The Cold War: Crash Course US History #37
The Cold War: Crash Course US History #37
In which John Green teaches you about the Cold War, the decades-long conflict between the USA and the USSR. The Cold War was called cold because of the lack of actual fighting, but this is inaccurate. There was plenty of fighting, from Korea to Viet Nam to Afghanistan, but we’ll get into that stuff next week. This week we’ll talk about how the Cold War started. In short, it grew out of World War II. Basically, the Soviets occupied Eastern Europe and the US-supported western Europe. This setup would spill across the world, with client states on both sides. It’s all in the video. You should just watch it.
Hey teachers and students - Check out CommonLit’s free collection of reading passages and curriculum resources to learn more about the events of this episode. The Cold War spanned over four decades of American history, beginning with the paranoia of McCarthyism, a political witch hunt for communists: https://www.commonlit.org/texts/mccar…
President Kennedy delivered an Inaugural Address during the height of the Cold War, initiating a space race: https://www.commonlit.org/texts/presi…
President Kennedy also oversaw Cuba’s emergence as a Cold War rival of the United States:
https://www.commonlit.org/texts/cold-…
Want to learn more about the Cold War? Check out these other videos from Crash Course:
USA vs USSR Fight! The Cold War: Crash Course World History #39:
• USA vs USSR Fight! The Cold War: Cras…
The Cold War in Asia: Crash Course US History #38:
• The Cold War in Asia: Crash Course US…
George HW Bush and the End of the Cold War: Crash Course US History #44:
• George HW Bush and the End of the Col…
The Cold War and Consumerism: Crash Course Computer Science #24:
• The Cold War and Consumerism: Crash C…
Post-War Rebuilding and the Cold War: Crash Course European History #41:
• Post-War Rebuilding and the Cold War:…
Chapters:
Introduction: The Cold War Era 00:00
The Aftermath of WWII 1:57
USSR Expansion \u0026 Containment 2:38
The Truman Doctrine 3:34
The Marshall Plan 5:01
The Berlin Crisis 6:18
Mystery Document 7:19
Consensus on Cold War Policies 8:28
Impact of the Cold War on Domestic Policy 10:03
Espionage, McCarthyism, and the Red Scare 10:53
Credits 12:49
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Content
0.46 -> Hi I’m John Green; this is Crash Course
U.S. history and today we’re gonna talk
4.089 -> about the Cold War.
The Cold War is called “Cold” because
7.009 -> it supposedly never heated up into actual
armed conflict, which means, you know, that
11.24 -> it wasn’t a war.
Mr. Green, Mr. Green, but if the War on Christmas
14.219 -> is a war and the War on Drugs is a war…
You’re not going to hear me say this often
17.65 -> in your life, Me from the Past, but that was
a good point. At least the Cold War was not
21.91 -> an attempt to make war on a noun, which almost
never works, because nouns are so resilient.
27.49 -> And to be fair, the Cold War did involve quite
a lot of actual war, from Korea to Afghanistan,
32.66 -> as the world’s two superpowers, the United
States and the U.S.S.R., sought ideological
36.73 -> and strategic influence throughout the world.
So perhaps it’s best to think of the Cold
40.66 -> War as an era, lasting roughly from 1945 to
1990.
44.809 -> Discussions of the Cold War tend to center
on international and political history and
48.11 -> those are very important, which is why we’ve
talked about them in the past. This, however,
51.55 -> is United States history, so let us heroically
gaze--as Americans so often do--at our own
57.399 -> navel.
(Libertage.)
59.19 -> Stan, why did you turn the globe to the Green
Parts of Not-America? I mean, I guess to be
66.37 -> fair, we were a little bit obsessed with this
guy.
68.33 -> So, the Cold War gave us great spy novels,
independence movements, an arms race, cool
72.54 -> movies like Dr. Strangelove and War Games,
one of the most evil mustaches in history.
78.15 -> But it also gave us a growing awareness that
the greatest existential threat to human beings
82.61 -> is ourselves. It changed the way we imagine
the world and humanity’s role in it.
87.41 -> In his Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, William
Faulkner famously said, “Our tragedy today
91.2 -> is a general and universal physical fear so
long sustained by now that we can even bear
96.83 -> it. There are no longer problems of the spirit.
There is only the question: When will I be
102 -> blown up?”
So, today we’re gonna look at how that came
104.42 -> to be the dominant question of human existence,
and whether we can ever get past it.
