The Cold War: A Very Short Introduction ‘McMahon has produced a commanding short narrative of a vital period in recent world history. Clear, concise, and compelling, The Cold War is a superb primer on the subject.’ Fredrik Logevall, University of California, Santa Barbara Very Short Introductions are for anyone wanting a stimulating and accessible way in to a new subject. They are written by experts, and have been published in more than 25 languages worldwide. The series began in 1995, and now represents a wide variety of topics in history, philosophy, religion, science, and the humanities. Over the next few years it will grow to a library of around 200 volumes – a Very Short Introduction to everything from ancient Egypt and Indian philosophy to conceptual art and cosmology. Very Short Introductions available now: ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY Continental Philosophy Julia Annas Simon Critchley THE ANGLO-SAXON AGE COSMOLOGY Peter Coles John Blair CRYPTOGRAPHY ANIMAL RIGHTS David DeGrazia Fred Piper and Sean Murphy ARCHAEOLOGY Paul Bahn DADA AND SURREALISM ARCHITECTURE David Hopkins Andrew Ballantyne Darwin Jonathan Howard ARISTOTLE Jonathan Barnes Democracy Bernard Crick ART HISTORY Dana Arnold DESCARTES Tom Sorell ART THEORY Cynthia Freeland DRUGS Leslie Iversen THE HISTORY OF THE EARTH Martin Redfern ASTRONOMY Michael Hoskin EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY Atheism Julian Baggini Geraldine Pinch Augustine Henry Chadwick EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BARTHES Jonathan Culler BRITAIN Paul Langford THE BIBLE John Riches THE ELEMENTS Philip Ball BRITISH POLITICS EMOTION Dylan Evans Anthony Wright EMPIRE Stephen Howe Buddha Michael Carrithers ENGELS Terrell Carver BUDDHISM Damien Keown Ethics Simon Blackburn CAPITALISM James Fulcher The European Union THE CELTS Barry Cunliffe John Pinder CHOICE THEORY EVOLUTION Michael Allingham Brian and Deborah Charlesworth CHRISTIAN ART Beth Williamson FASCISM Kevin Passmore CLASSICS Mary Beard and THE FRENCH REVOLUTION John Henderson William Doyle CLAUSEWITZ Michael Howard Freud Anthony Storr THE COLD WAR Galileo Stillman Drake Robert McMahon Gandhi Bhikhu Parekh GLOBALIZATION PLATO Julia Annas Manfred Steger POLITICS Kenneth Minogue HEGEL Peter Singer POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY HEIDEGGER Michael Inwood David Miller HINDUISM Kim Knott POSTCOLONIALISM HISTORY John H. Arnold Robert Young HOBBES Richard Tuck POSTMODERNISM HUME A. J. Ayer Christopher Butler IDEOLOGY Michael Freeden POSTSTRUCTURALISM Indian Philosophy Catherine Belsey Sue Hamilton PREHISTORY Chris Gosden Intelligence Ian J. Deary PRESOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY ISLAM Malise Ruthven Catherine Osborne JUDAISM Norman Solomon Psychology Gillian Butler and Jung Anthony Stevens Freda McManus KANT Roger Scruton QUANTUM THEORY KIERKEGAARD Patrick Gardiner John Polkinghorne THE KORAN Michael Cook ROMAN BRITAIN Peter Salway LINGUISTICS Peter Matthews ROUSSEAU Robert Wokler LITERARY THEORY RUSSELL A. C. Grayling Jonathan Culler RUSSIAN LITERATURE LOCKE John Dunn Catriona Kelly LOGIC Graham Priest THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION MACHIAVELLI Quentin Skinner S. A. Smith MARX Peter Singer SCHIZOPHRENIA MATHEMATICS Timothy Gowers Chris Frith and Eve Johnstone MEDIEVAL BRITAIN SCHOPENHAUER John Gillingham and Christopher Janaway Ralph A. Griffiths SHAKESPEARE Germaine Greer MODERN IRELAND SOCIAL AND CULTURAL Senia Pasˇe t a ANTHROPOLOGY MOLECULES Philip Ball John Monaghan and Peter Just MUSIC Nicholas Cook SOCIOLOGY Steve Bruce NIETZSCHE Michael Tanner Socrates C. C. W. Taylor NINETEENTH-CENTURY SPINOZA Roger Scruton BRITAIN Christopher Harvie and STUART BRITAIN John Morrill H. C. G. Matthew TERRORISM Charles Townshend NORTHERN IRELAND THEOLOGY David F. Ford Marc Mulholland THE TUDORS John Guy paul E. P. Sanders TWENTIETH-CENTURY Philosophy Edward Craig BRITAIN Kenneth O. Morgan PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Wittgenstein A. C. Grayling Samir Okasha WORLD MUSIC Philip Bohlman Available soon: AFRICAN HISTORY HIEROGLYPHS John Parker and Richard Rathbone Penelope Wilson ANCIENT EGYPT Ian Shaw HIROSHIMA B. R. Tomlinson THE BRAIN Michael O’Shea HUMAN EVOLUTION BUDDHIST ETHICS Bernard Wood Damien Keown INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS CHAOS Leonard Smith Paul Wilkinson