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The University High School Band
The History and Theory of Music

The Cold War

President Kennedy on the phone with Nikita Krushchev

The United States and the Soviet Union never went to war, but came close a number of times and constantly worked against each other around the globe. Both sides possessed enormous nuclear arsenals capable of deployment on ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) or from submarines and military bases across the world. No matter which side attacked first, the other would be able to launch a counterattack before being destroyed. This time of tension was known as the Cold War.

The first major conflict of the Cold War was the Korean War. Korea had been part of the Japanese Empire, and after World War II was divided between the USSR and USA. Both the Soviets and Americans withdrew in 1949, and just a few years later the communist North Korea attacked the democratic South Korea. President Dwight Eisenhower sent American troops in under Douglas MacArthur (both veteran generals of World War II) and pushed the communists all the way into China. The Chinese then sent an army to help the communists and pushed back into Korea. The war ended with essentially no change in territory.

President Nixon in China

In 1962, Stalin's successor Nikita Krushchev established a nuclear missile base in Cuba, which had fallen to communists under Fidel Castro three years earlier. Just 90 miles away from Florida, the missiles could easily strike the United States. President John F. Kennedy demanded the missiles be removed and considered launching airstrikes or even a land invasion force against Cuba. After initially denying the missiles existed, Krushchev said any attack against Cuba would be considered an attack against the Soviet Union. Kennedy called his bluff and raised the stakes, saying that any missile launched from Cuba to any country whatsoever would be considered an attack by the Soviet Union against the United States. The American Navy launched a blockade to prevent any Soviet ships from approaching the island. After two very tense weeks, the Soviets removed the missiles. The Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest the two powers came to a nuclear war.

A situation similar to Korea played out a few years later during the Vietnam War. Communists controlled the north while the south was a democracy. American troops were dispatched from 1965 until 1973 to help the south, but were unable to beat the communists. Eventually the war became very unpopular in the United States and the American troops withdrew, leaving the communists to take over the whole country by 1975.

Starting in the 1970s, the Cold War entered a phase of détente as tensions began to ease. President Richard Nixon improved American relations with both the Chinese and Russians, which was good in itself and had the added bonus of making the two largest communist countries suspicious of each other.

Open-Ended Question

Why did the United States and Soviet Union never fight each other directly?