The Cold War
The post-1945 nuclear and ideological rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union
Also known as: Cold War, Nuclear Rivalry, U.S.–Soviet rivalry
The Cold War is Quigley's name for the structural confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union from the late 1940s through the early 1960s — the period whose 'central fact' was the 'scientific and technological rivalry' between the two new super-Powers (T&H 886). In the closing third of Tragedy and Hope Quigley treats the era as a single unity, 1945 to 'early 1963,' organized around the H-bomb, the missile gap, and the Cuban Crisis of October 1962 that 'began to dwindle' the rivalry toward its end (T&H 15).
Onset, 1945–1949
Quigley dates the onset of the Cold War to the closing months of the Second World War and the failure of the wartime 'Great Power Cooperation' framework that had been embodied in the United Nations Organization of 1945–1946 (T&H 891). In his four-stage typology of American strategic planning, 'Great Power Cooperation' is succeeded after 1946 by 'Containment of Soviet expansion by all means available, including economic aid to others (the Marshall Plan), conventional forces (as in NATO), and nuclear weapons, 1946–1953' (T&H 891). Containment, in Quigley's compressed phrase, 'lasted from early 1947 to 1953, and was resumed gradually after 1958' (T&H 922); its tools were economic and financial aid 'to eliminate the misery and ignorance' on which Soviet expansion fed. The American atomic monopoly of 1945–1949, the Berlin blockade, and the founding of NATO in 1949 fix the institutional shape of the early Cold War. The original quadrennium is captured in the chapter title 'NUCLEAR RIVALRY AND THE COLD WAR: AMERICAN ATOMIC SUPREMACY, 1945–1950' (T&H 884).
Nuclear rivalry as the core dynamic
Quigley's distinctive thesis on the Cold War is that its 'foundation and core' is technological, not ideological. 'The central fact of the whole period, and the one which dominated all the others, was the scientific and technological rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, because this rivalry formed the very foundation and core of the Cold War, which was recognized by everyone to be the dominant political factor of the period' (T&H 886). 'Unfortunately, the Cold War is almost always described in terms which put minor emphasis on, or which may even neglect, the role of Soviet-American technological rivalry. This is done because most historians do not feel competent' on weapons systems (T&H 886) — a complaint that connects the Cold War analysis in Tragedy and Hope to Quigley's longer technical treatment in Weapons Systems and Political Stability and to weapons-systems theory. The hydrogen bomb of 1952, the Soviet H-bomb of 1953, and the intercontinental missile race of the late 1950s gave the rivalry its peculiar all-or-nothing character. By creating 'two super-Powers in a Cold War,' nuclear weapons 'destroyed the fact of the equality of states' (T&H 881) and reorganized world politics into ordinary and super tiers.
Quigley's framing within the seven-stage cycle
Within Quigley's seven-stage civilizational model the Cold War sits at the threshold between the Age of Expansion of Western Civilization and its Age of Conflict. The bipolar order, the imperial entanglements in Korea and Indochina, and what Quigley calls the 'feudalization of authority' produced by nuclear stalemate (T&H 882) are read as symptoms of late-Expansion brittleness rather than of stable equilibrium. 'Under the Cold War umbrella, small groups or areas can obtain recognition as states without any need to demonstrate the traditional characteristics of statehood, namely, the ability to maintain their frontiers against their neighbors by force and the ability to maintain order within these frontiers' (T&H 882) — a passage in which Quigley reads the Cold War order as one already beginning to dissolve the Westphalian state form that classical Western Civilization had constructed between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Cold War, then, is for Quigley not merely a foreign-policy episode but a phase-change in the underlying structure of the civilization.
Major phases and turning points
Quigley periodizes the Cold War into roughly three movements. (1) American atomic supremacy and containment, 1945–1950, organized around Truman's response to Soviet pressure in Iran, Turkey, Greece, and Berlin and the institutionalization of NATO. (2) The race for the H-bomb and 'massive retaliation' under Eisenhower and Dulles, 1950–1957 — a phase Quigley treats critically, recording Dulles's 1952 Life-magazine call to replace containment with 'liberation' (T&H 894) and Dulles's policy of 'massive retaliation wherever and whenever we judge fit' (T&H 880). (3) A 'New Era' of nuclear stalemate, the Geneva spirit, and the great crises of 1961–1962 culminating in the Cuban Crisis of October 1962. The Cuban crisis, Quigley writes, 'somewhat like the Fashoda Crisis of 1898, by bringing the United States and the Soviet Union to the edge of a war that neither wanted, revealed to both the mutual balance' of terror (T&H 889). After 1962 the Cold War 'began to dwindle toward its end' (T&H 15) and was replaced, in Quigley's framework, by 'Competitive Coexistence' between the two systems.
Cited in
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 15 Quigley
Much more important is the fact that the Cold War, which culminated in the Cuban crisis of October 1962, began to dwindle toward its end during the next two years.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 880 Quigley
The Cold War has left little to the old distinction between war and peace in which wars had to be formally declared and formally concluded.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 881 Quigley
The achievement of nuclear weapons, by creating two super-Powers in a Cold War, destroyed the fact of the equality of states.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 882 Quigley
Under the Cold War umbrella, small groups or areas can obtain recognition as states without any need to demonstrate the traditional characteristics of statehood.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 886 Quigley
The central fact of the whole period, and the one which dominated all the others, was the scientific and technological rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, because this rivalry formed the very foundation and core of the Cold War.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 889 Quigley
The Cuban Crisis of October 1962, somewhat like the Fashoda Crisis of 1898, by bringing the United States and the Soviet Union to the edge of a war that neither wanted, revealed to both the mutual balance.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 891 Quigley
'Containment of' Soviet expansion by all means available, including economic aid to others (the Marshall Plan), conventional forces (as in NATO), and nuclear weapons, 1946-1953.
- tragedy-and-hope · p. 922 Quigley
The resulting strategy is known as 'containment.' It lasted from early 1947 to 1953, and was resumed gradually after 1958.