The Course of Empire

Westward the course of empire takes its way; The four first acts already past, A fifth shall close the drama with the day: Time's noblest offspring is the last
British Empiricist, Bishop George Berkeley, 1685-1753

Compare Berkeley's prose to the final painting in Thomas Cole’s 1836 series on empire, “The Course of Empire: Destruction”

http://www.pasleybrothers.com/jefferson/images/Cole_destruction.JPG

Certainly both Berkeley and Cole used their experience to visualize what they saw as an inevitable future for Empire, but the shape of things to come is not definite. Inventible as tomorrow is, the disaster or triumph of a society’s tomorrow is difficult to forecast. So in order to answer the question, ‘Was the Cold War an inevitable outcome of World War II?’ it is worthwhile to examine the wells from which the inevitable is drawn.

The following is a brief synopsis of the cultural biases that constrained the victorious armies of WWII. For a Cold War to be inevitable, one needs a few ingredients. For the US, as revisionist historians have amply noted, the US needs an economic impetus. America from its earliest inception through charters and joint stock companies has looked to the market as a means for security. Turner’s often cited thesis, The Significance of the Frontier in American History presented in 1893 provides a valid interpretation of American Expansion. However, America has not only looked west. After all, America’s first military foray was its expeditionary action against then called Barbary Coast nations of North Africa. They went to quell disturbances to American economic activity in that region.

Yet it is the combination of Turner’s Thesis, Alfred Thayer Mahan’s ideas on naval power and American tendencies toward Social Darwinism that provided justification for expansion into new markets, and the protection required to sustain such expansion that precipitated coaling stations abroad to ‘protect American interests.” Clearly, America’s conception of security required expansion.

For a moment now, turn to the cultural bias of the Soviets at the time of the end of WWII as summarized:
“the West had poured thousands of troops into Russia between 1917 and 1920, refused to cooperate with the Soviets during the 1930’s, tried to turn Hitler against Stalin in 1938, reneged on promises about a second front, and in 1945 tried to penetrate Stalin deemed crucial to Soviet security.” (LaFeber 1985)

It is little wonder then that the Soviets sought security in terms of land. They had been invaded by Western European powers several times since the 19th century, and with twenty million dead and twenty-five million homeless, it seems a perfectly natural response to want security in the post WWII era. (LaFeber 1985, Young & Kent 2004)

Note that these two views are drawn without identifying an individual to determine the inevitability of a Cold War post WWII. Orthodox historians however almost uniformly identify the Soviet Union and in particular, Josef Stalin as the paranoid responsible for the inevitability of the Cold War (see Gaddis 1997, 2005). In this vision, the US has little culpability for the Cold War. To say paranoia was a driver and it lay squarely on the Soviet’s leader is too simplistic. This view also neglects an interesting historical piece by a historian more noted for the American Colonial period. Hofstadter’s examination Yellow Journalism as the cause the Spanish American War rejects this and instead looks to other factors internal to the United States. Among these factors is the convergence of an economic depression and the psychological and emotional crisis that ensued that made that war inevitable even though Spain had acquiesced to American demands (Hofstadter 1965).

Post war, Stalin was committed to the idea of Spheres of influence (Gaddis 2005). This was something on which Stalin and Churchill could agree in 1944, as Churchill was an ardent and unrepentant imperialist. He did not desire to see the dissolution of the British Empire. He also hoped to maintain influence in Eastern Europe by carving it up in percentages (Churchill, 1953). To be fair, this idea is not foreign to the United States. Through the turn of the 19th to the 20th century it had also been an American objective, as noted with the Open Door Policy in China. But no longer - the US had a vision of a new World Order, which shall be addressed shortly.

It is possible to consider that domestic issues play a role in foreign policy as Hofstadter point out. As such there are other possibilities than Cold War. Yet, the view of Stalin through Gaddis’ eyes shows a man intransigent on the issue of consolidating and expanding the empire, as “a fusion of Marxism and Tsarist Russia” (Gaddis 1997). As such, his pathological insistence on a security buffer zone was at once unbending and unacceptable to the US. Churchill delivered a speech in 1946 giving this new Soviet zone of influence a name: the Iron Curtain. However, it should be noted that within that sphere manifold forms of experimentation were underway in Eastern Europe. Eventually, the heavy-handedness of the Soviet Union would crush these experiments, but in the case of Finland, it could be argued that the Soviets were more concerned with security and less with world conquests (Paterson 1988).

