In the next section of this paper an analysis of Melvyn
P. Leffler's theory on reasons for cold war escalation shall
now follow.
The Road to
Korea
Historian Melvyn P. Leffler in his essay, "A
Preponderance of Power," summarizes the key factors
as to why the Cold War originated, and how it came to be mutually
self reinforcing for both systems. First he argues that the
US emerged as the most powerful and industrialized nation
in the world after WWII. With this in fact the US emerged
as the leader in the global and political and economic system
and for the first time demonstrated a willingness to manage
that system. The examples of this were the development
of the IMF and the World Bank. As such Leffler argues that
American policymakers were envisioning a multipolar world.
"Having
learned the bitter Lessons of the interwar era, the United
States would join the United Nations and play a constructive
role in the international economy."(Major Problems in American
Foreign Relations, 296)
The
only thing standing in the way of peace and prosperity Leffler
argued was essentially complicated hegemonic idealism, by
both parties since Europe was effectively carved in half by
the US and the Soviet's and neither had a means for resolution,
rather a system of peace through confrontation, forestalling
total war.
Leffler
also argues that four factors stood in the way of US policy
goals. Furthermore, Leffler asserts that these factors as perceived
by US policymakers where what had created the Cold War and
came to characterize US Cold War policy.
The
first factor was the security threat posed by occupying soviet
armies based in Eastern Europe and North East Asia. Secondly
the rise of Leftist ideology and political support in countries
such as Italy, France, Greece, China, and Korea meant attempts
by the Soviet regime to exercise through its perceived satellite
countries, attempts to thwart "liberal capitalist multilateralism."
If these countries were allowed to become Communist then it
would undermine the Western Alliance and strengthen the Soviet
Sphere of influence. The Third Factor was the notion of emerging
nationalism in Japan and Germany might endear these two countries
to join the Soviet orbit with promise of markets and revenge
upon the West. The fourth factor was nationalism in the
Third World. It wasn't that nationalism itself was a bad
thing rather nationalism in the third world due to its
location on the peripherary had few models of economic development
to turn towards and chiefly the one that was most favorable
carried the ideology of anti-imperialism, and that was Marxism.
Marxism was attractive because it made the state all-powerful
and offered a simple explanation to people's marginal status
in the global economic balance of power system. To the US
this was just another ideology that was a symptomatic feature of totalitarianism
that had already caused one world war, and the lessons learned
from that war was that totalitarian states are never happy
unless they are expanding their borders.
The US then saw its role as
offering economic assistance to embattled countries undergoing
Nationalist revolts. This put the US in a position that it
had never been in before. Foreign elites such as China's Chiang
Kai Shek were major problems and undermined at times US credibility
as a long-term player in Third World Affairs. This was a major
discontinuity in the history of American foreign relations
in that now it had political and military commitments throughout
the globe that had previously not been its responsibility.
With the demise of European Colonialism after WWII the US
was faced with the same problems as the prior balance of power
system and often they could as in the Third World at times,
scarcely be perceived as no different than the conquerors
of the past.
For the US the view was different
rather there was a need for Europe and Asia to be integrated
into a core-peripherary economic and political relationship.
To do this as Leffler argues:
"..They
came to believe that ever more weapons were necessary to support
the risk taking that inhered in co-opting the industrial core
of Eurasia and in integrating its underdeveloped periphery..eventually
rearmament became the essential prerequisite to America's
diplomatic, economic and political initiatives." (Major Problems
in American Foreign Relations, 298)
Leffler concludes that as colonialism declined
there was no stable force in the region in the third world,
and that any revolt came to be defined by US policymakers
as the work of the Soviets. Thus, the US developed a policy of mutual assistance for friendly regimes,
and a development of covert paramilitary operations, to overthrow
leftist regimes and or to protect those current regimes from
being overthrown. The problem, which more or less was the
cause of the inequity in this relationship, was that Europe
had the administrative ability to unite, with NATO to back
it up, and rather Asia fragmented after years of colonialism
had no such capabilities.
Thus, what ended up happening
was the US mistaking civil wars as grand communist plots and
often the US would also become the aggressors, making those
countries more or less fertile breeding grounds for Soviet
ideological encroachment.
Leffler essentially argues
that in 1946-1947 that America felt that its "..core values..democracy,
free enterprise, pluralism and territorial security were
being threatened."(America in the World, 266) With the Soviet
threat and the precarious nature of the core and periphery,
the Truman administration adopted a two-prong approach. While
briefly scaling back containment, it adopted move towards
globalism and maintenance of the international economy. Every
major raw market attained the level of utmost importance.
Leffler argues that the Soviets possessed no military threat
at this time until 1949 and rather the US was also establishing
an intelligence network around the globe to augment its political
and economic influence. The US conception of the "Soviet threat"
was the projected effect that potential Soviet expansion could
have on the international system. From the perspective of
the West, At a state to state level, Leffler argues that there
were legitimate business and domestic interests in maintaining
a functional international system, in which the
fortunes of the West were now mutually obliged to defend.
