COLD WAR. A CURRENT ISSUE? A BRIEF ESSAY.

COLD WAR. A CURRENT ISSUE? A BREIF ESSAY. Cold War is the term that was coined to describe the relationship between the USA and the USSR since the end of the World War II until 1991. From the point of view of the historians and the political scientists this clash among the two strongest ideologies of the twentieth century was finished with the break up of the Soviet Union system or, at least, with the collapse of the Berlin wall. However, especially if we examine the latest international events, we can think that we are in front of a new phase of the Cold War; but the complexity of the international relations require us to investigate the metter. Can we compare the Cold War with the current situation that some journalist defines as a New Cold War? Are the scenarios in someway the same, or the differences are more then we can think? And, can we imagine how this new confrontation will end? The purpose of this my essay is, also by a survey on the main historical events, try to anwser briefly these questions and interpreting the present international political picture. The term Cold War first appeared in October 1945 on the Tribune, a british newspaper, by George Orwell who understood the danger represented by the terrifying power of the atomic bomb; the term really took off in the same year with the pubblication of journalist Walter Lippmann' s book The Cold War. But the very first start of way to define the east – west struggle for the primacy was a Winston Churchill’s speech held at Westminster’s College on Fulton in 1946; with the definition of “iron curtain” he clearly demonstrated the finish of the old world and the start of a new era characterized by the atom, sing of progress but, unfortunatly, element of risk in a so hardly divided world. Regarding the more important events we can say, first of all, that the Cold War was not a really “hot” war (at least between the two superpower) but a long period of tension and competition; it really started with the division of the Germany (accused of being responsable for the war) into 4 sections controlled by Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union and the United States. What marked the start of the Cold War was

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that there wasn’t an agreement on unifying Germany. The Allies were angry due to the free election promises given by Stalin at the Yalta Conference. The developed a foreign policy of containment to keep communism in the areas where it already was. In 1947, the Truman Doctrine was issued: it stated that America would help any non-communist country to resist communism. The United States also gave large amounts of money to help aid the non-commuist countries; this was known as the Marshall Plan. The Western Allies unified West Germany and the USSR reacted by putting a blockade on Berlin. The people in Berlin were starving from the lack of food. The United States arranged that all food and other items be airlifted to West Berlin; this is what is known as the Berlin Airlift. In 1946, Mao Zedong, a Communist leader, was in war with Jiang Jieshi, a nationalist leader. The civil war in China lasted until 1949 and the communists came out victorious with the new powr added to the Cold War. Another critical situation in the clash between the two blocks was in 1962, when Cuba was convinced that the USA was planning to attack them and asked the Soviet Union for help. The USSR sent Cuba materials to build missiles and launch sites. When President Kennedy realized that Cuba could launch missiles into America, he demanded that the USSR remove its weapons and troops. The Americans formed a naval blockade as the world stood nervously on the edge of a nuclear war. The USSR removed its weapons despite protests from Cuban leader Fidel Castro and the two superpowers tried to take a few steps toward a most conciliatory policy. Cold War tensions increased in the early 1980's. The renewed friction resulted chiefly from the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and from continued American fear of Soviet and Cuban influence in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Central America. United States President Ronald Reagan and his administration adopted a policy they called linkage, tying any U.S. arms agreement to consideration of Soviet expansion. Meanwhile, the growing military power of the Soviet Union led the United States to increase its defense budget. Many observers thought the U.S. defense build-up would lead to a more dangerous nuclear arms race. But events in the late 1980's led to a sharp reduction in U.S.- Soviet tensions when in 1987, Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail

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Gorbachev signed a treaty to eliminate many of the ground-launched, nuclear missiles of both nations. The treaty went into effect in 1988. In 1988 and 1989, the U.S.S.R. withdrew its troops from Afghanistan. Also in the late 1980's, the Soviet Union began to reduce its conventional military forces in Eastern Europe. In the U.S.S.R., Gorbachev worked for a more decentralized economic system and allowed more democracy and freedom of expression. He also encouraged similar actions in Eastern Europe. Beginning in 1989, Communist rule came to an end in a number of Eastern European countries, including Poland, Hungary, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia. In addition, East Germany began to allow its people to pass freely to West Berlin through the Berlin Wall, and the East Germans soon began to tear the wall down. Germany was reunified in 1990, when East Germany united with West Germany. In 1991, the Soviet Communist Party lost control of the Soviet government; later that year, the Soviet Union was dissolved, and the republics that made up the nation became independent states. Russia was by far the largest of these states. In 1992, Russian President Boris Yeltsin and U.S. President George H. W. Bush formally declared that their countries did not regard each other as potential enemies. These events marked the end of the Cold War. From the geolpolitical point of view the end of teh Cold War, so, effected very big changes in the world political balance system; the USA remained the only superpower, with the biggest economy and the biggest military force, but the disgregation of the USSR in many indipendent republics with unstable governments and the end of the pressure on some neighbouring countries that encouraged the expectation the peolple now free, contribute to the instability situation. With regard to the subject of a new Cold War, I want clearly say that I think this is not possible; that kind of situation was a unique period in the international political system, with an high level of control and balance. The disgregation of that system has broken this balance definitively. The second half of the twentieth century was, therefore, marked by the strife between two ideological, economical, social and political systems represented by the USA, the USSR and the respective allies. Nowadays the global scenario is