CHRISTIANITY Linda Woodhead JAZZ Brian Morton CITIZENSHIP Richard Bellamy MANDELA Tom Lodge CLASSICAL ARCHITECTURE MEDICAL ETHICS Robert Tavernor Tony Hope CLONING Arlene Judith Klotzko THE MIND Martin Davies CONTEMPORARY ART Myth Robert Segal Julian Stallabrass NATIONALISM Steven Grosby THE CRUSADES PERCEPTION Richard Gregory Christopher Tyerman PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION Derrida Simon Glendinning Jack Copeland and Diane Proudfoot DESIGN John Heskett PHOTOGRAPHY Dinosaurs David Norman Steve Edwards DREAMING J. Allan Hobson THE RAJ Denis Judd ECONOMICS Partha Dasgupta THE RENAISSANCE THE END OF THE WORLD Jerry Brotton Bill McGuire RENAISSANCE ART EXISTENTIALISM Thomas Flynn Geraldine Johnson THE FIRST WORLD WAR SARTRE Christina Howells Michael Howard THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR FREE WILL Thomas Pink Helen Graham FUNDAMENTALISM TRAGEDY Adrian Poole Malise Ruthven THE TWENTIETH CENTURY Habermas Gordon Finlayson Martin Conway For more information visit our web site www.oup.co.uk/vsi Robert McMahon THE COLD WAR A Very Short Introduction 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi São Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Robert McMahon 2003 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published as a Very Short Introduction 2003 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organizations. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available ISBN 13: 978–0– 19–280178–4 ISBN 10: 0–19–280178–3 57910864 Typeset by RefineCatch Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk Printed in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd., Padstow, Cornwall Contents Preface viii List of illustrations x List of maps xii 1 World War II and the destruction of the old order 1 2 The origins of the Cold War in Europe, 1945–50 16 3 Towards ‘Hot War’ in Asia, 1945–50 35 4 A global Cold War, 1950–8 56 5 From confrontation to detente, 1958–68 78 6 Cold wars at home 105 7 The rise and fall of superpower detente, 1968–79 122 8 The final phase, 1980–90 143 Further reading 169 Index 175 Preface to this edition Writing a compact history of the conflict that dominated and largely defined international affairs for nearly half a century has proven an assignment at once challenging, exciting, and daunting. Detailed monographs, many of them excellent and most considerably longer than the present volume, exist for virtually every one of the major events, crises, trends, and personalities discussed in this necessarily slim book. Vigorous, oft-times vituperative scholarly debates, moreover, have raged over almost every aspect of the Cold War’s history. Those debates have been enlivened, and deepened, in recent years with the release of previously secret documentary evidence from archives in the United States, Russia, Eastern Europe, China, and elsewhere – and by the fresh perspectives afforded by the passage of time. This book, consequently, does not – nor could it – purport to be the last word on the Cold War or to represent anything approaching a comprehensive history of that complex, multi-faceted conflict. Rather, in keeping with the general objectives of the Very Short Introduction series, my goal has been to provide a broad, interpretive overview, one accessible to students and general readers alike. This book offers a general account of the Cold War, spanning the period from 1945 to the final denouement of the Soviet-American confrontation in 1990. It elucidates key events, trends, and themes, drawing in so doing from some of the most important recent scholarship on the Cold War. I have sought, above all, to provide readers with an essential foundation for understanding and assessing one of the seminal events in modern world history. Inevitably, I have had to make difficult choices in terms of what to cover, and what to omit, about a conflict that spanned four and a half decades and encompassed virtually the entire globe. Limitations of space precluded treatment of some significant episodes and compelled the most abbreviated possible treatment of others. I also decided to pay short shrift to the military dimensions of the Cold War, partly because other volumes in this series will be devoted to the Korean and the Vietnam wars. What follows, then, is a ‘very short introduction’ to the Cold War, as the title promises, written from an international perspective and