The various wartime correspondences and conferences to help determine the postwar peace presented the possibility of an alliance where conflict could be avoided. But where and how do such alliances diverge? The world vision for post 1917 Soviet Union and their ideal of Marxism ultimately was incompatible with the competing Wilsonian world vision, as reinterpreted by Roosevelt, embryonic though it was. By 1946, Kennan’s Long Telegram began the formulation of the US mode of containment. Whatever the alternate possibilities could have been post WWII had by now evaporated as Soviet Ambassador Novikov reciprocated in his long telegram the Soviet perspective, “The Foreign Policy of the United States, which reflects the imperialist tendencies of American monopolistic capital, is characterized in the postwar period by a striving for world supremacy.” (Jensen 1991).

By 1946, the Soviet perceptions of American economic hegemony gave the Soviets reason to decline the terms of a $1billion loan that they had sought during the previous fifteen months. “Control of their border areas was worth more to them the Russians than $1billion or even $10 billion” (LaFeber 1985). Gaddis pronounced that Stalin did not administer his empire well (Gaddis 1997). We now know the outcome of the Soviet Empire. How well will the US manage its empire? Asked for his opinion of the French Revolution, the Mao’s Foreign Minister Chou En-Lai is reported to have replied to Henry Kissinger that it was "too soon to tell"... The same can be said for the American Experiment.
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Gaddis, John Lewis, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History, (New York: 1997) and The Cold War, A New History, (New York: 2005)

Jensen, Kenneth M. ed., The Origins of the Cold War: The Novikov, Kennan and Roberts “Long Telegrams” of 1946, (Washington: 1991)

LaFeber, Walter, America Russia and the Cold War, 1945-1984, (New York: 1985)

Patterson, Thomas G., Meeting the Communist Threat: Truman to Reagan, (Oxford: 1988)

Young, John & John Kent, International Relations Since 1945 – A Global History, (Oxford: 2004)

Pro-Life - Soviet Poster 2

This poster by Soviet artist Tereshchenko has the message, "Not For War". Propaganda is a great lens for looking back on history. Certainly, its intended audience is not only for the internal audience. Take the original American political cartoon, Ben Franklin severed snake, representing the colonies. It's message "Join or Die", implies the danger of united group of colonies against Great Britain to the Crown & parliament.
The Soviet propaganda machine itself is similar to the Great Seal of the United States, the Eagle, with an eye to the olive branch, nevertheless holds arrows parabellum in its other talon. The propaganda poster book I mentioned also shows peace themed posters as well as the more bellicose.
By the way, the poster in the previous post was by artist Aslyan. Both come out of the book Soviet Political Poster, 1917-1980 by Lenin Library Collection . Don't Worry, I have got some great Herblock political cartoons for later posts.

Soviet Era posters 1

Sorry, this Soviet propaganda poster is cut off from on the bottom. However, I like these. I bought a book full of them in 1987. This poster, published in 1958 says, "NYET!" or in that crazy Cyrillic alphabet, "HET!" which, exhausting my Russian, means, "NO!" So I like a few things about this poster:

1. It was published by the USSR.
2. It is way in advance of the the RiceBushChenny "smoking gun in the shape of a mushroom cloud" bit.
3. It has both onion domed buildings in silhouette at the bottom, as well as palm trees - a reference to the Soviet-Cuban nexus.
4. like the poster bellow, it has a less than subtle anti-war message.
   

Opposition suits me...

As I read this week, I am facing a dilema of trepidation and pleasure.... I am really enjoying the collection of Essays edited by Ellen Schrecker, "Cold War Triumphalism - the misuse of History After the Fall of Communism".

Her introductor essay itself is a knockout, and then to follow it with Ribuffo's essay has me nodding my head in agreement, for the most part anyway. Here is where the fear factor settles in... As I read, I can feel the thoughts coalesce, as though a form of deja vu.

