USA vs USSR Fight! The Cold War

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USA vs USSR Fight! The Cold War발음듣기

And today we're going to talk about the Cold War, which actually lasted into my lifetime, which means that I can bore you with stories from my past like your grandpa does.발음듣기

When I was a kid, they made us practice hiding under under our desks in the event of a nuclear attack, because, you know, school desks are super good at repelling radiation.발음듣기

Past John: Mr. Green, Mr. Green!발음듣기

Right, remember in elementary school there was this special guest who'd defected from the Soviet Union, and he had like this crazy Russian accent and he kept going on about how Reagan should spit in Gorbachev's face instead of signing treaties with him.발음듣기

Past John: And I was like, whoa dude calm down.발음듣기

You're in a room full of third graders.발음듣기

And then for months afterward on the playground, we'd play Reagan-Gorbachev and spit in each others' faces. Those were the days.발음듣기

Sometimes I forget that you're me, Me from the Past.발음듣기

Past John: Yeah, it's just really nice to talk to you and feel like you're lis - You're boring.발음듣기

Cue the intro. (intro plays) So the Cold War was a rivalry between the USSR and the USA that played out globally.발음듣기

We've tried to shy away from calling conflicts ideological or civilizational here on Crash Course, but in this case, the "clash of civilizations" model really does apply.발음듣기

Socialism, at least as Marx constructed it, wanted to take over the world, and many Soviets saw themselves in a conflict with bourgeois capitalism itself.발음듣기

And the Soviets saw American rebuilding efforts in Europe and Japan as the U.S. trying to expand its markets, which, by the way is exactly what we were doing.발음듣기

So the U.S. feared that the USSR wanted to destroy democratic and capitalist institutions.발음듣기

And the Soviets feared that the U.S. wanted to use its money and power to dominate Europe and eventually destroy the Soviet system.발음듣기

And both parties were right to be worried.발음듣기

It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.발음듣기

Now, of course, we've seen a lot of geopolitical struggles between major world powers here on Crash Course, but this time there was the special added bonus that war could lead to the destruction of the human species.발음듣기

That was new for world history, and it's worth remembering:It's still new.발음듣기

Here's the period of time we've discussed on Crash Course. And this is how long we've had the technological capability to exterminate ourselves. So that's worrisome.발음듣기

Immediately after World War II, the Soviets created a sphere of influence in eastern Europe, dominating the countries where the Red Army had pushed back the Nazis, which is why Winston Churchill famously said in 1946 that an "Iron Curtain" had descended across Europe.발음듣기

While the dates of the Cold War are usually given between 1945 and 1990, a number of historians will tell you that it actually started during World War II.발음듣기

Stalin's distrust of the U.S. And Britain kept growing as they refused to invade Europe and open up a second front against the Nazis.발음듣기

And some even say that the decision to drop the first Atomic Bombs on Japan was motivated in part by a desire to intimidate the Soviets. That sort of worked, but only insofar as it motivated the Soviets to develop atomic bombs of their own.발음듣기

They successfully tested their first one in 1949.발음듣기

From the beginning, the U.S. had the advantage because it had more money and power and could provide Europe protection, what with its army and one of a kind nuclear arsenal, while Europe rebuilt.발음듣기

The USSR had to rebuild itself, and also they had the significant disadvantage of being controlled by noted asshat Joseph Stalin.발음듣기

I will remind you, it's not cursing if he's wearing an ass for a hat.발음듣기

Oh, I guess it's time for the Open Letter.발음듣기

(harp music) An Open Letter to Joseph Stalin.발음듣기

But first, let's see what's in the secret compartment today. Oh, it's silly putty.발음듣기

Silly putty: the thing that won the Cold War.발음듣기

This is exactly the kind of useless consumer good that would never have been produced in the Soviet Union. And it is because we had so much more consumer spending, on stuff like silly putty, that we won the Cold War. Go team!발음듣기

Dear Joseph Stalin, You really sucked.발음듣기

There was a great moment in your life, at your first wife's funeral, when you said "I don't think I shall ever love again."발음듣기

And then later, you had that wife's whole family killed.발음듣기

Putting aside the fact that you're responsible for tens of millions of deaths, I don't like you because of the way you treated your son, Yakov. I mean, you were really mean to him and then he shot himself and he didn't die and you said, "He can't even shoot straight."발음듣기

And then later, when he was captured during World War II, you had a chance to exchange prisoners for him, but you declined.발음듣기

