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CC-USA-vs-USSR-Fight-The-Cold-War-CCWH-39
United States History I ( HIST 1301)
Dallas College
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USA vs USSR Fight! The Cold War: Crash
Course World History
John Green claims that the Cold War was a clash of civilizations. As the
two superpowers sought to expand their control around the world, they
confronted each other over the shape of the world order. States have been
fighting each other for millennia, but in this conflict, the two sides had
nuclear weapons, which meant that, for the first time in history, a human
war could lead to the end of the human species. The Cold War started as
World War II was ending, and it didn’t end until the 1990s.
USA vs USSR Fight! The Cold War: Crash Course World History #
Timing and description Text
00:
Past John Green
Present John Green
Past John Green
Present John Green
Past John Green
CCWH theme music plays
Hi, I’m John Green, this is Crash Course World History, 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. When I was a kid, they made us practice hiding under our desks in the event of a nuclear attack, because, you know, school desks are super-good at repelling radiation.
Mr. Green, Mr. Green! 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?
And I was, like, “Whoa, dude, calm down. You’re in a room full of third-graders.”
And then for months afterward, on the playground, we’d play Reagan-Gorbachev and spit in each other’s faces? Those were the days. Sometimes I forget that you’re me, Me from the Past.
Yeah, it’s just really nice to talk to you and feel like you’re lis...
You’re boring—cue the intro.
00:
Colorized image of Karl Marx; video footage of American rebuilding efforts in Japan and Europe
So the Cold War was a rivalry between the USSR and the U.S. that played out globally. 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. 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. And the Soviets saw American rebuilding efforts in Europe and Japan as the U. trying to expand its markets, which, by the way, is exactly what we were doing. So the U. feared that the USSR wanted to destroy democratic and capitalist institutions, and the Soviets feared that the U. wanted to use its money and power to dominate Europe and eventually destroy the Soviet system. And both parties were right to be worried. It’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you.
01:
Video footage shows a nuclear explosion
Visual timeline: a very small sliver represents the amount of time we have had the technology to end the human race. Image of a map shows the expanse that was the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence
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. That was new for world history, and it’s worth remembering: It’s still new. 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.
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.
USA vs USSR Fight! The Cold War: Crash Course World History #
Timing and description Text
fixed thanks to the Marshall Plan; a European is buried in a pile of donuts
Americans and Soviets working to build their nuclear weapons; a soviet spy repels down
Capitalism’s cheap food and plentiful stuff, it was hoped, would stop the spread of communism. The U. also tried to slow the spread of communism by founding NATO and with C.I. 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.
Probably the most important part of the Cold War that people just don’t remember these days is the nuclear arms race. Both sides developed nuclear arsenals, the Soviets initially with the help of spies who stole American secrets. Eventually, the nuclear arsenals were so big that the U. and USSR agreed on a strategy appropriately called MAD, which stood for “mutually assured destruction.”
05:
A photo of an enormous nuclear weapon being driven on a truck; Text bubble: “Able Archer 83 was a nuclear strike drill that realistically simulated the steps leading to a US first strike nuclear attack. It was so real, the Soviets totally bought it and almost launched their missiles.” Scenes of war in Korea and Vietnam
Drawing of the Mongols with a speech bubble “we’re the exception!”; video of Mongols riding on horseback, dragging bodies behind them
Thanks, Thought Bubble, and yes, nuclear weapons were, and are, capable of destroying humanity many times over. 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! But even though mutually assured destruction prevented direct conflict, there was plenty of hot war in the Cold War.
The Korean War saw lots of fighting between communists and capitalists, as did the Vietnam War. 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. had helped remake into a vibrant capitalist ally. So the U. got bogged down in one of its longest wars, while the Soviets assisted the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong. But then we paid them back by supporting the anti-communist mujahideen after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Of course, as we now know, nobody conquers Afghanistan. Unless you are the Mongols.
06:
Photo montage of American officials in conversation with Latin American government leaders
So after ten disastrous years, the Soviets finally abandoned Afghanistan. Some of those mujahideen later became members of the Taliban, though, so it’s difficult to say that anyone won that war. But it wasn’t just Asia: in Nicaragua, the U. supported rebels to overthrow the leftist government; in El Salvador, the U. bolstered authoritarian regimes that were threatened by left-wing guerrillas. 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.
Frankly, all our attempts to stabilize governments in Latin America led to some very unstable Latin American governments, and quite a lot of violence. And then there were the lukewarm conflicts, like the Suez Canal Crisis where British and French paratroopers were sent in to try to stop Egypt from nationalizing the Suez Canal.
USA vs USSR Fight! The Cold War: Crash Course World History #
Timing and description Text
Or all the American covert operations to keep various countries from “falling” to communism. These included the famous C.I.-engineered coup to overthrow Iran’s democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh after his government attempted to nationalize Iran’s oil industry, and the C.I. helping Chile’s General Augusto Pinochet overthrow democratically elected Marxist president Salvador Allende in 1973.
07:
Video footage of a tank driving through a city; a tank destroys a building Czechoslovakia
Scrolling text
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.
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. And in fact, almost every part of the globe was involved in some way, with the planet being divided into three “worlds.”
The First World was the U., Western Europe, and any place that embraced capitalism and a more or less democratic form of government. The Second World was the Soviet Union and its satellites, mostly the Warsaw Pact nations, China, and Cuba. The Third World was everyone else, and we don’t use this term anymore because it lumps together a hugely diverse range of countries. 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. nor the Soviets wanted any of these countries to remain neutral. Every nation was supposed to pick sides, either capitalist or communist, and while it seems like an easy choice now, in the ‘50s and ‘60s, it wasn’t nearly so clear. I mean, for a little while, it seemed like the Soviets might come out ahead, at least in the Third World.
08:
White nationalists protest in the US; Photos of the first satellite, man, and dog who went to space Milton Friedman t-shirt says: “Hasta el libre Mercado siempre”; Keynes shirt says: “Hasta la deficit de gasto siempre”
For a while, capitalism, and especially the United States, seemed to lose some of its luster. The U. propped up dictatorships, had a poor civil rights record, we sucked at women’s gymnastics. Plus, the Soviets were the first to put a satellite, a man, and a dog into space. Plus, Marxists just seemed cooler, which is why you never see Milton Friedman T-shirts. Until now, available at dftba. I like that, Stan, but I’m more of a centrist. Can I get a Keynes shirt? Yes, that—now that’s hot.
But Soviet socialism did not finally prove to be a viable alternative to industrial capitalism. 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. 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 liked suffering the humiliation of driving a Yugo.
09:25 But why the Cold War ended when it did is one of the most interesting questions
of the 20th century. It probably wasn’t Ronald Reagan bankrupting the Soviets, despite what some politicians believe. The USSR had more satellite states that it needed to spend more to prop up than the U. had to invest in its allies. And the Soviet system could never keep up with economic growth in the West.
CC-USA-vs-USSR-Fight-The-Cold-War-CCWH-39
Course: United States History I ( HIST 1301)
University: Dallas College
