Cold War: US and USSR Post-WWII Global Politics - Essay Sample

Introduction

The term "Cold War" is used to refer to the competition for influence in international politics between the United States and the Soviet Union after World War Two (WWII). This competition was unavoidable because of the foreign relations (foreign policy) strategies adopted by both the US and USSR post-1945. The term 'foreign relations' is used to describe a set of principles and state practices that regulate inter-governmental relationships in global politics. The scope of foreign policy, therefore, encompasses social, economic, political, and military relationships between states.

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Lenin's ultimate hope was that supporting the decolonization movement would lead to the collapse of the global capitalist system. However, Lenin did not possess the power to use Soviet foreign policy as a tool to liberate colonized people and create new Communist allies in the new states that would emerge in a post-colonial international system. After WWII, the USSR could make operational Lenin's ideas on using Soviet foreign policy as a tool to secure the Communist revolution of the international capitalist system by supporting decolonization in Asia and Africa. Under Khrushchev, Moscow assumed that since the global south was rapidly getting decolonized, the global communist agenda would succeed without entering into open conflict with the West. Hence under the "peaceful coexistence," foreign policy strategy, the USSR used development aid to win international communist allies in the Third World.

Under Brezhnev, the USSR abandoned the peaceful co-existence approach in its foreign policy since (1) it was too expensive, (2) new leaders in the Third World were not committed Communists in lockstep with Moscow, and (3) the US was not restraining itself from using covert assistance to anti-communist movements in the Third World. Soviet foreign policy under Brezhnev became militaristic. Moscow entered into an arms race with the US. USSR paused this arms race for a short period during the era of detente with the US under the Nixon administration. However, the USSR kept pushing for an advantage in the Third World at the expense of American interests through covert military and financial aid to pro-Communist revolutionary movements.

Soviet foreign policy changed under Gorbachev. Moscow abandoned its historic belief cultivated by Stalin and Brezhnev that the interests of the USSR could only be protected by having a superior military compared to the US. Instead, Soviet foreign policy changed to the belief that "Soviet security could be achieved only in cooperation with others."By pushing the view of international relations as the mere extension of class struggle "to the margins of Soviet foreign policy," the scene was set for the end of the Cold War.

When it became clear to the Truman administration, after the Yalta Conference, that Stalin wanted to spread Communism beyond its borders, the US developed the foreign policy strategy of containment. The American foreign policy theory of containment proposed that : (1) to stop the Soviet Union from expanding its geographic sphere of influence, the US must surround the borders of the USSR with allies;(2) in the hope that once they succeed in halting the expansion of Soviet influence; (3) the Kremlin's recognition of its containment would make it changes its ideology of wanting to destroy global capitalism; (4) or they would be forced to use vast amounts of foreign aid in their attempt to export socialism overseas that would eventually lead to the economic collapse of the USSR ; (5) Since violence could develop during this last phase of the containment, the US and her allies had to be ready for war following a Soviet collapse.

During the Eisenhower presidency, American foreign policy expanded the scope of the containment strategy to include the use the nuclear deterrent as a foreign policy tool in preventing the spread of Communism. By the time President Kennedy came to power, the process of decolonization was happening. He realigned American foreign policy to stop the spread of Communism in the Third World. For instance, in 1961, President Kennedy sent military advisers to help South Vietnam defeat the communist guerrillas. Later, US troops were engaged in a proxy war with the Viet Cong and North Vietnam armies that were getting training as well as military aid from the USSRUnder Nixon, American foreign policy changed because of the success of the Anti-War movement. American foreign policy became rooted in realism when Nixon won the Whitehouse. The US used the tactic of detente in its dealings with the USSR and reproachment when dealing with China. As such, the US abandoned the idealism of demanding the USSR and her allies to stop human rights violations. President Carter returned American foreign policy to the norm of concern for human rights in the USSR and her Communist /Socialist allies.

President Regan saw the Cold War as a winner take all contest for global power. America returned to the use of containment as the main strategy to defeat the USSR in global politics. The Regan administration resumed the nuclear arms race with the USSR and encircled the Soviet Union with American military bases. America was also more willing to not prioritize human rights to build a broad coalition against the USSR. For example, relying on notions of pragmatic cooperation, the US made South Africa an ally against the spread of communism in the region while quietly persuading them to institute democratic reforms that would start the process of ending Apartheid.

The competition for influence in Africa after President Regan made returned American foreign policy to containment shows how the collapse of the USSR was precipitated by being forced to spend vast amounts of money break America's encirclement strategy. The Horn of Africa region was geopolitically important to both the Soviets and America. For the USSR, a naval presence in the Horn of Africa not only break its encirclement but it would also threaten American strategic interest by controlling vital shipping lanes for petroleum destined for America from the Middle East. For America, the USSR having naval ports in the region was a threat to its energy security.

The Somali government had the ambition of a unitary ethnostate that could only be secured by the military conquest of Somali enclaves in Kenya and Ethiopia. The Ethiopians were fighting secessionists in Eritrea and the Ogden. These two nations saw the contest for power between the USSR and the US to get military assistance. Ethiopia had been a western ally until a military coup took power and was denied American foreign aid. The Soviet Union stepped in to fill the vacuum with military and economic development assistance. The Soviet Union also facilitated the entry of Cuban military advisors to train Ethiopian civilians to get mobilized to fight Eritreans in the north and the Ogden Somalis in the southeast.

By 1972, Soviet military aid to Somalia had grown to about $50 million and practically all of the Somali military hardware was of Soviet manufacture. Also, the Soviets built advanced communications and naval facilities so that they could counter American Naval presence on the Kenyan coast. However, Soviet refusal to back Somalia's plans to wage war with Kenya and Ethiopia became a reason for Mogadishu's diplomatic disengagement with the Kremlin. Having done so, Mogadishu sought reproachment with Washington. The US was eager to find another ally in the area regime change in Ethiopia that came with the loss of their military surveillance facilities. An agreement was reached allowing American warships access to the Soviet-built naval facilities. In exchange, Somalia got millions of dollars in economic development and military assistance.

The resumed armed race and costly efforts of circumventing efforts to encircle the USSR under President Regan's led to the economic collapse of the Soviet Union just like President Truman had predicted. This economic collapse brought the Cold War to an end.

Bibliography

Gardner, Sarah E. & Catherine A. Jones. The American Promise: a History of the United States. Boston: Bedford-St. Martins, 2009.

Kelly, Phil. Classical geopolitics: A new analytical model. San Francisco: Stanford University Press, 2016.

Hastedt, Glenn P. American Foreign Policy: Past, Present, and Future. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017.

Brown, Seyom. Faces of power: constancy and change in United States foreign policy from Truman to Obama. Washington: Columbia University Press, 2015.

Black, Jeremy.Geopolitics and the quest for power. Bloomington: Indiana University Press,2016.