Cold War and World War II

King’s College London Abraham Kuol Nyuon Short Essay Title: Was the Cold War an inevitable outcome of World War II? Sept, 2013, Juba South Sudan Was the Cold War an inevitable outcome of World War II? The Cold War and World War II are inseparable because conflict among the Allies surfaced at the end of the World War II. The Cold War was a product of World War II in many ways, most apparently as presented by the ideological differences express by the former allies as well as the concept of deterrence by the United States and Soviet Union with their respective allies. This paper set out how World War II shaped the beginning of the Cold War through engaging with the major schools of thoughts that are considered as the cause of Cold War. The first is the Orthodox view that emerged in the 1950s and 1960s. It is a product of a society heavily influenced by the breakdown of the wartime alliance and the expansion of Soviet power in Europe, the loss of China to Communism and the Korean War. This school of thought argued that it was Soviet aggression in Eastern Europe and other parts of the world that had caused the Cold War hence, the United States had no choice but to meet the challenges posed by the Soviets. This perspective was focused on the idea that if the blame is to be attributed for the outbreak of the Cold War, the Soviet Union deserves to be credited with full responsibility for the onset of conflict while the United States is purely naive. This view expresses that, Soviet fierceness in its leadership and the entire system of the government should be blame for the escalation of the Cold war. This view is exemplified by Herbert Feis works which argues that, “The Russian people were trying to extend their boundaries and takeover the neighbouring countries through revolution by breaking the coalition (Feis, 1957. P.655). Thus Feis; applies the concept of the level of analysis in understanding the origin of Cold War by emphasizing the idiosyncratic variable and the systematic approach to international relations. In similar comportment, Gaddis affirms that, in the countenance of the Soviet fortitude to embark upon the policy of expansion, the United States had to protect its legitimacy, interest and democracy among the European Union (Gaddis, 1965.p.11). Moreover, Arthur echoed them by saying that, the Cold War was the courageous and essential response of Communist aggression (Schlesinger, 1967.p.51). Thus, Arthur and others in this school of thought have focused on attributing the blame or responsibility for the Cold War by arguing that, the Soviet Union was responsible for the escalation of the Cold War. The second major school of thought on the matter is the Revisionist view which surfaced in the 1960s when new generations of historians were disillusioned by the Vietnam War and appalled by seemingly endemic government dishonesty. According to this view, The United States had been primarily responsible for Cold War and the Soviet Union did not show any aggressive desire toward the West because the United States had used their nuclear monopoly to threaten as well as intimidating Stalin to be aggressive while President Truman had recklessly abandoned the recklessly the more conciliatory policies of Franklin Roosevelt by taking a provocative hard line against the Russia. This view was supported by Lloyd Gardner’s argument that, the United States, which was the strongest nation at a time, ought to have shown more understanding of Moscow’s essential economic and security interest because the United States at the end of World War II had greater opportunity to influence the international situation than the Soviet Union whose condition in victory was worse in many ways than those of defeated countries (Gardner, 1970.p.317). The third major view explaining the reasons for the Cold War is the Post-revisionist school. This school of thought is the middle ground of both the Orthodox and Revisionist view. It tries to show that both sides had their faults and that over time both superpowers pushed their own interests and misunderstood the other side even to the point of leading to the possibility of nuclear war.  The post-revisionists have tended to accept the revisionists’ view that Stalin was more concerned with Soviet security and to that end the creation of a Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern and Central Europe with world aggressive ambitions towards Western Europe; but at the same time they have argued that Western leaders could not be certain of what Stalin was actually trying to achieve because what Stalin perceived to be security was often interpreted a threaten to the interests of the United States and other Western states allied to her (Jerald, 1983.p.232).  However despite accepting that there were problems on both sides, a number of the post-revisionists have become highly critical of the Soviet Union. John Lewis Gaddis, one of the leading historians in this area, has engaged in what could best be described as a post revisionist interpretation especially since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the opening up of Soviet archives (Norman, 1962.p.129) This view asserts that, the Cold War was caused by the conflicting interests of the United States and the Soviet Union compounded by miscommunication and poor diplomacy. The differences in the cultures of the United States political leaders and their morals as well as righteous justifications for diplomacy from Soviet leaders' Communist expansionist policies led to the disentanglement of the new international order nearly established in Roosevelt's wartime conferences with Churchill and Stalin (Adam,1974.Pp.334-336). This school of thought also explains that the Cold War was caused by the social climate and tensions in Europe at the end of World War II and by the increasing power struggles between the Soviet Union and the United States (Young & Kent, 2004.p.45).   Economic separation between the Soviets and the West also heightened tensions along with the threat of nuclear war (Fursenko & Naftali, 1997.pp. 166-170). A fourth key view on this question is the Realist school of thought, this view states that, World War II, polarized the world resulting in a Cold War between two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union (Kegley, 2007.p.115. The concept of deterrence is an essential view which had contributed to escalation of Cold War in conjunction with the above schools of thoughts. The use of military threats as a means to deter international crises and war has been a central topic of international security during the entire period of Cold war. A threat serves as a deterrent to the extent that it convinces its target not to carry out the intended action because of the costs and losses that target would incur. Deterrence theory gained increased prominence as a military strategy during the Cold War with regard to the use of nuclear weapons by taking on a unique connotation during this time as an inferior nuclear force through virtue of its extreme destructive power to deter a more powerful adversary (Towle, 2000.P.164). According to Huth, a policy of deterrence can fit into two broad categories being preventing an armed attack against a state’s own territory or preventing an armed attack against another state (Huth.1999.p.25-40). Deterrence theory holds that nuclear weapons are intended to deter other states from attacking with their nuclear weapons through the promise of retaliation and possibly mutually assured destruction (MAD). The fear of the great powers in destroying each other through Nuclear Weapons lead to a War which cold spare them from destruction known as Cold war. In conclusion, on the role of World War II in the escalation of the Cold War, First, the political environment was marked by competition to win new adherents to one or the other economic and social system. Both sides’ maintained empires, as John Lewis Gaddis noted that, in Europe, the United States led an empire by invitation while the Soviet Union ruled an empire by imposition (Gaddis, 1997.pp 284–286). Second, the principal locus of United States and Soviet conflict underwent a geographic shift from one region to another as nations committed themselves to one camp or the other. Third, economic production and technological advance was a key instrument in United States and Soviet competition because direct economic competition between the superpowers underwrote the expansion of influence around the world which demonstrated the superiority of an economic system. Therefore, the blame for the escalation of the Cold war should be attributed to both the United States and the Soviet Union as both of them where serving their national interest. Thus, post-revisionist position is the best option in explaining the origin of the Cold War because it blames the two superpowers at end of Cold War by emphasizing the spirit of dominance. The United States promotes Capitalism while the Soviet Union promotes Communism and each of these ideologies protected through the concept of deterrence for accentuating national interest. Bibliography Adam, Ulam (1974), Expansion and Coexistence, (New York: Praeger) Aleksander. 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