Distension in the Cold War (1962-1975)

We explain what the Cold War was, who were the countries involved in the conflict and what were the main events of the period.

The Cold War was a conflict between the United States (USA) and the Soviet Union (USSR) which lasted more than forty years. It began in the post -war context of World War II, when the superpowers began to dispute the power and influence they could exert in the rest of the countries. He ended with the dissolution of the USSR in 1991.

Various stages of this conflict can be identified: the period of great tensions (1948-1955), the Pacific Coexistence (1955-1962), the relaxation (1962-1975) and the new cold war (1975-1991).

The period elapsed between 1962 and 1975 was characterized by relative distension in relations between the US and the USSR. This was motivated, especially for three reasons:

• The missile crisis in Cuba of 1962 became aware of the superpowers of the mortal danger of possession and multiplication of its nuclear arsenal.
• The two superpowers considered for different reasons that a relaxation of tensions favored their long -term objectives.
• Both powers went through a period of answer in their respective blocks. The USSR, weakened by the Chinese-Soviet conflict, had to face, among other conflicts, to the spring of Prague in Czechoslovakia. The United States saw how the European Union was consolidated as an economic power and as dissidents appeared that disputed their political hegemony.

• See also: Blocks of the Cold War

East-West Relationships

One of the most famous elements of the new situation was the establishment of what was called the “red phone”, The direct communication line between the White House and the Kremlin in September 1963.

It was a consequence of the missile crisis in Cuba and the need to establish direct communication between Washington and Moscow that could stop a crisis before there was an escalation in tension.

Nuclear parity

This new relationship did not mean the end of the arms race. The United States had been shocked in the late fifties by Soviet leadership in The “space race”: the launch of the Sputnik (The Russian satellite, first to reach space) It was a real danger to American security awareness.

Upon coming to power, Kennedy launched the “Apollo” program to recover the accumulated delay in the field of ballistic mills (“Missile Gap“).

The Americans soon surpassed the USSR in that field (in 1963 there were 500 American intercontinental missiles for 100 Soviet) and managed to put the first man on the moon in 1969.

However, the Vietnam War made USA. In 1971 the nuclear parity had been established.

Armed control agreements

Kennedy and Kruschev's successors continued the relaxation policy. After the murder of Kennedy in 1963, Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson and Republican Richard Nixon, chosen in 1968, directed American politics. In the USSR Kruschev he was dismissed in 1964 for his failures in foreign policy, and Leonid Breznev directed the Soviet power.

In 1968, the USSR, the United Kingdom and the US Atomic weapons non -proliferation treatyto which the other two nuclear powers were not joined: China and France.

In 1969 negotiations on strategic weapons were initiated (Salt- Strategic Arms Limitation Talks)which finally led to the firm in Moscow of the Salt I Agreement. This treaty limited the construction of strategic armaments and set a number for intercontinental missiles (ICBM) and missile launchers installed in submarines (SLBM) that possessed the USSR and the USA.

This treaty also prohibited, in practice, the establishment of antimile defense systems. It was the biggest example, taken to the absurd, of the “terror balance”: The only way to maintain peace was that none of the superpowers felt safe. The “mutual destruction insured” was the only way to prevent conflict.

A multipolar world

The new power poles in the West

The situation of American hegemony arising from World War II began to be modified by the emergence in the western block of two new poles of economic power:

• Japan. Defeated in the war, he became the second world economic power. The products Made in Japan Soon the North American and European markets began to flood.
• European Economic Community. Created in the Treaty of Rome In 1957, it was a great level economic success. The formation of the community allowed the consolidation of the power of European countries in international relations. The United Kingdom, which had refused to adhere to its birth, requested its entry in 1961.

This diversification of economic power did not materialize, however, in a large -scale political challenge for the US.

The new power poles in the East

During this period, the great communist powers were eneicated and the Chinese-Soviet rupture was given. In 1969 violent fighting took place in the Ussuri River on the common border between the two countries. This rupture was accompanied by the Chinese-American approach that culminated in Nixon's visit To Beijing in February 1972.

On the other hand, in Eastern Europe there were various movements of political groups that tried to achieve greater autonomy with respect to Soviet power:

• JANOS KADAR He was a Hungarian leader imposed after Soviet invasion of 1956. Although he remained faithful in the diplomatic field to the USSR and the Warsaw Pact, he rehearsed in the economic field liberal reforms that moved their country away from the Soviet Orthodox model and allowed a relative welfare of the population.
• The role of agricultural country reserved for Romania in Comecon It precipitated the dissent of this country against the guidelines of the Kremlin. The Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu undertook an independence policy with respect to Moscow, which culminated with his refusal to participate in the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.

However, the great challenge to Soviet domination came from Czechoslovakia.

• In Czechoslovakia, communist leader Alexander Dubcek He undertook a reform program to gradually release the economy of the regime and install what he called a “human face socialism.” In 1968 he began a short period of freedom known as the “Spring of Prague”. However, Troops of the Warsaw Pact invaded Czechoslovakia and ended Dubcek's initiatives. The Soviet leader proclaimed doctrine Breznev and consecrated the Soviet domain over “popular democracies.”

North-South Relationships

Together with the east-west relations that characterized the cold war, in the sixties the awareness of the existence of the relations between the north developed and the south (or third world) arose.

The south He had initiated his political statement at the Bandung conference and with the Non -aligned countries movement. Soon these contradictory relationships had their reflection in the economic field.

In 1960 the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was founded that sought to impose an increase in “black gold” prices. In 1964 the United Nations Conference on Commerce and Development met in Geneva.

