John Gaddis's The Cold War

John Lewis Gaddis offers a different opinion of the one responsible for the Cold War. He believes that Stalin’s authoritarian vision was a minor issue; the big issue

John Lewis Gaddis, is a leading American Historian of the Cold War. He is the Professor of history at Yale University. He is already the author of six books on the same subject. The Cold War: A New History, however, has been written on a less cosmic level. He has distilled a life time of research into this short but comprehensive book. He has given new avenues to old controversies in worldly and stylish, yet direct and plain-spoken manner. The book offers a lot of summaries to intricate historical issues and provides new avenues of thinking about conflict which arose out of pre-emption and ended in the hope for the world.

When one can truly understand and uncover the meaning behind these articles and how they fit into one or more of the ‘boxes’ we call paradigms and perspectives. In order to dissect and analyze the case of the Cold War, especially its origins, one must not only skim through the text and uncover main ideas, but also must also relate the readings to these paradigms and establish one’s own ideals and opinions regarding the study of international relations. Personally, I believe the articles associated with the origins of the Cold War along with Professor Katzenstein’s lecture on the topic provide strong arguments for the use of a ‘middle fish’ perspective and a ‘big fish’ paradigm: domestic politics and realism, respectively. Through George Kennan’s personal accounts, experience and analysis at both the time of the Cold War’s inception and forty-plus years later after the fall of the Soviet Union, a point is made regarding the nature of Soviet expansion as an offensive maneuver, which he believed must be contained by a defensive strategy. This point of conflicting strategies by the U.S. and (especially) the Soviet Union provides the reader with a realist argument and perspective. Also, in his second piece, which details remarks made to the Council on Foreign Relations in 1994, Kennan explains that instead of whole-heartedly adopting

The Cold War, spanning almost half a century, was a conflict that accelerated the production of nuclear weapons and forced the United States and the other belligerent, the Soviet Union, to make scientific advances at a rate unseen in any other time in human history. The Cold War Comes to Main Street: America in 1950, written by Lisle A. Rose, thoroughly examines the year 1950 in the United States and the effect that the Cold War had on the American populous. Rose examines communism and the military threat that it posed on the nation and how this impacted American society and the generation that endured World War II.

The Cold War was a state of political and military conflict that tested the vigor and fortitude of a multitude of United States presidents. Throughout the Cold War, various different strategies and foreign policies were tried and tested by US presidents. However, the environment in which these policies operated in did not stay consistent. Correspondingly, the Soviet Union’s potency fluctuated consistently, meaning that during some periods the “Red Scare” was not nearly as threatening as others. The ever-changing state of affairs throughout the Cold War was spawned from a number of reasons, including both the belligerency of what was then the current Soviet administration and the acting effects of previously implemented American foreign policy.

Roehle, M., & Wastl, C. (2014). Cold War. Borg-ibk.ac.at. Retrieved 30 January 2016, from http://www.borg-ibk.ac.at/aktivitaeten/60er/02Cold%20War.htm

Within this book, Martin McCauley explains how the tensions between the Soviets and Americans arise and how it escalated into the Cold War. It also includes a timeline of historical events that are important to the unfolding of the Cold War, a list of important people involved during the Cold War’s formative years, and a list of important documents from the formulating years of the Cold War, 1941-1949.

The Cold War: A New History written by John Lewis Gaddis (a professor at Yale University who wrote other books such as The United States and the Origins of the Cold War and Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security) delivers a summarized, yet skewed interpretation of what had happened during the era known as the Cold War. Throughout the book, the author attempts to provide history of the Cold War, while adding in generalizations, incomplete facts, as well as flat out bias.

Additionally, the author interprets the chaos during cold war as “a drama of states confronting states, balancing states, and aligning with 1

The Cold war certainly shaped history in the 1900s as a major global threat due to vast political and military tensions. Historiographical studies have shown that the Cold War was primarily due to conflicting ideologies in the world, in addition to America and the USSR’s ulterior motive for global expansionism. The Americans feared Soviet expansionism across the world, and feared the outcome of Communism spreading. Likewise, the USSR feared a capitalist spread. This essay will outline the differing historiographical perceptions of the Cold War and will address the notions as to whether the Cold War was solely to do with a clash of ideologies, a clash of superpowers, or whether they were both vital aspects in explaining Cold War history.

In How the Cold War Began, Amy Knight discusses the Gouzenko affair and the role of Soviet espionage in causing the Cold War. While Knight touches upon the tensions regarding the United States’ nuclear weaponry, the focus of her writing is heavily concentrated on Soviet spies and therefore was not very effective for the purpose of this essay.

In the “Cold War” by Hugh Higgins, the author, argues that although opinions about when exactly the “cold war” began is different for everyone, “the Bolshevik Revolution of November 1917, which marked the emergence of communism as a state power, seems a logical starting point.” (Huggins, 1993). As a matter of fact, this history book is about politics; it talks about the event in history, the “cold war”. It focuses on the proceedings that took place that led to what Higgins believes is the beginning of the “cold war” then proceeds to make its way to what is the end of it.

The Cold War’s origins is open to many different interpretations normally associated with three schools: Orthodox, Revisionist and Post Revisionist. My three selected articles take varying lines of argument, Dividing the World by John Lewis Gaddis for example uses an Orthodox approach placing the blame on Stalin’s “dispositional” stance against the new international system. While on the other end “The Beginnings of the Cold war” by Ambrose and Brinkley places the blame onto Truman’s hard-line anti soviet foreign policy as being the main cause. However, I believe that the origins of the Cold War were down to more complex reasons

The Cold War was an ideological war primarily between the United States and the Soviet Union (1945-1991). There were several major flashpoints within the war, such as the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (M.A.D), the Strategic Defence Initiative (S.D.I), the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, the Korean War, the Berlin Blockade and the defiance of the USSR. This essay will discuss the significance the Strategic Defence Initiative within the Cold War. Contrary to the mainstream idea that the S.D.I played a primary role in ending the cold war, the S.D.I had implications in ending the war by influencing Soviet leadership however it unnecessarily complicated and increased tensions in the war. To begin with, the Cold War occurred because of the increased tensions and the alternate ideologies. Secondly, the Strategic Defence Initiative had opposing goals and purposes, therefore ensuring its superiority across political and defensive areas.Finally, the S.D.I only increased existing tensions.

Richard Nixon once said of the Cold War that “the Cold War isn 't thawing; it is burning with a deadly heat. Communism isn 't sleeping; it is, as always, plotting, scheming, working, fighting.”(www.brainyquote.com). An analysis of the Cold War between 1947-1991 reveals that the Cold War was caused by a difference in political ideals between the USA and the Soviet Union, the aftermath of WWII, and the “Iron Curtain” in Europe. Further analysis reveals the Cold War contributed to many other conflicts, such as the bomb shelter craze in the US, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Korean War.