where I am wrong.
Mac Arthur was prohibited to start air assaults on Chinese bases in Manchuria, while Truman did not want to risk the widening of the War? End of 1950.
Mid 1951 Mac Arthur wanted to tackle the Chinese but Truman wanted not to provoke the Russians, especially in correlation with the American strength at the European Iron Curtain? So Mac Arthur was sacked.
The Americans used even the threat of nuclear weapons to convince China to halt the hostilities in 1952?
Kind regards and a Merry Christmas. -
Message 13
Posted by Erik Lindsay (U231970) on Saturday, 24th December 2005
Re: Message 8.
I have no information if Scarboro is right that the US had no nuclear capability in 1950. ("inventory of zero nuclear weapons").
Mac Arthur was prohibited to start air assaults on Chinese bases in Manchuria, while Truman did not want to risk the widening of the War? End of 1950.
Mid 1951 Mac Arthur wanted to tackle the Chinese but Truman wanted not to provoke the Russians, especially in correlation with the American strength at the European Iron Curtain? So Mac Arthur was sacked.
The Americans used even the threat of nuclear weapons to convince China to halt the hostilities in 1952?
Kind regards and a Merry Christmas.Β
Paul:
I don't know if the US lacked nuclear capability in 1950, but my gut feeling is that they possessed at least one of the bombs. The knowledge that Russia was working frantically to produce them would have stimulated them into attaining a stockpile of at least two or three of them....common sense alone would seem to dictate that.
I do know a little about the other points in your post. MacArthur was definitely prohibited from attacking Chinese air bases across the Yalu River -- in fact, he was prohibited from doing anything that would provoke the Chinese. According to what I've read and from having spoken to some people whose opinions I respect, MacArthur was warned, in the fall of 1950, not to send American troops into North Korea. The Chinese had evidently informed their Swiss Embassy and the French that if he did so, they would intervene. He could send ROK troops into North Korea, but not American or other UN forces.
MacArthur was noted for surrounding himself with aides that told him only what he wanted to hear, and he was convinced the Chinese would never come into the war. He had a jackass named Willoughby masquerading as his G-2 (intelligence) and Willoughby agreed totally. He said such warnings were all nonsense...the Chinese would never interfere. (Willoughby was a political fanatic who would have fit perfectly into Hitler's SS. He knew nothing about military intelligence and as far as I've been able to determine was good only at shining MacArthur's boots. He was a strategic and tactical moron and how he attained military rank above that of private remains something of a mystery).
Anyhow, we know what happened. Even after the Chinese came into the war, UN air forces were prohibited from attacking anything on the Manchurian side of the Yalu. I went on several missions with American bomber forces (B-26) and we could see their MIGs taking off from the airfields in Manchuria and could have decimated those airfields had it not been for that proscription. It was frustrating, but in hindsight, I think it was probably a very good thing. It might have brought Russia in and changed what was essentially a local conflict into a global one.
MacArthur was all for using nuclear weapons against the Chinese in 1951, and had he done so, would probably have precipitated WW3. Truman refused to permit it. MacArthur began telling his carefully-selected, sycophantic press corps that he could easily win the war if he were not handcuffed by a bunch of intefering politicians, and on more than one occasion named Truman, claiming he was a fool who clearly didn't want to win the war. Truman warned him several times to lay off, but he persisted. IMO he should have been fired much sooner than he was. He was definitely a loose cannon who had delusions of grandeur more profound than most people realize. He often referred to himself in private as ''El Supremo'' (the Almighty) and believed himself to be responsible only to his god (which may well have been himself)...not to his commander-in-chief.
Lastly: While MacArthur repeatedly told his press corps that he should be allowed to use nuclear weapons, there was never any possibility that he would be. As for the peace accord, he was long gone in 1953 and the nuclear threat was dead. The Chinese knew it, and they also knew -- as did we -- that the war had reached a stalemate. I think that's why the peace accord was finally signed. -
Message 14
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Sunday, 25th December 2005
Re: Message 13.
Erik,
thank you very much for your interesting and enlightening report from an "insider".
"I went on several missions with American bomber forces (B-26) and we could see their MIGs taking off from the airfields in Manchuria..." Erik, I feel humble when I talk to such a war-veteran. I was only a kid in those years (born 1943) but I read those cartoonstrips of a certain fictional Buck Danny a pilot first in WWII against the Japanese and then in the Korean war. And it was my hero...
I did some research on Google: nuclear capability US 1950.
