I’ve had some difficulty answering this question myself through the internet, resources on the subject seem more concerned about the events it withholds. I would greatly appriciate any help.
Standard practice when two large nations/empires/powers face each other in a time of instability. With the collapse of the Axis at the end of WWII, the world was dominated by two large countries with radically different political and economic philosophies that were echoed among a number of other nations.
Each feared the other, each believing that the other wanted their destruction. The Marxist side had preached World Revolution and the Democratic/Capitalist side took them at their word. The Democratic/Capitalist countries had already taken an active role (including invasion) to overthrow or prevent the development of the Marxist nations. Each was sure that the other side would do anything to win, so each side did everything (short of outright war) to prevent that victory.
The preceeding makes the Cold War sound like a pallid philosophical debate, so here’s a but more, ah, vivid explanation:
Stalin was a raving, paranoid, nutjob who was determined to maintain and expand his power, even if this meant throttling democracy in Eastern Europe, destroying his economy at home, killing millions of his own people, and driving the world to the brink of atomic war.
He succeeded so well that the monstrous system he created tottered on for another 40 years before succumbing to its internal contradictions.
The Cold War was the attempt to keep this system from doing too much damage to the rest of the world while it died.
Stalin’s megalomania notwithstanding, the Cold War would have probably begun and continued, anyway. Kruschev and Brezhnev and Andropov had no more desire to conquer the world than Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, or Carter.
Casting the Soviet Union as the Evil Empire is fun, but it ignores the basic balance-of-power dynamics that are a part of every major upheaval. The same struggles (with different characters) can be seen in the history of Europe following the defeat of Napoleon.
I am not claiming that the U.S.S.R. was simply a nice country that was misunderstood (any more than I would argue that its probable successor, China, is a really nice player on the world stage).
However, the struggle was not about good and evil–it was about power. In the battle against the “evil” of the Marxist nations, the Western Democracies suppressed–or supported tyrants who suppressed–democracy in Iran, Indonesia, and the Philipines along with numerous Latin American countries, trashed most of the attempts at development throughout the African continent, and played havoc with the people of Southeast Asia.
In the struggle for survival, this may fall under the heading of the ends justifying the means (although I would be reluctant to insist on that point to a survivor of torture from Guatemala, Argentina, Iran, South Africa, or a few other “rescued” nations).
I absolutely agree that the world is, over all, a better place for the triumph of Capitalism and Democracy over the Marxist states. We cast ourselves as too much the heroes of the story when we pretend that we did it from some moral call to goodness.
To put it simply, to prevent spread of the influence of the USSR.
And later:
Aren’t these quotes contradictory? If the US struggles to make the world a better place, how is this not about good and evil? Sort of like the fight against Naziism. Maybe we still had Jim Crow laws in place while we fought - how does our imperfection mean that our cause is meaningless?
The USSR invaded Poland in concert with Hitler at the start of WWII, not to mention Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, East Germany, Hungary, etc. It is wrong to pretend that the US and the USSR were morally equivalent.
If this kicks us towards Great Debates, disregard. Or not.
And later:
Aren’t these quotes contradictory? If the US struggles to make the world a better place, how is this not about good and evil? Sort of like the fight against Naziism. Maybe we still had Jim Crow laws in place while we fought - how does our imperfection mean that our cause is meaningless?
The USSR invaded Poland in concert with Hitler at the start of WWII, not to mention Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, East Germany, Hungary, etc. It is wrong to pretend that the US and the USSR were morally equivalent.
If this kicks us towards Great Debates, disregard. Or not.
The OP’s question was “Why was it fought?” not “Were there good guys and bad guys?”
It was fought over power. Had it been fought for Truth, Justice, and the American Way, then we would have supported democratic governments even when their economics were closer to Marxist Socialism. Instead, we surrounded the world with authoritarian regimes, supporting any tin-pot dictator who would give lip service to “fighting Communism.” In Chile, the U.S. actually helped to overthrow a freely elected, democratic government simply because the president was a follower of Marxist economic theory.
The fact that our forms of government and economics are better for the people who get live under them is a good thing. However, for an extremely large portion of the world, our power struggle with the Marxist states led to repression, slavery, torture, and other not quite “good” things for people whom we determined did not “need” democracy.
I don’t agree that it was just about power. There were plenty of other powerful states before and since that the U.S. has embraced.
The truth is that the U.S.S.R was an expansionist empire. In addition to the countries listed above, the U.S.S.R was actively supporting terrorism in Latin America and the Middle East, supporting Marxist guerrilla movements throughout the world, using Cuba to export Marxism to Latin America, etc.
The Americans adopted a policy of containment. If the U.S.S.R supported Marxist Guerrillas, the U.S. would support right-wing guerrillas against them. Ho Chi Minh engaged the support of the Chinese and Russians, so the U.S. intervened for the South in Vietnam. And so it goes.
The U.S. made some mistakes along the way. Many mistakes. And a few calculated decisions to support less-than-moral regimes and insurgencies when the need arose. Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to find ‘good guys’ in other governments, so the U.S. was forced to either let a U.S.-friendly but distasteful regime fall, to be replaced by one even more evil, or to support them and try to contain Communism. Tough decisions, really.
The Contras were by and large not particularly nice people, but the Sandinista Guerrillas were just as bad or worse. But if the Sandinistas win, the Soviet Union wins. And that was a bad thing, because it would embolden them further and maybe next time they would manage to topple a nice moral government in favor of their Marxist despotism.
No, it was not, particularly, any more than the U.S. was. Can you actually identify a nation that has been as powerful as the U.S. that the U.S. “embraced” since the time that the U.S. became a world power? Cordial relations between the U.S. and the U.K. or France between 1918 and 1941 hardly count in the context of U.S. isolationism. Since then, France was destroyed as a world power by WWII and the U.K. has been withdrawing from its position as an empire. Just how much “embracing” have we done with China? Open trade policies (to create a market for our economic empire) hardly counts as a warm, close, personal relationship.
The Soviet Union had already been jeopardized at its infancy by an invasion of hostile countries trying to prevent it from being established. It was then invaded again by Hitler. Just as Rome and Israel always sought control of contiguous land to prevent the overrunning of the homeland, the Soviet Union sought to create buffer puppet governments that would give it breathing space for the next invasion.
Aside from a few demonizers of Marxism (who have never provided actual evidence for their claims), there is no reason to believe that the Soviet Union wanted direct control over the Eurasian landmass.
The U.S., flanked by the underpopulated Canada and the impoverished Mexico has never had a need to set up buffer states. We simply go play on other people’s continents to arm wrestle.
Containment? Power struggle.
Like Chile? Iran? Guatemala? A few other nations whose democratic elections were invalidated by U.S. intervention?
I agree with tomndebb in almost every respect except in his characterisation of “power” as being the primary motive. It just seems a little amorphous, to my mind, as a rationale for Policy.
I think I’d go more with Power = Influence = ‘Sphere’s of Influence’ = Access to and control of non-domestic Free Markets = Growth of US Inc.
The US is the first Empire, IMHO, created not primarily by military intervention / conquest but by creating economic dependence supported with military power. But it is also the first Empire borne of the Capitalist era so maybe that’s inevitable.
tomndebb-you wouldn’t happen to know a man by the name of Ed Brett, would you? -My advisor-and you sounded a lot like him-which I totally agree with.
Sam-the Contras were definitely worse than the Sandinistas.
Didn’t you ever hear about the training manual we supplied them with? Of course, I’m not a fan of the Sandinistas either, but I’d take them over Somoza any day.
Same with Allende over Pinochet. I think Allende kind of proved not ALL Marxists are evil.