(rt)iletta

the cold war makes me hot: hist396a midterm essay

In the event that either of you (rory or ryan) find these long essays really obnoxious,  I apologize.  I suppose that, in a way, I feel as though these dry, academic inquiries are the mainstays of my creative life at the moment and so I post them to share and to remember.

From 1946 to 1989, the United States consistently attempted to advance a global hegemonic position.  Official justification for the United States’ actions was that they were defensive in intent and benign in effect, responding to a real Soviet threat in order to ensure the nation’s security while at the same time exporting democratic values and institutions.  Aside from the official reasons and results given for US actions throughout the world, various criticisms have been advanced by scholars such as Christopher Layne, William I. Robinson, and James Petras and Steve Vieux, which question the motives and results of US policy during the Cold War.  These authors offer convincing evidence contrary to the official line explaining US policy, asserting that the US was acting offensively rather than defensively during the Cold War, using the Communist menace as an excuse for advancing US interests abroad, and that the end results of US Foreign policy were far from the ideal of increased democratic freedom. 

            The question of whether the US was responding to a real threat of Soviet military aggression or whether it exaggerated the threat in order to provide justification for its own goals has been a point of contention among scholars.  While the orthodox view blames Soviet aggression, two significant points counter the assertion that the Soviets were proactively pursuing world domination.  The first, pointed out by Layne, was that the US began planning a new world order based upon an open international system of trade, what is called the Open Door policy, with the US assuming the dominant position, before the Cold War.   As early as 1939, Secretary of State Cordell Hull held a cabinet meeting to investigate the problem of the reconstruction of Europe at the termination of the WWII, with an emphasis on procuring a world order favorable to US interests.  In 1944, the Breton Woods and Dumbarton Oaks conferences addressed the twin goals of economic predominance through US controlled international trade organizations (GATT) and military preponderance through regional alliances such as NATO.[1]

According to Layne, the US’s vision of a world governed by the laws of free trade appealed to post-war planners since it guaranteed access to raw materials and potential markets.  Wartime production and sales were responsible for finally ending the depression, which had dragged on for over a decade.  Certain US policy-makers such as Cordell Hull drew the conclusion that in order prevent a relapse, foreign markets were essential to ameliorate a glutted national market.[2]  The US was determined to advance its Open Door policy, and towards that end it formulated a number of measures that paved that way for US predominance.  In Europe, it subordinated former great powers such as Britain through acts such as Lend-Lease, which required that they relinquish the system of “imperial preference” within their colonies, and was instrumental in the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community, which integrated Europe economically, but not politically or militarily. The US also dominated the Bretton Woods conference, which laid the foundations for a US-controlled trade organization favoring American interests.[3]   At the same time, the US worked to suppress indigenous communist or nationalist rebellions throughout Europe, such as in Greece during the 1940’s, and the developing world, like in Nicaragua in the 1980’s, that might challenge US hegemony.[4]  For US policy-makers, it was crucial that markets did not fall into the hands of either a single hostile state such as the Soviet Union or a revived nationalistic Germany, or a bloc of hostile states under Moscow’s control, such as in Eastern Europe.[5]  As Layne argues, that prominent US officials had formulated an open international system under US leadership long before the Soviet Union had emerged as a clear adversary indicates that US cold war considerations were grafted to a preexisting Open Door policy.  However, Layne does not mention how, following the war, additional pressure from the military-industrial complex shaped American foreign policy by establishing powerful interest groups dependent upon military spending and which lobbied for military action for the sake of military action.  Or in other words, they lobbied for military action in order to keep their businesses relevant and profitable.  This last point does not contradict Layne’s argument, but only adds to it.

The military aspect of the US-dominated post-war world took shape in the organization of NATO, which aimed to circumscribe the role of any power center which might threaten US hegemony in Europe, whether Western European countries themselves or the Soviet Union.  As Petras-Vieux point out, NATO extended far beyond its stated defensive function.  NATO was the means by which the US would ensure its permanent interests in Europe.  Numerous statements from men such as Dean Acheson point out that the US was planning for NATO’s continued existence even in the event of the collapse of the Cold War.[6]  Events after the collapse of the bipolar world, such as NATO intervention in Yugoslavia in the early 1990’s, violently illustrated US attempts to keep NATO relevant in Europe.[7]  But during the Cold War, the notion of the Atlantic Community was crucial to US policy.  Attempts by France under Charles de Gaulle to form independent economic and military policies, including a nuclear weapons program, met with resistance by the US, who saw such attempts as threatening to its influence in Europe.[8]   In fact, the US saw itself struggling with “double containment,” responsible for curbing the reemergence of a nationalist Germany, or any power broker within Europe, and the Soviet Union.  The clear economic and military roles which the US foresaw itself fulfilling against both European nations and the Soviet Union demonstrate that the US had articulated goals that made the US-Soviet rivalry incidental, or even convenient.

