The Cold War

American Imperialism from Colonization to Globalization

November 9, 2023
Cassandra Marsillo
How to hide your empire
Part 9: Contain + maintain control
● Historical Context
● Stalin
● Mounting tensions
● Operation Condor
● Fall of the wall
● Reading discussion
● Editing workshop
The Cold War:
1946-1991
Represented a clash of ideas, not a
physical “hot” war, and a fierce
competition toward increased global
militarization between democratic
western nations (mainly the U.S.A.)
and the communist east (led by the
Soviet Union)

Soviet Cold War “control room”

An affluent society
Starting the Cold
War
● USSR triumph over Germany and promise
of modernization appealed to colonized
peoples
● US & USSR wartime alliance was one of
necessity to beat Hitler
○ Their clashes were bound to
resurface
○ & they did when Soviet troops
occupied parts of northern Iran

Soviet propaganda poster from 1957

Containment
● The journal Foreign Affairs published
“The Sources of Soviet Conduct” written
by “X” in July 1949 (X was George F.
Kennan, a US Diplomat at the State
Department):

“The United States must adopt a

policy of firm containment
designed to confront the Russians
with unalterable counterforce, at
every point where the show signs
of encroaching upon the interests
of a peaceful and stable world.”
Containing the “Enemy”
The Iron Curtain
The Truman Doctrine
“It must be the policy of the United States
to support free peoples who are resisting
attempted subjugation by armed minorities
or outside pressures.”
Truman, 12 March 1947

● Truman Doctrine committed the

United States to a permanent
responsibility in the world and set
a precedent for U.S. support of
anti-communist regimes
● Creation of National Security
Council and Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA)

Cold War comic book: what would happen if the USSR

invaded the US?
Eastern Europe

● As Soviet forces would extend their reach into Eastern

Europe, citizens faced:
○ Extension of Communist Party control over armed forces and the state
○ Forced collectivization
○ Lower standard of living
○ Stalin
● Germany and its capital, Berlin, were divided between
winning powers
Postwar Germany Postwar Berlin
Forming Alliances
● 1949:
○ USSR tested an atomic bomb
○ Mao Zedong and Communist party win
Civil War in China
● North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is
formed in response:
○ Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France,
Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the
Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United
Kingdom, and United States
○ West Germany would join later
● USSR formed Warsaw Pact (1955) in Eastern
Europe in response to NATO

First Soviet atomic bomb test on August 29, 1949

NSC-68: The Arming of America

● A policy paper written by the National Security Council in

April 1950, which was strongly influenced by George
Kennan’s “Sources of Soviet Conduct”
● It saw “International Communism” as a real threat that
needed to be countered with an American military build up
● The US Defense Department budget rose from $17.7B in
1950 to $52.6B in 1953
A Cold War Timeline
● Division of Berlin and the Berlin Wall (1948-1989)
● China’s 1949 revolution
● Korean War (1950-1953)
● Vietnam War (1956-1975)
● Space Race: Sputnik, first artificial satellite (1957); Yuri
Gagarin, first human in space (1961); Neil Armstrong and
Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon (1969)
● Cuban Revolution (1959)
● Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)
This Ain't a Scene,
It's an Arms Race

● By the mid-1960s, the US and the

Soviet Union had enough nuclear
power to destroy each other
○ “Mutually assured
destruction”
○ Spread fear of imminent
nuclear war
Decolonization
● Decolonization in Asia and Africa began when India
and Pakistan achieved independence in 1947
○ Ghana, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, and
President John F. Kennedy
Kenya followed in the 1950s established the Peace Corps in
○ Wars in Vietnam and Middle East also the 1960s to increase US
resulted in Cold War conflicts influence in developing nations

● US feared that communists would fill the power

vacuums left behind by crumbling colonial
governments
○ communists often participated in national
movements for independence
Cuba
● 1959: Fidel Castro overthrew dictator
Fulgencio Batista
○ Under Batista, Cuba was economically
dependent on the US
○ Castro started to nationalize
○ US actions, including failed coups and
assassination attempts, pushed Cuba
closer to the USSR
● In 1962, US spy planes discovered that Soviets
were installing missiles with US targets in Cuba
● 1963: Us and USSR agree to a treaty banning
nuclear weapons tests

May Day poster advertising Fidel Castro's

speech in Plaza de la Revolución, Havana,
Cuba, 1965.
Operation Condor

● Covert intelligence and military operation

conducted by several South American countries
during the 1970s and 1980s:
○ Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil,
Paraguay, and Bolivia
○ Led by military dictatorships, which shared
a common fear of communism
○ Backed by US: politically, financially, with
training and military assistance, gave Argentine special forces in operation in Buenos
Aires in 1982. Photograph: Daniel
diplomatic cover
García/AFP/Getty Images
Operation Condor Timeline
● Brazil (1964)
○ Military coup against president João Goulart
● Bolivia (1971)
○ U.S. supported the regime of General Hugo Banzer
● Chile (1973)
○ MIlitary coup against president Salvador Allende
○ Pinochet
● Argentina (1976)
○ Military junta seized power
● Uruguay (1973-1976)
● Paraguay (1954 to 1989)
○ Dictator Alfredo Stroessner, backed by US
Operation Condor Consequences

● Fear & silence

● Destabilization & disruption
● Strained international relations

Accountability?

● Truth commissions
● Extraditions
The End of the Cold War
● Gorbachev adopted two important reforms in 1986
that led to the end of the Cold War:
○ Glasnost (‘openness’)
○ Perestroika (‘restructuring’)
● In 1990, the Baltic republics declared their
independence from the USSR
● End of 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist,
replaced with fifteen new, independent nations
& after?

Buildings and vehicles destroyed in Grbavica, a suburb of Sarajevo, The Rwandan refugee camp in Benako, Tanzania, in 1994
Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992–95)
Reading #7: Brown, Kate. Plutopia: Nuclear
Families, Atomic Cities, and the Soviet and
American Plutonium Disasters

1. How is Manhattan Project symbolic of the American imperial

mission?
2. What was life at Hanford Camp, like?
3. How was the “new atomic city,” built for DuPont and Corps
employees different from Hanford Camp?