113.22 -> intro
So after WWII the U.S. and the USSR were the
120.22 -> only two nations with any power left. The
United States was a lot stronger – we had
124.36 -> atomic weapons, for starters, and also the
Soviets had lost 20 million people in the
128.28 -> war and they were led by a sociopathic mustachioed
Joseph Stalin.
132.67 -> But the U.S. still had worries: we needed
a strong, free-market-oriented Europe (and
136.74 -> to a lesser extent Asia) so that all the goods
we were making could find happy homes.
141.05 -> The Soviets, meanwhile, were concerned with
something more immediate, a powerful Germany
144.47 -> invading them. Again. Germany--and please
do not take this personally, Germans--was
149 -> very, very slow to learn the central lesson
of world history: Do not invade Russia. Unless
156.05 -> you’re the Mongols.
(Mongoltage.)
158.86 -> So at the end of World War II, the USSR “encouraged”
the creation of pro-communist governments
163.84 -> in Bulgaria, Romania, and Poland--which was
a relatively easy thing to encourage, because
168.37 -> those nations were occupied by Soviet troops.
The idea for the Soviets was to create a communist
172.86 -> buffer between them and Germany, but to the
U.S. it looked like communism might just keep
177.5 -> expanding, and that would be really bad for
us, because who would buy all of our sweet,
181.62 -> sweet industrial goods?
So America responded with the policy of containment,
185.46 -> as introduced in diplomat George F. Kennan’s
famous Long Telegram. Communism could stay
189.83 -> where it was, but it would not be allowed
to spread.
192.95 -> And ultimately this is why we fought very
real wars in both Korea and Vietnam.
196.5 -> As a government report from 1950 put it the
goals of containment were:
200.38 -> 1. Block further expansion of Soviet power
2. Expose the falsities of soviet pretensions
205.709 -> 3. Induce a retraction of the Kremlin’s
control and influence, and
210.12 -> 4. In general, foster the seeds of destruction
within the Soviet system.
214.41 -> Harry Truman, who as you’ll recall, became
President in 1945 after Franklin Delano Prez
219.19 -> 4 Life Roosevelt died, was a big fan of containment,
and the first real test of it came in Greece
224.09 -> and Turkey in 1947.
This was a very strategically valuable region
228.16 -> because it was near the Middle East, and I
don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but
231.25 -> the United States has been just, like, a smidge
interested in the Middle East the last several
235.28 -> decades because of oil glorious oil.
Right, so Truman announced the so-called Truman
240.44 -> Doctrine, because you know why not name a
doctrine after yourself, in which he pledged
243.8 -> to support “freedom-loving peoples” against
communist threats, which is all fine and good.
249.209 -> But who will protect us against “peoples,”
the pluralization of an already plural noun?
254.38 -> Anyway, we eventually sent $400 million in
aid to Greece and Turkey, and we were off
258.66 -> to the Cold War races.
The Truman Doctrine created the language through
261.65 -> which Americans would view the world with
America as free and communists as tyrannical.
266.09 -> According to our old friend Eric Foner, “The
speech set a precedent for American assistance
271.26 -> to anticommunist regimes throughout the world,
no matter how undemocratic, and for the creation
276.26 -> of a set of global military alliances directed
against the Soviet Union.”[1]
280.93 -> It also led to the creation of a new security
apparatus – the National Security Council,
284.59 -> the Central Intelligence Agency, the Atomic
Energy Commission, all of which were somewhat
289.32 -> immune from government oversight and definitely
not democratically elected.
293.57 -> And the containment policy and the Truman
Doctrine also laid the foundations for a military
297.29 -> build-up – an arms race – which would
become a key feature of the Cold War.
301.15 -> But it wasn’t all about the military, at
least at first. Like, the Marshall Plan was
304.65 -> first introduced at Harvard’s Commencement
address in June 1947 by, get this, George
309.6 -> Marshall, in what turned out to be, like,
the second most important commencement address
313.41 -> in all of American history. Yes, yes, Stan,
okay. It was a great speech, thank you for
318.49 -> noticing. Alright, let’s go to the Thought
Bubble.
319.9 -> The Marshall Plan was a response to economic
chaos in Europe brought on by a particularly
323.84 -> harsh winter that strengthened support for
communism in France and Italy.
327.68 -> The plan sought to use US Aid to combat the
economic instability that provided fertile
332.37 -> fields for communism. As Marshall said “ our
policy is not directed against any country
337.53 -> or doctrine, but against hunger, poverty,
desperation and chaos.” [2] Basically it
342.58 -> was a New Deal for Europe, and it worked;
Western Europe was rebuilt so that by 1950
347.31 -> production levels in industry had eclipsed
pre-war levels and Europe was on its way to
351.31 -> becoming a U.S. style-capitalist-mass-consumer
society. Which it still is, kind of.
