Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
The USA and the Cold War in Europe under Eisenhower. - Coggle Diagram
The USA and the Cold War in Europe under Eisenhower.
Explain the importance of these key terms/people:
• Rollback – Republicans criticised Truman’s policy of containment and Dulles believed it was ‘negative, futile and immoral’. Instead, rollback would be the answer to ‘liberating’ people from communist rule. However, this was challenging do as without starting a war with the USSR. Some may argue that Dulles constant promotion of Rollback sparked the Hungarian uprising and caused unease in Europe.
• New Look – It aimed at cutting the $40 billion defence budget by limiting conventional forces. Instead, USA was forced to relay more heavily on nuclear defences. There was concerns this was make America took weak, but Dulles ensured that if any country tried to take advantage there would be ‘massive retaliation’. Historian Stephen Ambrose said the issue with nuclear weapons being the main/ only weapon of the USA meant the threating of this force could easily optionally lead to a nuclear disaster. By 1956, USA had over 1,600 planes capable of carrying nuclear bombs.
• Peaceful co-existence - Ike aimed to have a peaceful relationship with the Soviet Union to avoid ‘massive retaliation’.
What were the aims of Ike’s foreign policy in Europe? How far did they differ from Truman’s aims?
• He believed in personal diplomacy and avoiding conflicts as much as possible.
• Stalin and Truman were both very aggressive towards each other, but Khrushchev aims mirrored Ike’s.
The West and the East was almost on level playing field as the USSR created the Warsaw Pact to counter NATO and both sides had large masses of nuclear weapons. This created a greater need for peaceful co-existence that was proposed by Khrushchev.
What happened at the Geneva Summit? How successful was the summit for Ike?
• The Geneva Summit took place as a step towards improving relations between the West and the USSR.
• Ike proposed:
free communications between the two countries
Agreements on the peaceful use of the atomic bomb.
Free skies where military information would be exchanged freely. (This idea was heavily rejected but America used their spy planes regardless.)
• Although nothing was set in concrete it was a great success in terms of improving relations. It led to agreements over Austria whereby, Soviet troops were removed, and the country officially became neutral.
• Khrushchev finally accepted the East of Germany as its own country.
• You could argue that this summit lead to Khrushchev and Nixon both visiting American and Moscow.
• The summit presented Ike to America as a winner and the media talked about the ‘Spite of Geneva’.
How did the events in Hungary in 1956 contribute to tension?
• Hungarian uprising was sparked by the misleading broadcast of Dulles promoting rollback. This gave the impression that hungry had American support.
• The uprising caused 30,000 Hungarians to die and a further 200,000 to become refugees and 25,000 were allowed into the USA.
• The ability of American to be unable to help show to the world the unrealistic ambition of liberation as policy in the Cold War. This led to containment being persuaded more than rollback… in fear of avoiding conflict.
How did events in Berlin exacerbate tension?
• There had been no progress made between East and West Germany since the war.
• The East was being bleed dry as all the highly skilled/ young people were moving to the West which was massively more economically advanced. This made the USSR look weak compared to American.
• Khrushchev gave Ike an ultimatum: There will be peace if American soldiers leave Berlin. However, accepting Khrushchev’s demands meant accepting East Germany which America didn’t really want to do. The deadline came around and nothing happened. Eventually, they agreed to discuss this issue further at the Paris Summit.
• There was not real change and Khrushchev only gave an empty threat.
Did the Paris Summit fail totally?
• The Paris Summit was a complete failure as on its eve the USSR announced that they shot down a U2 spy plane
• USA felt the need to use spy planes after the proposal of open skies was rejected and the increasing military build up of the USSR.
• This was a massive publicity failure and painted American in a bad light. Thus, the Paris Summit fell apart and tensions increased, and relations went back to being unstable and unfriendly.
How did the Space race exacerbate tensions?
• The space race revelled the myth of American superiority in technology over the USSR when they launched their first ICBM which had the ability to reach western Europe.
• Ike was still keen to keep military spending low and feared that an arms race was only escalate the cold war further unlike, Kennedy.
• When the USSR launched Sputnik, it was a huge wake up call for America and caused them to rapidly step up their game by setting up NASA.
• However, USA did continue the nuclear defence program even through Ike was concerned about the ‘military – industrial complex’. This all together led to the deterioration of peaceful co exitance.
• Success in the space race directly impacted USSR’s militarily capability as space and missile technology were closely linked.