McKibben, David A.

International Politics, ODU

07 Dec 2015

What Started the Cold War?

The Cold War had a profound effect on American policy and international politics, which
still holds true today. There are many reasons as to what may have started the Cold war as it
existed between the United States of America and Russia; however, there were major events that
contributed the bulk of the impetus behind the stalemate between the two superpowers for nearly
fifty years. The origins of the Cold War can be traced all the way back to the failed League of
Nations in the post-World War I atmosphere. The League of Nations lack of capability to
martially enforce the restructuring of Europe after the war, as well as its cold shoulder to the
disheveled state of Eastern Europe was the ultimate catalyst to the start of the Cold War.
The League of Nations was primarily an intergovernmental organization composed of the
Allied powers after World War I, founded January 10, 1920 (Wikipedia 2015). The main
objective behind the League was to restructure Europe after World War I in an attempt to create a
more stable world climate. Ideals such as cooperation among the world powers when it came to
economics and territorial disputes were among the foremost concern of the League. The League
of Nations ultimately proved to be unsuccessful in its attempt to create a more stable political
climate, as many of the partnering nations were hesitant to comply with the regulations and
sanctions set forth by the League. One of the proprietors of this failed collaborative was

Woodrow Wilson, who ultimately faced opposition to joining the League of Nations, as it was
thought that it was not well suited for United States politics at the time (Ball 1998).
Leading into World War II, in addition to the lack of ability to enforce the new world
order as set forth by the Great powers, there existed a major concern for the rest of the world as
Bolshevism began to take a stronger hold in the still destabilized Europe. Russia was a huge land
mass that covered the majority of the post-war zone in Europe. The threat of communist rule
from a country that was too hard to invade shared its border with many of the countries that had
fallen, due to the lack of a stable government system. Russia saw this as an advantage and
instead of assisting the rest of the major powers, which included Great Britain, the United States,
and France, Russia began to further expand its borders. The United States saw this as not only a
threat, but an attempt to topple the United States as a world power. Russia annexed various
countries to include Eastern Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Finland, and Romania. Russia
also saw an advantage in post-World War II Germany, as much of the population was starving
and without government. Communism began to take a strong foothold in Europe as Russia began
to capture a large portion of Germanys industrial technology. Since Russia already had a large
military presence in Germany during the height of World War II, much of the fallen factories and
German engineering was ripe for the picking and easy for Russia to obtain since their role and
presence in Germany and Eastern Europe predated the end of World War II by nearly five years
(Winkler 2011, 2000).
The population of Germany was quite vulnerable after World War II due to three main
contributing factors. The main source of Germanys economy was completely destroyed during
the war. Production and industry were redirected prior to the start of the war, and continually
throughout in order to facilitate Nazi Germanys war machine. The majority of the industries,

such as steel and chemical fabrication had such a presence in the war effort that once Germany
had been defeated, these industries almost completely bottomed out. The increased demand for
goods and lack of income among the German population drastically drove up the price of
necessities and poverty among the natives ran rampant throughout the country, making Germany
an easy target for the expansion of the Russian border.
The United States attempted to curb this rapid expansion by drafting the idea of the
Truman Doctrine, was a comprehensive plan to rehabilitate Europe and contain imperialism and
Russian rule. Part of this doctrine was known as the Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan offered
assistance and government aid to all European countries affected by the aftermath of the war.
Any country willing to participate would receive this aid, however, in Joseph Stalins interest of
toppling capitalism it presented itself as an offensive effort to keep Russia out of power. To keep
this from coming to fruition in Eastern Europe, Stalin staged a coup detat of Czechoslovakia
(Harper 2011). This caused fear of another war among the world powers.
Following the death of Stalin, tensions specifically between the United States and the
Soviet Union were made worse by the idea of massive retaliation. The main tactic employed by
both countries was each increasing the size of their nuclear arsenals. The United States increased
the size of their arsenal as a power play against the Russians, as this was cheaper than engaging
in an all-out war. Between the years of 1953-1962, the US war budget was approximately $36
billion, which was used to increase the American warhead stockpile from one-thousand to
eighteen-thousand warheads over an eight year time span. At this point, the United States was
producing one warhead per day, and by 1963 had completed development of a new delivery
system: the B-52 bomber. By the end of 1963, the United States warhead stockpile exceeded
twenty-seven thousand bombs and nuclear warheads. The US took it one step further by

attempting to prove its capabilities to Russia by launching fifteen intermediate range ballistic
missiles at Turkey, leaving Moscow only sixteen minutes away from the site of the detonation.
This constant vying for power between the two countries lead to much economic strife
among the population of Easter Europe for over fifty years. Although the League of Nations
lacked a military force, much of this costly turmoil and elevated state of tensions between the
United States and Russia could have been prevented by both countries being willing to
participate in this new idea of government equally.

Bibliography
Ball, S J. 1998. "The Cold War: an International History, 1947-1991." New York: Arnold.
Craig, Campbell, and Sergey Radchenko. 2008. "The atomic bomb and the origins of the Cold
War." Yale University.
Gray, William Glenn. 2003. "Germany's cold war: the global campaign to isolate East Germany,
1949-1969." The University of North Carolina Press.
Harper, John Lamberton. 2011. "The Cold War: Oxford Histories." New York: Oxford University
Press.
Jacobs, Seth. 2006. "Cold war mandarin: Ngo Dinh Diem and the origins of America's war in
Vietnam, 1950-1963." Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Wikipedia. 2015. League of Nations. November 15. Accessed November 17, 2015.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Nations.
Winkler, Allan M. 2011, 2000. "The Cold War: a history in documents, 2nd ed." New York:
Oxford University Press.