357.19 -> Japan, although not technically part of the
Marshall Plan, was also rebuilt. General Douglas
361.33 -> MacArthur was basically the dictator there,
forcing Japan to adopt a new constitution,
365.71 -> giving women the vote, and pledging that Japan
would foreswear war, in exchange for which
370.24 -> the United States effectively became Japan’s
defense force. This allowed Japan to spend
374.37 -> its money on other things, like industry,
which worked out really well for them.
378.229 -> Meanwhile Germany was experiencing the first
Berlin crisis. At the end of the war, Germany
382.229 -> was divided into East and West, and even though
the capital, Berlin, was entirely in the east,
387.06 -> it was also divided into east and west. This
meant that West Berlin was dependent on shipments
391.61 -> of goods from West Germany through East Germany.
And then, in 1948, Stalin cut off the roads
398.08 -> to West Berlin. So, the Americans responded
with an 11-month-long airlift of supplies
402.69 -> that eventually led to Stalin lifting the
blockade in 1948 and building the Berlin Wall,
408.16 -> which stood until 1991, when Kool Aid Guy--no,
wait, wait, wait, wait, that wasn’t when
412.28 -> the Berlin Wall was built. That was in 1961.
I just wanted to give Thought Bubble the opportunity
416.83 -> to make that joke.
Thanks, Thought Bubble. So right, the Wall
419.06 -> wasn’t built until 1961, but 1949 did see
Germany officially split into two nations,
423.65 -> and also the Soviets detonated their first
atomic bomb, and NATO was established, AND
428.699 -> the Chinese Revolution ended in communist
victory.
431.05 -> So, by the end of 1950, the contours of the
Cold War had been established, West versus
435.6 -> East, Capitalist Freedom versus Communist
totalitarianism.
439.33 -> At least from where I’m sitting. Although
now apparently I’m going to change where
441.83 -> I’m sitting because it’s time for the
Mystery Document. The rules here are simple.
447.11 -> I guess the author of the Mystery Document
and about 55% of the time I get shocked by
451.44 -> the shock pen.
“We must organize and enlist the energies
454.16 -> and resources of the free world in a positive
program for peace which will frustrate the
458.69 -> Kremlin design for world domination by creating
a situation in the free world to which the
463.259 -> Kremlin will be compelled to adjust. Without
such a cooperative effort, led by the United
467.57 -> States, we will have to make gradual withdrawals
under pressure until we discover one day that
472.16 -> we have sacrificed positions of vital interest.
It is imperative that this trend be reversed
476.87 -> by a much more rapid and concerted build-up
of the actual strength of both the United
481.44 -> States and the other nations of the free world.”
I mean all I can say about it is that it sounds
485.83 -> American and, like, it was written in, like,
1951 and it seems kind of like a policy paper
490.889 -> or something really boring so I...I mean...
Yeah, I’m just going to have to take the
498.65 -> shock. AH!
National Security Council report NSC-68? Are
502.05 -> you kidding me, Stan? Not-not 64? Or 81? 68?
This is ridiculous! I call injustice.
507.66 -> Anyway, as the apparently wildly famous NSC-68
shows, the U.S. government cast the Cold War
513.459 -> as a rather epic struggle between freedom
and tyranny, and that led to remarkable political
518.199 -> consensus--both democrats and republicans
supported most aspects of cold war policy,
522.969 -> especially the military build-up part.
Now, of course, there were some critics, like
526.369 -> Walter Lippmann who worried that casting foreign
policy in such stark ideological terms would
531.139 -> result in the U.S. getting on the wrong side
of many conflicts, especially as former colonies
536.029 -> sought to remove the bonds of empire and become
independent nations. But yeah, no, nothing
540.889 -> like that ever happened.
Yeah, I mean, it’s not like that happened
542.939 -> in Iran or Nicaragua or Argentina or Brazil
or Guatemala or Stan are you really going
548.959 -> to make me list all of them? Fine. Or Haiti
or Paraguay or the Philippines or Chile or
553.069 -> Iraq or Indonesia or Zaire or, I’m sorry,
THERE WERE A LOT OF THEM, OKAY?
556.54 -> But these interventions were viewed as necessary
to prevent the spread of communism, which
560.589 -> was genuinely terrifying to people and it’s
important to understand that.