And then he died in a prison camp.발음듣기

You were a terrible leader, a terrible person, and a terrible father.발음듣기

Best wishes, John Green. Alright, let's go to the Thought Bubble.발음듣기

Europe was the first battleground of the Cold War, especially Germany, which was divided into two parts with the former capital, Berlin, also divided into two parts.발음듣기

And yes, I know the western part was divided into smaller occupation zones, but I'm simplifying.발음듣기

In 1948, the Soviets tried to cut off West Berlin, by closing the main road that led into the city, but the Berlin airlift stopped them.발음듣기

And then in 1961, the Soviets tried again and this time they were much more successful building a wall around West Berlin, although it's worth noting that the thing was up for less than 30 years.발음듣기

I mean, Meatloaf's career has lasted longer than the Berlin Wall did.발음듣기

The U.S. response to the Soviets was a policy called containment; it basically involved stopping the spread of communism by standing up to the Soviets wherever they seemed to want to expand.발음듣기

In Europe this meant spending a lot of money.발음듣기

First the Marshall Plan spent $13 billion on re-building Western Europe with grants and credits that Europeans would spend on American consumer goods and on construction.발음듣기

Capitalism's cheap food and plentiful stuff, it was hoped, would stop the spread of communism.발음듣기

The U.S. also tried to slow the spread of communism by founding NATO and with CIA interventions in elections where communists had a chance, as in Italy. But despite all the great spy novels and shaken not stirred martinis, the Cold War never did heat up in Europe.발음듣기

Probably the most important part of the Cold War that people just don't remember these days is the nuclear arms race.발음듣기

Both sides developed nuclear arsenals, the Soviets initially with the help of spies who stole American secrets.발음듣기

Eventually the nuclear arsenals were so big that the U.S.발음듣기

And the USSR agreed on a strategy appropriately called MAD, which stood for "mutually assured destruction."발음듣기

Thanks, Thought Bubble. And yes, nuclear weapons were, and are, capable of destroying humanity many times over.발음듣기

But only once or twice did we get close to nuclear war: during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and then again in 1983, when we forgot to give the Russians the heads up that we were doing some war games, which made it look like we had launched a first strike. OUR BAD!발음듣기

But even though mutually assured destruction prevented direct conflict, there was plenty of hot war in the Cold War.발음듣기

The Korean War saw lots of fighting between communists and capitalists, as did the Vietnam War.발음듣기

I mean these days we remember "the domino effect" as silly paranoia, but after Korea and especially China became communist, Vietnam's movement toward communism seemed very much a threat to Japan, which the U.S. had helped re-make into a vibrant capitalist ally.발음듣기

So the U.S. got bogged down in one of its longest wars while the Soviets assisted the North Vietnamese army in the Viet Cong.발음듣기

But then we paid them back by supporting the anti-communist mujaheddin after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979.발음듣기

Of course, as we now know, nobody conquers Agghanistan unless you are the mongols.발음듣기

So after 10 disastrous years, the Soviets finally abandoned Afghanistan. Some of those mujahedeem later became members of the Taliban, though, so it's difficult to say that anyone won that war.발음듣기

But it wasn't just Asia: In Nicarugua, the U.S. supported rebels to overthrow the leftist government; in El Salvador, the U.S. bolstered authoritarian regimes that were threatened by left-wing guerrillas.발음듣기

The United States ended up supporting a lot of awful governments, like the one in Guatemala, which held onto power through the use of death squads.발음듣기

Frankly, all our attempts to stabilize governments in Latin America led to some very unstable Latin American governments, and quite a lot of violence.발음듣기

And then there were the luke-warm conflicts, like The Suez Crisis where British and French paratroopers were sent in to try to stop Egypt from nationalizing the Suez canal.발음듣기

Or all the American covert operations to keep various countries from "falling" to communism.발음듣기

These included the famous CIA-engineered coup to overthrow Iran's democratically elected prime minister Mohammed Mossadeq after his government attempted to nationalize Iran's oil industry.발음듣기

And the CIA helping Chile's General Augusto Pinochet overthrow democratically elected Marxist president Salvador Allende in 1973.발음듣기

And lest we think the Americans were the only bad guys in this, the Soviets used force to crush popular uprisings in Hungary in 1956 and in Czechoslovakia in 1968.발음듣기

