Cold War Consensus and Conflict
Explain containment, anticommunism, Korea, Vietnam, nuclear anxiety, domestic politics, and cultural change.
A lesson of AP United States History, in Periods 8-9: 1945-Present, about 10 minutes.
Cold War, Consensus, and Conflict (1945–1968)
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to explain the origins and key events of the Cold War, analyze the domestic political consequences of anti-communism, and evaluate how postwar affluence coexisted with social tensions.
Origins of the Cold War (1945–1950)
The U.S.-Soviet alliance dissolved rapidly after WWII, producing a global rivalry that would last 45 years.
Why the Cold War?
Ideological incompatibility: Liberal democracy vs. communist authoritarianism; capitalism vs. centralized command economy; each side saw the other as fundamentally threatening.
Power vacuum: WWII destroyed the old European powers; only the U.S. and USSR had the economic and military power to fill the vacuum — and they competed to do so.
Soviet expansion in Eastern Europe: By 1947, the USSR had installed communist governments in Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia. Churchill described this as an "Iron Curtain" dividing Europe.
Key Early Cold War Policies
Truman Doctrine (1947): U.S. will support "free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures" — prompted by communist insurgencies in Greece and Turkey. Committed the U.S. to global containment.
Marshall Plan (1947): $13 billion in economic aid to rebuild Western Europe; aimed to prevent economic desperation from making communist parties attractive. One of the most successful foreign policy programs in American history.
Containment (George Kennan): Strategy of firm resistance to Soviet expansion wherever it occurred; avoid direct war; let internal contradictions eventually destroy the Soviet system.
Berlin Blockade/Airlift (1948–49): Soviets blockaded West Berlin; U.S. and Britain airlifted supplies for 11 months; Soviets backed down.
NATO (1949): North Atlantic Treaty Organization — mutual defense alliance of Western democracies; first peacetime military alliance in U.S. history; fundamental break from Washington's Farewell Address tradition.
China "falls" (1949): Mao's communists defeated Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists; Republicans blamed Truman.
Soviet nuclear test (1949): U.S. nuclear monopoly ended; Americans suddenly vulnerable.
Korean War (1950–53):
- North Korea (Soviet-backed) invaded South Korea
- Truman committed troops under UN authority — without Congressional declaration of war
- MacArthur pushed to the Chinese border; China intervened; MacArthur advocated using nuclear weapons