Which calls forth the second point countering the assertion that the Soviet was pursuing global domination:  The US was the first to act aggressively in the majority of cases, with the Soviet Union taking the defensive stance.  In 1945, the US had the opportunity and the means to pursue its objectives, yet persuading a previously isolationist nation to engage heavily in foreign countries was easier by casting this engagement as necessary for national defense, when in actuality its actions were offensive in character.  The justification came in the form of the Soviet menace, the Communist cancer.  Early views of Communism portrayed all nations as subscribing to a monolithic form of Communism headed by the Soviet Union.  Many times, US policy-makers cast any nationalistic democratic movement which threatened to upset US predominance as a Soviet ploy for world domination, although they realized that the risk of Soviet invasion was miniscule.[9]  As Layne points out, however, in reality the Soviet Union was hardly in a position to pursue extra-regional domination, nor did it try exceptionally hard to do so.  Despite a strong military presence in Eastern Europe, the Soviets withdrew from Hungary and Czechoslovakia and allowed free elections in those countries.  During the civil war in Greece following WWII, they offered virtually no support to the communist faction, while the US, under the Truman Doctrine, sent aid to the opposing fascist faction.[10]  They offered multiple times to negotiate for the unification of Germany, with the stipulation that Germany remain neutral and not join NATO, but this proposal was rejected by the US.[11]  “Proxy wars” fought throughout the Cold War, such as in North Korea in 1950, Vietnam from the 1950’s to 1970’s, the Congo in 1960, and Nicaragua throughout the 1980’s almost invariably saw a greater commitment on the part of the US towards securing a friendly regime than the Soviet Union towards spreading communism.  These facts lead many, including Layne, to see the Soviet position as primarily defensive.  Violent crackdown and suppression in Rumania and Bulgaria were responses to the aggressive US policy of “roll-back.”  The Berlin Wall was erected after the US had refused to consider German neutrality.  Soviet missiles were sent to Cuba after numerous attempts to undermine the revolution and assassinate its leaders.  In many instances, the US was the first aggressor.  By representing any movements in foreign countries as part of a grand Soviet strategy of world domination, the US found justification for pursuing its own hegemonic ambitions.

The results of US foreign policy never quite aligned with the stated intention of advancing democratic ideals and institutions against the tyranny of communism.  As noted, any movement that threatened US permanent goals after WWII, such as that of the Open Door, was portrayed as “communist’ in order to justify its suppression and removal.  Granted, the tactics pursued by the US did change from an unsavory support of dictatorial regimes to support of “democratically” elected leaders, but the desired outcome remained the same:  protecting US permanent interests.  As Robinson ably argues using extensive documentation in support, the US intervened in Nicaragua when the socialist democratic FSLN party, or Sandinistas, gained traction against the US-sponsored Somoza dynasty.  When they were freely and fairly elected in 1984 with vast popular support, the US at first implemented military measures by essentially creating and illegally funding the extremely violent Contra army, but then switched its focus to “democracy promotion.”[12] This was a policy of creating and controlling political movements at every level of society in order to ensure the election of US-friendly factions.  It aimed to divide the revolutionary government and cultivate popular discontent with it so that an acceptable regime could again hold power.  The US portrayed the Sandinistas as radical communists in order to justify its involvement in Nicaragua.  The National Endowment for Democracy, created in 1984, a supposedly non-partisan organization, funneled $16 million into Nicaragua between 1984 and 1992 to opposition parties, and made continued aid contingent upon their unification into a single party capable of harnessing all anti-FSLN forces.[13]  Washington also saw the need for a “civic opposition front,” and it worked through various organizations to organize anti-FSLN labor unions, women’s clubs, and youth groups.[14]  Strict economic sanctions, continual warfare, and massive anti-FSLN propaganda campaigns eventually wore out the population and led to the election of the opposition candidate.  In Nicaragua, as in countless other countries such as Guatamala, Chile, Argentina, South Vietnam, it is clear that the US was not interested in promoting democracy, but in protecting its own interests, even if that entailed supporting repressive regimes and/or causing massive loss of life. 

The orthodox view of the US during the Cold War of a defensive, democracy-exporting country is an insufficient interpretation of the facts.  As Layne has shown, the US would have attempted to gain access and dominate the world economically whether or not the Soviet Union would have emerged as the primary competitor.  The threat of the communism provided the justification for NATO in Europe and numerous military interventions under US auspices throughout the world.  Yet, as Petras-Vieux make clear, even after the threat was removed, the US continued to find reasons for NATO’s existence in order to maintain its influence in Europe.  Layne, Robinson, and Petras-Vieux all argue persuasively that the US was neither reluctant, nor benign, in its dealings with any entity threatening its grand strategy.

Works Cited

Layne, Christopher.  The Peace of Illusions:  American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present.  (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2006). 

James Petras and Steve Vieux, “Bosnia and the Revival of US Hegemony,” New Left Review, no. 218, 1998

[1] Christoper Layne.  The Peace of Illusions:  American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present.  (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006)  42

[2] Ibid,. 43

[3] Ibid., 48, 76

[4] Layne,  The Peace of Illusions:, 49.   James Petras and Steve Vieux.  “Bosnia and the Revival of US Hegemony,” New Left Review, no. 218, 1998.   3-4

[5] Layne,  The Peace of Illusions:, 82

[6] Ibid., 96

[7] Petras-Vieux, “Bosnia and the Revival of US Hegemony,” 7

[8] Layne, The Peace of Illusions, 98-99

[9] Ibid., 56

[10] Ibid., 53

[11] Ibid., 62

[12] Robinson, William I.  David and Goliath:  The U.S. war against  Nicaragua.   (New York:  Monthly Review Press, c1987)  202.               

[13]Ibid.,  222, 224

[14] Ibid.,  226-227