THE
NUCLEAR AGE
AND THE COLD WAR
KEY TERMS
• **Communism**: A political and economic ideology advocating for a classless society
in which all property and means of production are owned communally, eliminating
private ownership.
• **Capitalism**: An economic system characterized by private ownership of the means
of production and the creation of goods and services for profit. It emphasizes free
markets, competition, and minimal government intervention in the economy.
is the predominant economic system in most Western countries.
• **Democracy**: A system of government in which power is vested in the people, who
rule either directly or through freely elected representatives. It is characterized by free
and fair elections, protection of individual rights and freedoms, and the rule of law.
Examples of democratic systems include parliamentary and presidential democracies.
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KEY TERMS
• **Atomic Bomb**: A powerful weapon of mass destruction that uses nuclear
reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion, to release enormous
amounts of energy. The atomic bomb was first developed and used by the United
States during World War II, with devastating effects on the Japanese cities of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
• **Controversial**: Describes a subject, issue, or topic that provokes strong, conflicting
opinions and disputes among people. Controversial topics often involve differing
values, beliefs, or interests and can lead to heated debates and disagreements.
• **Ethical**: Relating to moral principles and the distinction between right and wrong
behavior. Ethical considerations involve evaluating actions, decisions, and policies
based on concepts of justice, fairness, and respect for individuals and society. Ethics
guide conduct in various fields, including medicine, business, law, and personal life.
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PACIFIC THEATRE
• The way in which the United States fought the war in the Pacific was fueled by fear of
Japanese imperialistic aggression, as well as anger over Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor
and its mistreatment of its enemies. It was also influenced by a long history of American
racism towards Asians that dated back to the nineteenth century. From hostile anti-
Japanese propaganda to the use of two atomic bombs on Japanese cities, America’s
actions during the Pacific campaign were far more aggressive than they were in the
European theater.
• Using the strategy of island hopping, the United States was able to get within striking
distance of Japan..
• The United States, forced to abandon a policy of nonintervention outside the Western
Hemisphere. Following World War II, America would never again retreat from the
global stage, and its early mastery of nuclear weapons would make it the dominant
force in the postwar world.
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THE END OF WORLD WAR II
When:
Step 1: Hitler’s successor, Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, started peace
negotiations and on May 7.
Step 2: On the July 16, 1945, President Harry Truman, authorized the
use of the atomic bomb against Japan in the hopes of bringing a swift
end to the war
Step 3: On August 6, 1945, the American B-29 bomber Enola Gay
dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
Step 4: When Japan failed to immediately, the United States
detonated an even more powerful atomic bomb on Nagasaki (three
days later).
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THE END OF WORLD WAR II
Where:
On September 2, 1945, formal surrender documents were signed
aboard the USS Missouri, designating the day as the official Victory
over Japan Day (V-J Day). – General MacArthur accepted Japan's
surrender.
Why:
• Hitler’s suicide.
• Emperor Hirohito declared his support for the acceptance of the
terms of the Potsdam Declaration.
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DEBATES
Traditionalists vs. Revisionists
“Traditionalists” have maintained that the bombs were
necessary in order to save American lives and prevent an
invasion that might have cost many more lives than the bombs
took. They frequently argue that President Truman decided to
use the bombs in order to bring the war to a speedy
conclusion, and that the bombs were essential to forcing Japan
to surrender.
“Revisionist” scholars generally posit that the bombs were
unnecessary. Among other claims, they suggest that Japan was
ready to surrender and that the use of the bombs could have
been avoided if the United States had guaranteed that
Emperor Hirohito could remain on his throne. They also argue
that the Soviet invasion of Manchuria on August 8-9, 1945,
rather than the use of the atomic bombs, was decisive in
precipitating Japan’s surrender.
Key Question
If you were President
Truman in 1945, would you
have dropped the bomb?
KEY CONCEPTS
Superpowers: a very powerful and influential nation
(used especially with reference to the US and the
former Soviet Union when these were perceived as
the two most powerful nations in the world).
Characteristics:
Economic: Large GDP, high % of international trade,
currency used as reserve currency.
Political: The ability to influence the policies of other
countries. (Both bilaterally and through international
organisations.)
