(2) COLD WAR – LONG WAR 1914-1991

 

Well this one’s also obvious, isn’t it?

Perhaps not as obvious as the First World War but close to it as the Cold War seamlessly evolved from, and in the immediate aftermath of, the Second World War – indeed perhaps inevitably, as in the colorful phrase (and essay title) of historian Joseph Lieberman comparing the Cold War combatants to “the scorpion and the tarantula in the bottle”.

I’m not sure whom Lieberman intended to be the scorpion or the tarantula – but the bottle was the Second World War and its aftermath in the opposing occupations of Europe by the United States and the Soviet Union. Sometimes you drink the bottle and sometimes the bottle drinks you…

Other commentators, commencing with Philip Bobbitt in The Shield of Achilles, have even combined the world wars and cold war into a single continuity, the so-called Long War of the twentieth century or 1914-1991.

On the other hand, the Second World War also cut across the continuity of the Cold War – a temporary interbellum or suspension of hostilities between the Western powers and the Soviet Union, as an alliance against Germany and the other Axis powers, albeit one that resembled a marriage of convenience.

Or rather, a shotgun marriage, one that was thrust upon them. Neither Cold War antagonist chose its involvement in the Second World War – or at least the manner or timing of that involvement, as both were attacked first (and in the case of the United States, had war declared on it by Germany).

Of course, the hostilities began to bubble back to the surface as Allied and Soviet defeat of Germany loomed ever larger, becoming more overt when there was no longer the common enemy of Germany or Japan to unite them.

However, the continuity with the Second World War is inescapable. While the Cold War may have originated from opposition to the Soviet Union from 1917 onwards, it took its particular shape from the Second World War, such that it is difficult to imagine otherwise.

The Cold War antagonists of the United States and the Soviet Union were effectively the two last men standing, with the other great powers defeated or exhausted from the war – although that had essentially been the reality of power in the world from 1917 onwards, albeit masked by their isolationism, self-imposed or otherwise.

And the battle lines or fronts were effectively drawn by the territory each occupied or controlled after the war.

The western front of the Cold War – Europe – was effectively drawn by the Soviet occupation of eastern Europe – such that it was the immediate source of conflict in the Cold War, infamously as the Iron Curtain. Even the exceptions to the rule of Soviet occupation, Austria and Finland – exceptional in that they avoided regimes imposed on them by the Soviets – had neutrality imposed upon them instead. (Yugoslavia was arguably another exception, but primarily because it had largely liberated itself outside of Soviet occupation and did not directly border the Soviet Union itself).

Similarly to the Western Front of the First World War, it was largely a static front of siege or stalemate – static not by millions killed in trench warfare but by the prospect of millions dead in nuclear war (or renewal of war on the scale of the Second World War), as well as the resources spent on opposing armed camps.

The eastern front of the Cold War – Asia – was far more volatile, having been effectively drawn by the Soviet occupation of Manchuria and Korea – firstly with the communist victory in the Chinese civil war (which made the eastern front even more volatile) and secondly with subsequent wars with communist governments in Asia, particularly in Korea and Vietnam.

 

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD TIER)