Thread: The Cold War

All nations, historical events, strategies, and individual leaders can be discussed in this thread about the Cold War.

When did it start?

When you invaded Poland

Nobel-prize 1971:

...
This is precisely the time for me to clearly emphasize my principles: War must not be a means to achieve political ends. Wars must be eliminated, not merely limited. No national interest can today be isolated from collective responsibility for peace. This fact must be recognized in all foreign relations. As a means of achieving European and worldwide security, therefore, foreign policy must aim to reduce tensions and promote communication beyond frontiers.

Foreign Minister Walter Scheel and I are guided by the principle that it is not enough to pronounce peace-loving intentions but we must also endeavor actively to organize peace.
...
Our second source of strength is humanism and classical philosophy. Immanuel Kant postulated his idea of a constitutional confederation of states in words that pose a very distinct question to today's generations: Man, he said, will one day be faced with the choice of either uniting under a true law of nations or destroying with a few blows the civilization he has built up over thousands of years: then, necessity will compel him to do what he ought better to have done long ago of his own free reason.1

A third strong source is socialism with its aspiration to social justice at home and abroad. And with its insistence that moral laws should find application not only between individual citizens but among nations and states.

Peace policy is a sober task. I, too, try with the means at my command to pave the way for the prevalence of reason in my own country and in the world: that reason which demands that we seek peace because the absence of peace has come to mean extreme lack of reason.
...

Willy Brandt

Originally Posted by stroller

When did it start?

When two monkey-cavemen got together and realised that their way of life was so much more superior than two other monkey-cavemen....who were thinking exactly the same thing.

Originally Posted by stroller

When did it start?

When the Rosenbergs (great patriots that they were) gave up atomic secrets to the USSR.

Originally Posted by Wallace

I've just started watching 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy', the BBC adaptation of LeCarre's novel

Link ?

^^
"Little Drummer Girl" is one of my favorites too.
Still very relevant today as not much has changed other than it's more sucide bombs...

No link - I bought them on DVD.

The main strategic region for the invasion of Russia was Black Sea oil, hence the carnage of Stalingrad, the gateway to the Black Sea. There was also the land route through the Baltic states to the iron ore reserves of Norway.
Also politically important was Hitlers rabid anti-Communism, a mark of Fascist dictators.
The Ukrainian wheat plains were a useful bonus too (of course the Russians just burned them). There is little evidence Hitler had any interest in Russia east of Moscow.

Also, the successes of a combination of military might and surprise before made the Nazis a bit big-headed, if they weren't already. Hitler knew Russia was a formidable enemy to reckon with, and the aim was to keep advancing inspite of the approaching winter, so the Russians wouldn't have the opportunity to reform and develop strategies for organised counterattacks - a miscalculation in several respects.

"In the Court of the Red Tsar" by Simon Sebag Montefiore is an excellent biography of Stalin. It tells how Stalin suffered a nervous collapse at the time of the initial German Blitzkrieg into Russia. It was really a closely run thing. Moscow was about to be evacuated and was expected to fall, but (from memory) a Russian spy in Japan informed the Kremlin that the Japanese were not planning to invade and thus military resources were freed-up and made available to 'save the day'.

The book is an excellent read. One of the best biographies that I have read.

Originally Posted by stroller

Also, the successes of a combination of military might and surprise before made the Nazis a bit big-headed, if they weren't already. Hitler knew Russia was a formidable enemy to reckon with, and the aim was to keep advancing inspite of the approaching winter, so the Russians wouldn't have the opportunity to reform and develop strategies for organised counterattacks - a miscalculation in several respects.

I wish I knew more about this, but what I'm curious about is:

Hitler and the armies were very busy, I believe, all over Europe in W. and E.

There have to be supply lines for food, oil, repair parts, etc.

So perhaps they were big-headed because when so many forces are on foreign lands they have to be supplied. I don't know much.

And yes, it seems the Russian Winters are very nasty and keep lines and operations difficult if a foreign force in on foreign lands.

I think that the generals figured that either England or Russia would fall. A one front war would have been ideal.

The ultimate mistake was letting Japan pull the U.S. into the war (some would suspect that the U.S. intentionally allowed Pearl to be hit to justify entry into the war...just as we allowed 9-11 to happen to justify hitting Iraq).

Another factor was the German treatment of those they conquered in the West of Russia. These people hated Stalin with a vengeance following the famine caused by the collectivisation policies of the 1930s. But the Germans treated the poor souls even worse - The Poles and Ukrainians had it particularly bad.

Reagan was insane.

^
Yep, real 'insane' how he freed the I-rainian hostages, brought down the Berlin Wall, lowered Carter's double-diget inflation to single figures, lowered taxes and got the economy back on its feet.

Yep, a real 'insane' guy that Ronnie Reagan...

^ Reagan came on the scene in 1980.

How was he insane?

How does he relate to Stalin and Hitler?

Reagan was a talking head for an interest group, as is Bush.
Economically I didn't think they did too badly (though not as well as the Republicans would have you believe).
From a foreign policy perspective however, the US took a distinct turn for the worse. It was the Reagan administration that gave us such things as the funding and training the Nicaraguan contra's, the El Salvadorean and Guatamalan Death squads, the Olliegate scandal, CIA drug running and money laundering for blatantly illegal purposes.
Hardly consistent with a free and open democracy, with the US Constitution, with the UN Charter of Human Rights.

^ and ^^,

Yes, Reagan was not the sharpest guy in the world. He was easily influenced by pictures/videos, and his aids would often press their case by having him watch a video (e.g. Lebanon).