Military: army size, defence spending, nuclear
weapons, inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
CulturalThe ability to influence the beliefs, values,
ideology and way of life in other countries.
ResourcesControl of access to physical resources:
energy, minerals
KEY CONCEPTS
Cold War: A cold war is a state of conflict
between nations that does not involve
direct military action but is pursued
primarily through economic and political
actions, propaganda, acts of espionage
or proxy wars waged by surrogates. This
term is most commonly used to refer to
the American-Soviet Cold War of 1947–
1989.
Three key features defined the Cold War:
1) the threat of nuclear war
2) competition over the allegiance
(loyalty) of newly independent nations.
3) the military and economic support of
each other's enemies around the world.
AREAS OF CONFLICT AND COMPETITION
• Soviet leaders actively sought to infiltrate or target
nations to advance the global influence of the
USSR. Soviet efforts to claim territory in Europe
following Germany’s defeat fed into the belief that
the USSR intended to expand communism across
Europe.
• By 1947, the United States adopted a policy of
containment to restrict Soviet global power. ->
Truman Doctrine
• This informed the “domino theory,” which stated
that one country falling to Communism meant the
surrounding countries were likely to fall as well.
• Thus, pushing the United States to enter into wars
in Korea, Vietnam
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AREAS OF CONFLICT AND COMPETITION
• Mutual efforts to undermine their foe pushed the
United States and the Soviet governments to plant
spies within both the USSR and the United States
to subvert policy, spy on intelligence, and seek out
ways to hinder any effort at growing global power
• Soviet espionage initially centered on stealing
information related to the development of nuclear
weapons. The Trinity test, in which the United
States detonated a nuclear weapon for the first
time, along with the use of two atomic bombs
subsequently dropped on Japan.
• The arms race that came to define the Cold War
also spurred other military and technological
races between the two superpowers.
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ARMS RACE
After the US dropped the atomic bombs, the
USSR had been determined to develop its
own nuclear weapons.
It finally succeeded in 1949 and this began a
nuclear arms race.
New idea formed: nuclear deterrence
The Cold War theory that nations having
nuclear weapons acts as a military strategy as
the threat of them makes enemies less likely
to attack and more likely to negotiate.
Mutually Assured Destruction: Situation that
developed due to the nuclear arms race
where both America and Russia knew if they
started a war it would destroy the world.
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THE SPACE RACE
• These space race, exacerbated tensions between the superpowers
as did events, such as as the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961,
the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 and the outbreak of war in Southeast
Asia.
• Space exploration served as another dramatic arena for Cold War
competition. On October 4, 1957, a Soviet R-7 intercontinental
ballistic missile launched Sputnik (Russian for “traveler”), the world’s
first artificial satellite and the first man-made object to be placed into
the Earth’s orbit.
• In the United States, space was seen as the next frontier, a logical
extension of the grand American tradition of exploration, and it was
crucial not to lose too much ground to the Soviets.
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THE SPACE RACE
• In 1958, the United States launched its own satellite, Explorer I,
designed by the U.S. Army under the direction of rocket scientist
Wernher von Braun.
• President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a public order creating the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a federal
agency dedicated to space exploration.
• In 1959, the Soviet space program took another step forward with
the launch of Luna 2, the first space probe to hit the moon. In April
1961, the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to
orbit Earth, traveling in the capsule-like spacecraft Vostok 1.
• For the U.S. effort to send a man into space, dubbed Project
Mercury, NASA engineers designed a smaller, cone-shaped capsule
far lighter than Vostok; they tested the craft with chimpanzees and
held a final test flight in March 1961. On May 5, astronaut Alan
Shepard became the first American in space (though not in orbit).
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DIVISION OF GERMANY
• Germany was pided into four zones of occupation.
• At first relations between the forces were good as all were
united in the belief that Nazism should be crushed.
• The USA, Britain and France saw quickly that Germany
would have to be supported economically if communism
was to be prevented.
• The allies wanted a strong, democratic country to become
their ally, who acted as a buffer against the communist
states of Eastern Europe.
THE BERLIN BLOCKADE
In contrast, Stalin wanted to weaken Germany as a
punishment for the war.
Stalin wanted to help rebuild the USSR by stealing
German industrial technology and to make
communism seem more attractive to the Germans.
