The Cold War — 1947-present?
For as long as nuclear weapons are with us, geopolitical crises must be handled with extraordinary care
The Cold War (1947–1991) took place shortly after the end of World War II (1939–1945). Unlike World War II, which was a very bloody war — the deadliest in history, with an estimated 85 million casualties — the Cold War was comparatively peaceful in reality. What defined the Cold War as both a War, and one which was Cold, was collective fear about the new potentialities of possible wars.
It is counterintuitive to describe a war as peaceful. However, when compared with the two world wars defining the first half of the 20th century, the long period over which the Cold War stretched endured less intense, less concentrated destructions of civilisations and lives than 1914–1945.
What characterised this period of global history as a period of Cold war, despite there being little conflict of the magnitude the world witnessed from 1914–1945, was the tense peace that many people endured over these years. For they were marked by hostile relations that often veered on the precipice of escalating into a war even greater in magnitude than World War II.
World War, and then Cold War
This hostility and tension, which generated apprehension and fear among ordinary citizens of nations, was stimulated by competition between two global superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. The United States and the Soviet Union had fought as allies during the Second World War, vanquishing an alliance between Germany, Italy, and Japan, described as the “Axis of Evil”. Led by Benito Mussolini, Italy’s role in World War II was marked by fickle incompetence, disaster, and relative insignificance.
As is common knowledge, during the Second World War Germany was led by Adolf Hitler, who upheld a political regime described nominally as National Socialism, which was in reality merely a totalitarian dictatorship defined by racist oppression, genocide, and tyranny. His ultimate political objective entailed international domination, and in Hitler’s view its pursuit demanded the destruction, or at the very least the subjection, of all people besides those deemed ethnically German. The Jewish population in Europe bore the full brunt of Hitler’s racist hatred, as between 5–6 million people were exterminated in the Holocaust. Nazism also claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands ethnic Polish, Romani, homosexual, and disabled people.
The Japanese also aimed to dominate their own sphere of influence in the Pacific. Their forces launched attacks against the United States, with the bombing of Pearl Harbour on 7th December 1941 a particularly notorious event which provoked North America to enter World War II in earnest. The Japanese sought to spearhead an economic bloc established via military might in Southeast Asia. Japanese aims brought the nation into conflict with the Chinese, against whom they waged an extremely bloody war between 1937–1945, with its own atrocities, not least the 1937 Nanking massacre.
Although studies of the Second World War (especially those conducted by students of modern European history) typically situate the rise and fall of Adolf Hitler, the Holocaust, and the War for Europe as its predominant narratives, the conflict between the United States and Japan, and the nature of its ultimate outcome, precipitated the Cold War’s dynamics.
The War in Europe was over by May 1945 following the Soviet Union’s military victories in the Battle for Berlin, waged from April 16th to May 2nd, culminating in Hitler’s suicide on April 30th 1945. Although the War in Europe was over by Spring 1945, fighting continued elsewhere until the end of Summer that year. It was the use of nuclear weapons against the Japanese that, with retrospect, signalled the end of World War II.
Moreover, it was the United States’ deployment of nuclear weapons in August 1945, on Hiroshima on the 6th, and Nagasaki on the 9th, that signalled the transition of international relations between global superpowers from outright military struggles to a new kind of conflict, as they grappled for ultimate supremacy. The power of nuclear weapons had been realised and felt, and with that power now having been unleashed, international relations was forever changed. After Hiroshima and Nagasaki had been ripped apart by Little Boy and Fat Man respectively, the Japanese surrendered on September 2nd 1945. This is the date now conventionally considered the true end of World War II, ending ongoing Japanese resistance to US forces.
The New Frontiers of Cold War
The Cold War, unlike World War II, was a relatively peaceful period. But its peace was characterised by fear. With the exception of nuclear weapons testing undertaken without casualty, the first and second uses of nuclear weapons by the United States against the Japanese on the 6th and 9th of August 1945 remain, as of March 2022, the only occasions in history that this devastating technology has been used with the purpose of destroying human civilisations and life. The Cold War period, 1947–1991, was marked by ongoing jostling for global supremacy between the two major victors of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union. The period saw these superpowers flex their muscles in a variety of ways — from nuclear proliferation to the space race. The Soviet-launched Sputnik 1 was the first artificial satellite to orbit Earth, succeeding in its mission on 4th October 1957. The Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first humans to ever walk on the moon, on 20th July 1969.
Competition between these two superpowers from 1947–1991 was military, technological, and also political. For technological, military, and economic competition was underpinned by the competition of two rival political ideologies and systems — “laissez-faire” capitalism, and central planning. I hesitate in describing the Soviet Union as truly communist since the Soviet Union always had a dictator; a communist regime true to its ideological undergirding ought not to have a dictator — nevertheless it is obviously the case that the Soviet Union was manifestly influenced by Marxist-communist ideology, and its dictators were obviously sympathetic to these doctrines.