564.579 -> Like, national security agencies pushed Hollywood
to produce anticommunist movies like “The
568.74 -> Red Menace,” which scared people. And the
CIA funded magazines, news broadcasts, concerts,
574.16 -> art exhibitions, that gave examples of American
freedom. It even supported painters like Jackson
579.329 -> Pollack and the Museum of Modern Art in New
York because American expressionism was the
583.899 -> vanguard of artistic freedom and the exact
opposite of Soviet socialist realism.
588.429 -> I mean, have you seen Soviet paintings? Look
at the hearty ankles on these socialist comrade
593.149 -> peasants.
Also because the Soviets were atheists, at
595.879 -> least in theory, Congress in 1954 added the
words “under God” to the pledge of allegiance
600.959 -> as a sign of America’s resistance to communism.
The Cold War also shaped domestic policy--anti-communist
606.399 -> sentiment, for instance, prevented Truman
from extending the social policies of the
609.91 -> New Deal.
The program that he dubbed the Fair Deal would
612.959 -> have increased the minimum wage, extended
national health insurance and increased public
617.259 -> housing, Social Security and aid to education.
But the American Medical Association lobbied
621.72 -> against Truman’s plan for national health
insurance by calling it “socialized” medicine,
626.499 -> and Congress was in no mood to pay money for
socialized anything.
629.899 -> That problem goes away.
But the government did make some domestic
633.85 -> investments as a result of the Cold War--in
the name of national security the government
637.48 -> spent money on education, research in science,
technology like computers, and transportation
642.879 -> infrastructure. In fact we largely have the
Cold War to thank for our marvelous interstate
647.23 -> highway system, although part of the reason
Congress approved it was to set up speedy
651.259 -> evacuation routes in the event of nuclear
war.
653.589 -> And, speaking of nuclear war, it’s worth
noting that a big part of the reason the Soviets
656.899 -> were able to develop nuclear weapons so quickly
was thanks to espionage, like for instance
661.529 -> by physicist and spy Klaus Fuchs. I think
I’m pronouncing that right.
665.199 -> Fuchs worked on the Manhattan Project and
leaked information to the Soviets and then
668.499 -> later helped the Chinese to build their first
bomb. Julius Rosenberg also gave atomic secrets
673.61 -> to the Soviets, and was eventually executed--as
was his less-clearly-guilty wife, Ethel.
677.91 -> And it’s important to remember all that
when thinking about the United States’s
681.429 -> obsessive fear that there were communists
in our midst. This began in 1947 with Truman’s
686.16 -> Loyalty Review System, which required government
employees to prove their patriotism when accused
691.3 -> of disloyalty.
How do you prove your loyalty? Rat out your
693.939 -> co-workers as communists. No seriously though,
that program never found any communists.
697.72 -> This all culminated of course with the Red
Scare and the rise of Wisconsin senator Joseph
702.239 -> McCarthy, an inveterate liar who became enormously
powerful after announcing in February 1950
707.999 -> that he had a list of 205 communists who worked
in the state department
711.709 -> In fact, he had no such thing, and McCarthy
never identified a single disloyal American,
716.6 -> but the fear of communism continued. In 1951’s
Dennis v. United States, the Supreme Court
722.23 -> upheld the notion that being a communist leader
itself was a crime.
726.619 -> In this climate of fear, any criticism of
the government and its policies or the U.S.
731.339 -> in general was seen as disloyalty. There was
only one question--when will I be blown up--and
737.129 -> it encouraged loyalty, because only the government
could prevent the spread of communism and
741.739 -> keep us from being blown up.
We’ve talked a lot about different ways
744.97 -> that Americans have imagined freedom this
year, but this was a new definition of freedom--the
749.559 -> government exists in part to keep us free
from massive destruction.
753.879 -> So, the Cold War changed America profoundly:
The U.S. has remained a leader on the world
757.97 -> stage and continued to build a large, powerful,
and expensive national state. But it also
762.829 -> changed the way we imagine what it means to
be free, and what it means to be safe. Thanks
768.699 -> for watching. I’ll see you next week.
Crash Course is created by all of these nice
772.589 -> people and it is possible because of you and
your support through Subbable.com.
776.529 -> Subbable is a crowdfunding website that allows
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780.569 -> basis. Our Subbable subscribers make this
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783.11 -> Thanks to them. If you value Crash Course,
please check out our Subbable. There are great
786.339 -> perks there. And thanks to all of you for
watching. As we say in my hometown, don’t
790.84 -> forget to be awesome...Wait, wait, wait,
Stan, is that music copyrighted?
796.88 -> All right! It's not! Woo!
That saved us a thousand dollars.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C72ISMF_D0