The West depended upon Soviet goodwill to keep
open routes to the British, French and American zones
of the city.
During 1961, in an effort to stem the tide of refugees
attempting to leave East Berlin, the communist
government of East Germany begins building the
Berlin Wall to pide East and West Berlin
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THE BERLIN BLOCKADE
The wall caused a short-term crisis in U.S.-
Soviet bloc relations, and the wall itself
came to symbolize the Cold War
Throughout the 1950s and into the early
1960s, thousands of people from East
Berlin crossed over into West Berlin to
reunite with families and escape
communist repression.
To put an end to this outflow of people, all
entry points in to West Berlin were
blocked and the wall successfully pided
the two parts of Berlin
CONSEQUENCE 1 - PROPAGANDA VICTORY
FOR THE WEST
• The blockade and airlift was a propaganda victory for the West. It made the Western Allies
looked like heroes and the Soviets said that the airlift was ‘simply a propaganda move
intended to make the Cold War worse.’
• The airlift made the US and their Western Allies look strong as they had won without any
casualties, civilian or military.
• Western Berlin had survived thanks to the efforts of the Western Allies and the resilience of
the West Berliners. Stalin had attempted to force the US, Britain, and France to do what he
wanted and leave West Berlin but had failed.
• The West responded peacefully to Soviet aggression and their actions had forced Stalin to
back down. This meant that Stalin ‘lost’ the confrontation and continued to feel threatened
by the presence of Western troops in West Berlin as this was in the newly created German
Democratic Republic (GDR) or East Germany
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CONSEQUENCE 2 - FORMATION OF GDR AND
FRG
• German Democratic Republic, GDR, (East Germany) Once the FRG was established, the
Soviets responded by forming the German Democratic Republic, GDR, (East Germany) on
7th October 1949.
• It was a satellite state of the Soviet Union and a member of Comecon and the Warsaw Pact.
• Germany was now permanently divided along the same borders as had been agreed at the
Yalta and Potsdam conferences. West Berlin was in the GDR.
• For the next 40 years, East and West Germany existed as separate countries with separate
capitals, governments, and sports teams but both countries considered their Germany the
real one.
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CONSEQUENCE 3 - TWO MILITARY ALLIANCES
NATO
• The Grand Alliance had entirely broken down by 1949, but the West and the Soviet Union had not yet formed
new alliances. The Berlin blockade and the Western response of the Airlift changed all that. Czechoslovakia
became Communist, the same year that Stalin blockaded West Berlin (1948).
• These events made the Western Allies realise that they needed to protect themselves from the Soviet Union
through an official defensive military alliance. They also wanted to show Stalin that they were prepared to take
a stance against Communism.
• In April 1949, just before the blockade was lifted NATO, a defensive military alliance, was formed by the US,
Britain, France, and nine other Western countries. They agreed that if any member country was attacked, the
other members would support them. Ernest Bevin, the British foreign secretary played a key role in forming
this alliance.
• He believed that Western Europe should reach out to the US for their support. Although the Truman Doctrine
said that the US would aid countries threatened by Communism, there was no guarantee that they would get
directly involved in European defence after WW2. The formation of NATO went beyond what Truman had
suggested in his 1947 speech. The creation of NATO meant that there were US troops and military bases
across Western Europe and in West Berlin.
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CONSEQUENCE 3 - TWO MILITARY ALLIANCES
WARSAW PACT
• NATO was set up in 1949 and, when the FRG joined on 6th May 1955, the
Soviet Union felt even more threatened than they were by the simple
existence of NATO.
• This led them to form their own alliance; the Warsaw Pact. The Soviets were
concerned by the FRG joining NATO because it meant that there was the
possibility of a militarily powerful West Germany which was on the borders of
the Soviet controlled satellite states. It also meant there could be Western
troops in Berlin, deep in the heart of East Germany.
• On 14th May the Soviet Union formed the Warsaw Pact. This was a defensive
military alliance of Communist countries to protect themselves against the
threat they felt NATO posed.
• The Soviet Union was joined in the alliance by Poland, Czechoslovakia,
Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, and the GDR. These countries came to
be known as the Eastern Bloc. The Warsaw Pact was led by the Soviet Union
and the military was under the command of the Soviet Union.
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