Similarly, the capitalist economies of Western Europe and the United States were never entirely laissez-faire, since some restrictions and regulations on trade and commerce were commonplace — prohibition in the United States lasted from 1920–1933, and it offers an example of a constitutional restriction on commerce in a self-described capitalist country. Prohibitions on other narcotics in the present day offer further examples of paternalistic market restrictions under self-described free-market capitalist economic systems.
The United States and the Soviet Union from 1947–1991 were the undisputed leading superpowers on Earth. Their technological, military, political, and economic competition was felt by people all over the world. What defined this period as one of Cold War was the persistent threat of nuclear war. The United States had already dared to use atomic bombs, in doing so decisively ending the Second World War. The world immediately understood that the impact of nuclear weapons was monumental, their power devastating.
As the United States competed with the Soviet Union for global supremacy, their competition was most keenly felt through nuclear proliferation and the ensuing tension between the two powers. The Cold War refers to a significant period of time, within which there are several flashpoints that marked the period as one of war, including tracts of time that involved actual fighting, such as the Korean War (1950–1953), the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba (1961), the Vietnam War (1955–1975), and the Falklands War (1982). These wars are often described as proxy wars, as the United States and the Soviet Union often sponsored one side or the other.
The Cuban Missile Crisis (October 16th-November 20th, 1962) is perhaps the archetypal example of the proxy wars waged by the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War— it is also the incident that steered the world closest to the brink of nuclear war during this period.
In 1961, Fidel Castro masterminded a communist revolution in Cuba which the United States opposed. John F. Kennedy oversaw the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, formed by a coalition between US military forces and Cuban exiles. The invasion was a disaster, as the Cuban revolutionaries successfully repelled the rebellion. In response, the Soviet Union’s leader at the time, Nikita Khrushchev, reached an agreement with Castro in Summer 1962 to assemble ballistic missiles on Cuba with the ostensible aim of deterring any further incursions that United States forces might make to overthrow Castro. United States politicians feared, however, that the obvious function of the missiles — to deter further American attempts to revert the Cuban revolution — was a ruse that masked a more aggressive Soviet intention: to position ballistic missiles within striking range of US civilisation.
The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest that these proxy-conflicts between US-sponsored and Soviet-supported forces came to morphing into full-blown nuclear war. The world breathed a deep sigh of relief when the danger of the crisis deteriorating further was averted.
In 1968, 191 nations signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty which became effective from 1970. From this date, the world’s superpowers pledged to deconstruct or deactivate the nuclear weapons they had previously built, and other non-nuclear members of the treaty pledged that they would not acquire them. In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev took control of a Soviet Union that had become considerably weaker geopolitically and economically. With Soviet power waning, tension with the United States also began to thaw.
Gorbachev instituted two important reforms — glasnost (openness) and perestroika (economic re-planning). Eventually Moscow’s control of regions on the perimeters of the Soviet Union dissipated and regional non-communist governments were formed. The Berlin Wall, erected at the end of the Second World War to partition Soviet-occupied East Berlin from West Berlin, occupied by British, American, and French forces, fell on 9th November 1989.
The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Nations with independent governments emerged: Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine. In the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s collapse, other Soviet-influenced states became much weaker than they already were. Whatever glue was holding Yugoslavia together came loose as its internal structures also disintegrated following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia sought to hold together an amalgam of diverse peoples, breaking apart on the 27th April 1992. From its ashes emerged modern-day Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia, Montenegro, and Kosovo.
Did the Cold War Really End in 1989?
The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, or the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, are both proposed by Cold War historians as dates the Cold War can be considered to have ended by. Whether we agree with these dates today depends on how we understand what the Cold War was, what its characteristics were, and whether these factors have changed enough since 1991 that we can properly consider the Cold War over.
If the Cold War is exclusively defined as a specific confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union characterised by fears of this conflict escalating into nuclear war, then the period can be properly considered to have ended in 1991 with the extinction of the Soviet Union. However, if we view the situation with slightly less historical and categorical rigidity, and define the Cold War as a period of time characterised by the ongoing threat of nuclear war between two or more global superpowers, then considering the Cold War finished by either 1989 or 1991 will not do.
In March 2022, in spite of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, the United States and Russia have over 4,000 active nuclear weapons each. This is more than the nuclear arsenals of the rest of the world combined. In economic terms, Russia is no longer of top-two global superpower status. Nevertheless, in terms of its potential ability to commit acts of unfathomable destruction and terror, Russia most certainly still is a global superpower.
The Kremlin’s nuclear arsenal should provoke leading world governments to handle their relations with Russia with extraordinary care — it would be a gross error of judgement to underestimate what the Kremlin is capable of. Moreover, it would be a gross error of judgement to think the possibility of nuclear war went away with the Soviet Union in 1991.