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instead very different, or rather the scenarios because of the fragmentation of the political international system after the end of the Cold War and the pressure of the two blocs. So today we are in front of new and often hardly make out situation as the arab springs (in some cases result in a terribile civil war), or a hard instability in the middle East with the conflict between Israel and Palestine and the come out of the terroristic extremism anti Western countries. The american seeming succes in the Cold War had let imagine a USA supremacy as the only worldwide superpower; however a decade after 1991 the international picture has seen emerge new economical powers as India and China, and the rebirth of Russia as stategical country above all in East Europe. The United States has strongly condemned the Russian military invasion of Crimea and Russia’s ongoing efforts to destabilize eastern Ukraine. On March 3, President Obama said “the world is largely united in recognizing that the steps Russia has taken are a violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty, Ukraine’s territorial integrity; that they’re a violation of international law ... ” President Obama acknowledged Russian ties to Ukraine, adding that “all of those interests I think can be recognized. But what cannot be done is for Russia, with impunity, to put its soldiers on the ground and violate basic principles that are recognized around the world. President Obama has warned that there will be costs for Russia if it does not withdraw its troops from Ukraine. The United States has suspended some bilateral cooperation with Russia. On April 2, the Administration announced that it was suspending several projects planned under the aegis of the U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission as well as some law enforcement cooperation activities and planned to use that funding for aid to Ukraine. The United States has also placed additional restrictions on defense-related exports to Russia. As I said, this situation may seem a tipical question of the Cold War, but as I have also underlined the global scenrio is very different and the strategical issues are now mainly in relation with the energy supplying. So, the Cold war it’s over or not? Recently the USA tested a hypersonic prototype missile in its bid to develop a weapon capable of reaching any target in

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the world in an hour. How will China and Russia respond?All the initiatives are cloaked in secrecy, with little public scrutiny of the programme in the USA, and no scrutiny at all in Russia or China. Even more worrying is the fact that experts say the hypersonic weapons could be confused for a nuclear attack, sparking a nuclear war. Currently, the Advanced Hypersonic Weapons system is being tested on ballistic missiles, which can also carry nuclear war heads. The way they are launched also looks similar to the way nuclear warheads are launched – but once they leave the atmosphere, they quickly re-enter to glide along 60 miles above the ground, rather than continuing above the atmosphere. The initial similarities, however, could be enough to frighten countries into retaliating. And even if this never happens, the prospect of the new weapons is already heating up the debate around nuclear weapons. Foreign Policy magazine reports that the anxieties around the USA's new conventional weapons have led to internal discussions in China over whether it should abandon its policy not to use nuclear weapons first. And Russia has said to be no longer interested in reducing its nuclear capabilities for the same reason. To predict the historical facts is oviously very difficult, but what we can say is that the Cold War has finished in a relatively peaceful way, without the so fered nucler conflict. By the last 25 years the global economic interconnecctions seemed the solutione against the danger of a new great war between the great powers. The new current warrying events make me think that the risk of an high level clash is yet, unforunatly, not impossible. The hope is that this “New Cold War” can finish as the first. The international geopolitical issues are then, currently, very intricate; the long historical period started with the second post war, was shaped by the effects of the Cold War that, for the peolple, meant above all the fear of the nuclear war. The last 25 years have given us the hope of the end of the wars between the advanced countries and between East and West countries; the hope of a new era of peace. The hard contention between Usa, UE and Russia on the Ukrainan question bring us back old fears even if , as we said, we can’t compare the situation of 1945 with the current circumstances. In my opinion one of the most important think we need

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is a strogest union by the Countries of the Europian Union, escpecially for the issues of foreing policy in order to mediate between the imperial demand of the USA and the Russia and China. However I will finish this work with a quotation of a recent statement of the President Barack Obama reported by The Guardian: “Since the second world war, we have got used to the idea that big war is a thing of the past. But no more. This is the third world war. And this is the time we are on its fringes”.

BIBLIOGRAFY ENNIO DI NOLFO, Il disordine internazionale. Lotte per la supremazia dopo la Guerra fredda, Bruno Mondadori, Milano, 2012. WILLIAM R. KEYLOR, The Twenttieth-Century Word and Beyond, New York – Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011. JOHN L. HARPER, La Guerra Fredda. Storia di un mondo in bilico, il Mulino, Bologna 2013. FEDERICO ROMERO, Storia della guerra fredda. L’ultimo conflitto per l’Europa, Einaudi, Torino, 2009. TONY JUDT, Postwar. A History of Europe since 1945, Vintage, London, 2005. STEVEN WOEHREL, Ukraine: Current Issues and U.S. Policy, Congressional Reserch Service, Washington, July 8, 2014.

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