The fun thing about reading these essays is that they are largely against the grain of current thinking (hence the title). I find I share some of these views to the point that some make me wonder if I have completely internalize something somewhere… but haven’t read these essays before, nor the authors of these essays (with the exception of Marilyn Young.) No, it is not that I think I am having some psychic breakthrough, or telepathic experience, but that these hitherto assorted jumble of thoughts and feelings about these topics are now organizing themselves in a coherent way that they had not before, though had cycled through only in bits and pieces… not like a puzzle. More like assorted clips and images thoughts suddenly taken on a more 3-d combined with motion as in real life... as long as the book is in my hand and my eyes are on the page I think I know how to orchestrate what I want to say… and even more flashes of brilliance…

Having not given William Appleman Williams significant consideration in my past readings, and having a preconception of what his writings were about, Leo Ribuffo absolutely elucidates and forces me to go back and investigate the original author’s words and intent as Ribuffo writes on the morality of the Cold War… So the bright flashes I may have had at one time are taken out of the junk drawer in my brain, dusted off and fashioned into a gem joined with the new flashes to be embroidered into finer work later.

So the fear comes in knowing myself. Being an amateur painter I have often started art projects that seem so promising only to get ¾ of the way through and loose interest or steam or both, particularly if I cannot get a small element just right. I want to finish… I want to take these thoughts and some how keep them organized, to weave the strands together in a way that means something… perhaps my very own Bayeux Tapestry (but with no missing pieces…)

If only I could post some chunks of these essays without breaking copyright law...

Tutor Group 3 you are now linked

I hope we are able to delve deeper into eachothers journals. To make it easier, I have linked tutor group 3 on the left side of my page. Enjoy. Post. Read. Critique. Collaborate. Exhale. Good.

Readings for Unit 2

Other readings that I have found interesting include Cold War Triumphalism: The Misuse of History After the Fall of Communism. It is a collection of essays from several authors, and though many may find it 'revisionist' I suggest it for synthesis of other readings in which we are engaged.

Other helpful books are from my undergraduate studies, but still have great reference material: LaFeber's "The American Age, Vol. 2" and Merrill & Patterson's collection of primary sources,"Major Problems in American Foreign Relations".

For up coming units, I see some articles by Professor Roger Dingman of USC being helpful "Atomic Diplomacy during the Korean War" from International Security 13 (Winter 1988/89) and "Alliance in Crisis: The Lucky Dragon Incident and Japanese-American Relations" from Cohen and Iriye's book The Great Powers in East Asia, 1953-1960. Hopefully I will be able to get these incorporated into my discussions with you.

Just as a teaser, I will say that the article from Dingman on Atomic Diplomacy has one point I may make on more than one occasion throughout this Master's Program. Dingman cites James Shepley's article "How Dulles Averted War" from Life, January 16, 1956 pp.70-72 Dingman then say, "Dulles spoke in response to partisan critics at the beginning of an election year, but his words influenced policy and history long after the 1956 contest ended." This is exactly one of the biggest problems for US diplomacy and foreign relations: elected officials in the American political sphere are too often driven by the short sighted goal of re-election. But the effort to win in the American political sphere has far reaching consequences in the global political sphere. This ties in a bit to that saying of Tip O'Neil, that "All Politics is Local" but local in a way that does not serve the larger picture. I will have to dig out the reference, but to give an example, (perhaps it was in Beschloss's work, Taking Charge (1997) or Reaching for Glory: Lyndon Johnson's Secret White House Tapes, 1964-1965 there was a comment justifying the need to 'get into' Vietnam, not simply that Kennedy had been one of many Senators to sponsor Diem, but the statement had this effect: "If we don't get in there [Vietnam] we're going to look soft on communism and Goldwater is going to eat our lunch at the polls in November."

In other words, an Achilles heel for democracy (the US or elsewhere) is that candidates in electoral races put their re-election above all else. The same can be said for the missile gap controversy. These decisions that are made so lightly have heavy-water consequences on the global stage.

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