The Marshall plan no
doubt put the Soviet's on the Defensive. It was implementing
a capitalist and world corporatist structure that modeled
itself after the US economy. The Marshall plan for America
accomplished a policy of double containment in which
it contained the economic influence of the Soviet's and at
the same time tied German expansion and industrial output
to be contained in a system in a system controlled by the
US and its Allies. The creation of NATO helped to implement
this by combining British, French, and German states into
a multilateral military alliance backed by US resolve
and military might. To
preserve this power the US as Hogan and McCormick agree required
a functional relationship with elites who were willing to
merge their economies in the new system. McCormick and Cummings
both proponents of World Systems theory argue that this was
what led to the US coming into conflict with China and Indo
China. Japan was viewed as an Asian capitalist hub trade in
that continent. However, Japan had invaded Manchuria, Korea,
and Indo China for access to raw markets in developing its
"Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere." The Truman
administration as did the later Eisenhower administration
viewed the emergence of Communist China as directly threatening
this trade, and that China was viewed as potential core hegemon
that would seek to incorporate client states traditional to
its own historical system of alliances.
The struggle Cummings and
McCormick assert was that there was a need to incorporate
this underdeveloped peripherary, and to preserve the economic
system of Japan as well as increase the vitality of western
market diversification. Leffler on world
systems theory agrees that this corporatist structure
made intervention in Korea and Vietnam unavoidable.
"Aware
that Japan traditionally depended on extensive economic ties
with Manchuria, North China, and Korea, and noting that most
of this area was now in enemy bloc, Acheson and Dulles
felt that they had to link Japan and South East Asia.
In this interpretation one sees the extent to which US officials
believed that the industrial core of the world system had
to be integrated with the underdeveloped periphery."(American
Foreign Relations Reconsidered, 117)
***
The end of America's atomic
monopoly marked the end of 1949. Hence NATO expansion
was predicated upon neutralizing the new bilateral balance
of power system. The Soviets had found a means to attack the
power of the alliance by detonating a bomb of their own. Equally
unsettling was the establishment of the Communist Republic
of China and its desires to establish diplomatic relations
with the Soviet Union. The US response to this was National Security Directive
68. NSC 68 directly
defined the nature of the system as bipolar and that the conflict
between the US and the Soviets was an intractable reality
given the two ideologically opposed systems. NSC 68 identified
four main Soviet objectives. One was a desire for absolute
control within their borders as well as in Eastern Europe.
The second factor was that the Soviets were irrational
driven by extreme fanaticism and that their main desire was
world domination. The third factor was that US soviet conflict
was intractable given the nature of both political systems.
However, the threat of total nuclear annihilation had
to be gauged in dealing directly with Soviets. The final factor
then was to contain the autocracy and expansionary
aims of the Soviets. Thus, NSC 68 favored a policy massive
arms stockpiling and nuclear weapons production and proliferation
by the United States.
Hence, Deterrence the
first pillar of American foreign policy began to take preeminence
over containment, now that such an alliance structure was
in place in Europe. By 1952 the US had a fully functional
Hydrogen Bomb, and this policy of nuclear weapons stockpiling
would carry over into the Eisenhower administration. NSC
68 also called for increasing defense expenditures as
well as complimenting Dean Acheson's call for a civilian preparedness
program. Unfortunately this last program had a negative residual
effect in the McCarthy's communist witch-hunts.
An individual such as McCarthy
was able to unite the US citizenry against communism and perhaps
spearheaded a willingness to engage the enemy anywhere. The
problem was that he was a political opportunist and he used
the paranoia through a series of political
purges to advance his own political career
undermining the cohesion of the state. When he tried
to claim that George C. Marshall was a Communist he was defrocked.
Thus, in 1955 he was scarcely a memory in Eisenhower's newfound
"dollar diplomacy" backed by nuclear missiles.
Historian Walter
Lafeber identifies
the link between McCarthyism and Acheson's attempt to unite
public opinion against communist infiltration ultimately entailing
a sacrifice evinced by increased taxes. Acheson was not a
willing conspirator in the McCarthy witch hunts rather he
viewed the threat of Communism as external beyond US borders
yet he required united resolve from the American public to
act quickly. Thus, McCarthy provided the popular hysteria,
i.e., America's rabid fear of Communist infiltration into
every aspect of American life that ultimately lent support
for all of Acheson's security proposals. "The time was perfect
for McCarthy tactics in early 1950. Even while Acheson was
traveling around the country to warn the populace about Communism."
(American Age, 510) However, the American public was unmoved
until June 26th 1950, when North Korean troops
crossed the 38th parallel that then the
Cold War became a factor of American popular imagination.
Next Chapter Korea
& Indochina
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