So, you may have noticed that our discussion of the Cold War has branched out from Europe to include Asia and the Middle East, and Latin America.발음듣기

And in fact, almost every part of the globe was involved in some way with the planet being divided into three "worlds."발음듣기

The First World was the U.S., Western Europe and any place that embraced capitalism and a more or less democratic form of government.발음듣기

The Second World was the Soviet Union and its satellites, mostly the Warsaw Pact nations, China and Cuba.발음듣기

The Third World was everyone else and we don't use this term anymore because it lumps together a hugely diverse range of countries.발음듣기

We'll talk more about the specific economic and development challenges faced by the so-called "Third World countries," but the big one in terms of the Cold War, was that neither the U.S. nor the Soviets wanted any of these countries to remain neutral.발음듣기

Every nation was supposed to pick sides, either capitalist or communist, and while it seems like an easy choice now, in the 50's and 60's, it wasn't nearly so clear.발음듣기

I mean, for a little while, it seemed like the Soviets might come out ahead, at least in the Third World.발음듣기

For a while, capitalism, and especially the United States, seemed to lose some of its luster.발음듣기

The U.S. propped up dictatorships, had a poor civil rights record, we sucked at women's gymnastics.발음듣기

Plus, the soviets were the first to put a satellite, a man, and a dog into space.발음듣기

Plus, Marxists just seemed cooler, which is why you never see Milton Friedman t-shirts until now available at DFTBA.com.발음듣기

I like that, Stan, but I'm more of a centrist.발음듣기

Can I get a Keynes shirt? Yes, now that's hot.발음듣기

But Soviet socialism did not finally prove to be a viable alternative to industrial capitalism.발음듣기

Over time, state-run economies just generally don't fare as well as private enterprise, and people like living in a world where they can have more stuff.발음듣기

More importantly, Soviet policies were just bad: collectivized agriculture stymied production and led to famine; suppression of dissent and traditional cultures made people angry; and no one likes suffering the humiliation of driving a Yugo.발음듣기

But why the Cold War ended when it did is one of the most interesting questions of the 20th century.발음듣기

It probably wasn't Ronald Reagan bankrupting the Soviets, despite what some politicians believe.발음듣기

The USSR had more satellite states that it needed to spend more to prop up than the U.S. had to invest in its Allies.발음듣기

And the Soviet system could never keep up with economic growth in the West.발음듣기

But, probably the individual most responsible for the end of the Cold War was Mikhail Baryshnikov.발음듣기

No? Mikhail Gorbachev? Well that's boring.발음듣기

I always thought the Soviets danced their way to freedom.발음듣기

No? It was Glasnost and Perestroika? Alright.발음듣기

But Gorbachev's Perestroika and Glosnost opened up the Soviet political and economic systems with contested local elections, less restricted civil society groups, less censorship, more autonomy for the Soviet Republics, more non-state-run business and more autonomy for state-run farms.발음듣기

Glasnost or "openness" led to more information from the West and less censorship led to a flood of criticism as people realized how much poorer the second world was than the first.발음듣기

And one by one, often quite suddenly, former communist states collapsed.발음듣기

In Germany, the Berlin wall came down in 1989 and East and West Germany were reunited in 1990.발음듣기

In Poland, the Gdansk dockworker's union Solidarity turned into a mass political movement and won 99 of the 100 seats it was allowed to contest in the 1989 election.발음듣기

Hungary held multiparty elections in 1990.발음듣기

The same year, mass demonstrations led to elections in Czechoslovakia.발음듣기

In 1993 that country split up in to Slovakia and the Czech Republic, the happiest and most mutually beneficial divorce since Cher left Sonny.발음듣기

Of course sometimes the transition away from communism was violent and painful.발음듣기

In Romania, for instance, the communist dictator Ceaucescu held onto power until he was tried and put before a firing squad at the end of 1989.발음듣기

And it took until 1996 for a non-communist government to take power there.발음듣기

And in Yugoslavia, well, not so great.발음듣기

And in Russia, it's a little bit Putin-ey. Ah! Putin.발음듣기

But just twenty years later, it's hard to believe that the world was once dominated by two super powers held in check by mutually assured destruction.발음듣기

What's really amazing to me, though, is that until the late 1980's, it felt like the Cold War was gonna go on forever.발음듣기

Time seems to slow as it approaches us, and living in the post-Cold War nuclear age, we should remember that the past feels distant even when it's near, and that the future seems assured - even though it isn't.발음듣기

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