What has provoked me into thinking about this history and these issues is, obviously, Vladimir Putin’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Some spectators will erroneously consider this a completely new conflict, rather than a resurgent spectre of the old. However, it would also be an error to consider this narrative to have resumed only this year. Putin’s Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. Putin’s Russia has been interfering in the elections and governance of foreign political systems for years. Putin’s Russia has kept Lukashenko’s neighbouring Belarus extremely sweet in recent years.
Admittedly, it is easier to see Putin’s preceding activity beyond Russia’s national boundaries — political interference, enabling political pawns supportive of the Kremlin’s aims to succeed — as acts of outright territorial aggression, than it was perhaps five years ago, given Putin’s recently launched war in Ukraine. It is easier today to understand the threats Moscow still poses to global stability and security than it was a decade ago. Hindsight is 20/20.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the dissolution of its influence in Eastern Europe, Russia and other nations that constituted formerly Soviet regions have been considered nations increasingly warm to Western political, economic, and cultural influences. However, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has prompted widespread reconsideration of this assumption. It is difficult to see what exactly Putin wants to achieve with his invasion of Ukraine. The reason for the invasion considered most plausible has been Nato’s refusal to concede to Russia that it will not offer Nato membership to Ukraine, and that it will not stop expanding eastwards. The reverse of this is that the Kremlin feels threatened by a seemingly ever-expanding military alliance encroaching further and further towards its own national perimeters. North Macedonia, of former Yugoslavia, sharing borders with Bulgaria and Albania, joined Nato in March 2020.
From this perspective, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine can be understood as an act of defensive aggression, a signal that the Kremlin is uneasy, stressed, and paranoid about Nato’s ongoing expansion eastwards. Perhaps this paranoia can be interpreted as just paranoia. Perhaps the pipe is just a pipe. But to interpret the Russian invasion of Ukraine solely as an impulsive reaction of defence against the over-extension of an alliance intended to maintain international peace and security is not easy. It does not make sense that the expansion of an alliance intended to keep international peace should provoke Russia to an act of military aggression, if Russia does not intend to preserve its own prerogative to pursue acts of military aggression with less fear of decisive retribution from an international alliance growing ever-more powerful.
The first time Nato members invoked article 5 of their agreement, which effectively states that an act of war against one member is an act of war against all members, was in 2001 following the 9/11 plane hijackings and attacks against United States civilians. Wars were subsequently waged by Nato members against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan from 2001, and against Saddam Hussein’s government in Iraq from 2003, launched by United States President George W. Bush on the assumption that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction intended for wars of terror. Blair’s and Bush’s collective assumption that Iraq possessed WMDs has never been substantiated. Moreover, the Iraqi government had nothing to do with the Osama Bin-Laden led al-Qaeda-orchestrated 9/11 attacks.
Culpability for continuing global conflicts that risk nuclear escalation is thus polysided. The threat of nuclear escalation between two or more global superpowers has never gone away entirely. Since August 1945, the threat of nuclear escalation has simply waned and waxed.
The Cold War is usually understood to have ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union, but in reality, fear of nuclear escalation is the central characteristic of Cold War periods. When considering whether a given period is part of the Cold War, whether Moscow is part of the Soviet Union or Russia is less significant than its power to inflict nuclear devastation. Whether Moscow rules an economically powerful Soviet Union or an economically weak Russia is less important than its power to inflict nuclear devastation. It would be a mistake to think that because Russia lacks the economic power of the Soviet Union at its peak, it would not dare to risk a major war.
In a global geopolitical context, Russia is an attractive ally for nations hostile to tolerant multicultural societies, and neo-liberal political economies, especially given its formidable nuclear arsenal. Russia has a formidable ideological neighbour in China. It is imperative that nations opposed to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine react, but it is also imperative that these nations, rightfully concerned with geopolitical stability, do not overreact. It is important that we witness a Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis at the very worst, not a Third World War. The threat of nuclear war is still with us for as long as nuclear weapons share our Earth. It is the responsibility of today’s politicians and people that nuclear war is averted, like it was in the 1960s.
There is a clear axis of Sino-Russian power that could quite quickly turn on Nato if it does overreact and overextend. A new détente must be Nato’s mid- to long-term modus operandi. It is desirable that Nato supports Ukrainian independence from Russia, but how exactly it goes about this is critical to avoid escalating this conflict. It would be an incredibly risky move to support Ukraine’s independence from Russia by putting Nato boots on the ground. Semantic historical quibbling over how to categorise and describe periods of time is a trivial pursuit when the risk of nuclear escalation has increased. Nevertheless, situating this incident as part of an ongoing Cold War that has itself waned and waxed over the last three decades may be helpful to understand how best to interpret the threat Russia still poses. Recognition of the reality of the threat should guide careful action.