First window, third entry. An article by Bruce Cumings. He is the author of North-Korea: Another country (2003) and co-author of Inventing the Axis of Evil. As I see it, it are all anti-american sites. And going further over the several entries I came always with the same artilcle even until window 7.
But nevertheless: he writes in this article: In the Korean war: the US possessed at least 450 bombs and the Sovjets only 25.
Under the same Google: nuclear capability US 1950: window 7, third of last entry: NRDC: Nuclear data; Table of Global Nuclear Weapons Stockpiles 1945-2002. 1950: US: 369, 1951: US: 640, SU: 25. But it is a "green earth website"...
Before I did my inquiries in "Jane's Information Group" which seems very reliable and where I found some years ago information about the warheads and the carriers (rockets- to deliver them. But when I tried this evening again, you seem to be obliged to subscribe with E-mail address and codename to do research...And I was too tired to make the whole subscribtion this evening...
Thanks again for your valuable background information and with esteem. -
Message 15
Posted by Ijeomaodigwe (U2790958) on Friday, 30th December 2005
Both sides are to blame. If both superpowers had just stayed i thier own countries and minded their own business there would nto have been a cod war in the first place.
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Message 16
Posted by Slimdaddy101 (U2553470) on Saturday, 31st December 2005
Both sides are to blame. If both superpowers had just stayed i thier own countries and minded their own business there would nto have been a cod war in the first place.Β
But there was the small question of liberating Nazi occupied Europe to deal with which would have been hard to do if both (almost) superpowers stayed in their own backyards. I sort of remember scenes of jubilation and rejoicing as the Western powers swept through the newly liberated territories. I also seem to remember that they prompty set up independant, free goverments and let them organise their own affairs. Correct me if I'm wrong but I seem to remeber the Russians 'liberating' a number of eastern European countries and installing a puppet goverment in situ and enslaving the masses to Soviet, communist rhetoric about how Stalin saved the world and how evil the capatilist worls was. I also recall that Stalin murdered many Russian POW's who were returned to Russian after the war because they had been exposed to western, capatilist ideas. The Western powers didn't seem to treat returning POW's with anything like the same hatred, in fact they seemed quite glad to have them back. -
Message 17
Posted by Erik Lindsay (U231970) on Saturday, 31st December 2005
<quote user='Slimdaddy101' userid='2553470'><quote user='Ijeomaodigwe' userid='2790958'>But there was the small question of liberating Nazi occupied Europe to deal with which would have been hard to do if both (almost) superpowers stayed in their own backyards. I sort of remember scenes of jubilation and rejoicing as the Western powers swept through the newly liberated territories. I also seem to remember that they prompty set up independant, free goverments and let them organise their own affairs. Correct me if I'm wrong but I seem to remeber the Russians 'liberating' a number of eastern European countries and installing a puppet goverment in situ and enslaving the masses to Soviet, communist rhetoric about how Stalin saved the world and how evil the capatilist worls was. I also recall that Stalin murdered many Russian POW's who were returned to Russian after the war because they had been exposed to western, capatilist ideas. The Western powers didn't seem to treat returning POW's with anything like the same hatred, in fact they seemed quite glad to have them back. </quote>
Precisely correct. What would youhave had the allies do? Just leave the Germans and other battered people to find their own way out of the maelstrom that their countries had been left in? Germany, much of France, the low countries, Austria, Greece and much of the Balkan states were a shambles. Germany in particular consisted of smashed cities, railways, highways, and other means of communication completely wrecked, citizens starving etc. It would have been inhuman not to have helped them and that's what the US and her allies strove to do. The USSR, in the meantime, was stripping all the conquered aeas of everything worthwhile and carting it back to Russia to help rebuild -- again, perfectly understandable considering what destruction and death Germany had wrought in the Russian homeland.
As for Russia's treatment of their people who had been taken prisoner by Germans during the fighting, I believe it was not so much worry that they had been corrupted by western ideas as it was that they had allowed themselves to be captured. In this, they were viewed by their liberators much as the Japanese were who had fallen prisoner to the US. Stalin had ordered them to fight to the death and they had not done so. It's my understanding that they were treated like obscene objects of public disgust ... just barely citizens. They couldn't get work other than the most menial jobs and were generally objects of less regard and consideration than dogs.
I'm not sure why anyone would suggest that the winning countries ignore the conquered and just let them starve or find their own way back to civilization. That would have been bestial.
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