June 2005

Q3. What or who was responsible for the globalisation of cold war?

The prime suspects for the globalisation of cold war will be the leaders of the
superpowers, the USA and the USSR. The USA's responsibility might be
evident in NSC-68, 1950, which argued the need to counter Soviet 'design for
world domination'. U.S. officials quickly moved to escalate and expand "containment."
In this secret 1950 document, NSC-68, they proposed to strengthen their alliance
systems, quadruple defense spending, and embark on an elaborate propaganda
campaign to convince the U.S. public to fight this costly cold war. Truman ordered the
development of a hydrogen bomb. In early 1950, the U.S. took its first efforts to oppose
communist forces in Vietnam; planned to form a West German army, and prepared
proposals for a peace treaty with Japan that would guarantee long-term U.S. military
bases there.

With the North Korean invasion of South Korea ocurring two months later,
Truman ordered massive expansion of US military power. This was another
step by the US towards the globalisation of cold war. In June 1950, KIM II Sung's
North Korean army invaded South Korea. Fearing that communist Korea under a Kim Il
Sung dictatorship could threaten Japan and foster other communist movements in Asia,
Truman committed U.S. forces and obtained help from the UN to counter the North
Korean invasion. Even before then, in 1949, the USA was intervening in south east asia
to contain the spread of communism in states such as Malaya and Indonesia.

In the 1950s, the USA used the CIA to overthrow nationalist

regimes in Iran (1953) and Guatemala (1954) while Eisenhower and Dulles intervened in
the settlement of Vietnam and, after the Suez crisis, in the Middle East. This how the
USA was responsible for the globalisation of the cold war.

The USSR’s responsibility is harder to pinpoint, in part because the

documentation is
incomplete. Stalin was cautious, as evidence - his reluctance to support North
Korea’s attack on South Korea. Some observers believed that the Japanese treaty
led Stalin to approve a plan to invade U.S.supported South Korea. A cease-fire was
approved in Korea in July 1953 after the death of Stalin.

Khrushchev, the next Soviet leader, was more reckless but still gained little support from
Third World Countries. Cuba under Castro in 1961 was the first country to welcome
soviet support, thus, leading to Cuban Missile crisis. In 1962, the Soviet Union was
desperately behind the United States in the arms race. Soviet missiles were only
powerful enough to be launched against Europe but U.S. missiles were capable of
striking the entire Soviet Union. In late April 1962, Khrushchev conceived the idea of
placing intermediate-range missiles in Cuba. A deployment in Cuba would double the
Soviet strategic arsenal and provide a deterrent to a potential U.S. attack against the
Soviet Union. The Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest the world ever came to nuclear
war. Luckily, thanks to the bravery of two men, John F. Kennedy and Khrushchev war
was averted.

From the mid 1950s, and especially after 1962, the Soviet navy was rapidly
expanded in order to provide the USSR with a global reach it had hitherto
lacked.

Finally, the regional crises in many parts of the globe helped globalise the
Cold War but
only in that the USA, in particular, obsessed with the Communist threat, felt
bound to
intervene, e.g. Korea and Vietnam mentioned above.