His lack of results led to the fact that in 1973, the Algiers conference will be held. In it, the nations grouped in the Non -aligned countries movement They proclaimed that poor countries, rather than trusting the help of developed countries, should try to increase their own ability to organize and impose new rules of the economic game worldwide.

Conflicts in the era of distension

The distension did not end the competition between the two faced blocks. This competition took place in two great armed conflicts that have marked the second half of the twentieth century:

• The conflict of the next East, which even in the early 21st century remains one of the largest voltage spotlights in the world.
• The conflict of in the Indochina Peninsula, which had its greatest exponent in the Vietnam War, the great American defeat during the Cold War.

The Arab-Israeli wars

The wars that faced Arabs and Israelis in 1967 and 1973 illustrate the rules of distension well: the two greats face through small states interposed, but perfectly control their competition without putting general peace between the superpowers at risk.

After the Suez crisis in 1956, Egypt and the Arab countries reinforced their ties with the USSRwhile Israel became the strategic ally of the USA in the region.

After the diplomatic success of 1956, and with Soviet military support, Nasser (president of Egypt) multiplied his threatening actions against Israel.

In response, Israel began its military mobilization and began the six -day war. In that short time, the Israelis occupied the Golán high in Syria, the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, the Gaza Band, Bank and the Old City of Jerusalem.

The overwhelming Arabic defeat brought significant changes in the international and strategic scene:

• Israel went from being a country besieged to an occupying power. He refused to return the occupied territories and, through a tough policy of repression, tried to expel as many Palestinians to neighboring countries. Unilaterally proclaimed the reunification of Jerusalem and annexed the Arab territory of Jerusalem.
• The Palestinians won political autonomy against the Arab states of the region. The OP (Palestine liberalization organization), created in 1964, became under the direction of Yasser Arafat in the representative organization of the Palestinian people, under Israeli occupation or overcrowded in the refugee fields of neighboring countries. Nasser's dream of conventional military victory over Israel and an unity of the Arab Nation, Arafat tried to encourage compatriots to the armed struggle against Israel.

• Continue reading: Conflicts in the Middle East

The Vietnam War

The Indochina War concluded with the 1954 Geneva agreements that foresaw that, after the French withdrawal, Northern Vietnam (communist, directed by Ho Chi Minh) and South Vietnam (under a pro-western dictatorship directed by Dinh Diem) they had to meet through free elections. The refusal of the southern regime, supported by the US, relied on the certainty of communist victory.

In 1956 the National Liberation Front (known as Vietcong) was created in the South, a guerrilla organization that, with the support of Northern Vietnam, began hostilities against the Saigon government.

President JF Kennedy decided to send an American military intervention in favor of South Vietnam. Between 1961 and 1963, 17,000 “military councilors” were sent to Indochina. In 1964, his successor L. Johnson proclaimed the open intervention with an expeditionary body of 500,000 soldiers. In the war chemical weapons were used (known as “the orange agent”), and made brutals and massive bombings on Northern Vietnam and Vietcong positions.

However, USA could not defeat the Vietcong who had support and was armed by the USSR. Due to the great protests of North American youth and the military successes of Vietcong (especially in the “TET offensive” of 1968), in 1969 the new American president, R. Nixon, decided to quickly reduce the American involvement in the conflict.

While the American personnel retired (from 500,000 moved to 50,000), a great South Vietnamese army was organized with more than 1,800,000 men who did not hesitate to extend the conflict to Cambodia and Laos.

The great Norvietnamese offensive of 1972 and the failure of the bombings in response led to the signing of La Paz in Paris, on January 23, 1973. The United States retired from Vietnam. The withdrawal of his troops brought the immediate collapse of the Southern Vietnam regime. The final communist offensive arrived in the spring of 1975. Phnom Penh fell into the hands of the Red Khmers, the Norvietnames took Saigon and Vietnam unified under a communist system. The war was over.

The Vietnam War was the first military defeat in the history of US reinforced his position by approaching Mao's China. With the American consent, Popular China entered the UN as a member of the Security Council, and after a long negotiating work of Kissinger, President Nixon visited China in February 1972.

• See also: Vietnam War

Latin America: The Chilean case

For many years the relations between the countries of Latin America and the US have been marked by the common concern of Washington and the oligarchies of each country to oppose any revolutionary threat.

In the context of the Cold War, the US supported conservative and strongly repressive military dictatorships. For US politicians, reformist or revolutionary movements in the American continent were not only an answer to strong social inequalities but also They were destabilizing actions orchestrated from Moscow or Havana with the objective of establishing regimes allied to the Soviet block. The amplitude of American economic interests in the region and its geographical proximity reinforced this attitude.

An example of this phenomenon is Chile. In 1970 the popular unit won the elections, a left -wing coalition led by the socialist Salvador Allende. With a not very radical program, Allende was found from the beginning caught among his most revolutionary allies (the leftist Mir, the most radical faction of the Socialist Party) and the reaction of some restless average and high classes to the possibility of an evolution “to the Cuban”.

The US State Department, through the intercession of the CIA, subsidized the antidemocratic subversion and supported the Augusto Pinochet coup d'etat on September 11, 1973.

The subsequent repression was brutal. The American senator Edward Kennedy, using confidential data from the State Department, calculated between 20,000 and 30,000 dead the military repression invoice.

Continue with:

• Salt Agreements
• John F. Kennedy
• Pacific coexistence (1955-1962)
• The new Cold War (1975-1985)

References

• Hobsbawn, eg (1998). The cold war. In 20th century history. Criticism.
• McMahon, R. (2009). The cold war. A brief introduction. Alliance.
• Tucker, SC, & Roberts, PM (2007). The Encyclopedia of the Cold War: A POLITICAL, SOCIAL, AND MILITARY HISTORY, 5 VOLUME SET. ABC-Clio.