Why Did the Cold War Arise, and Why Did It End?

Author(s): RAYMOND L. GARTHOFF

Source: Diplomatic History , Spring 1992, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Spring 1992), pp. 287-293
Published by: Oxford University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24912158

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Why Did the Cold War Arise, and Why
Did It End?

RAYMOND L. G ARTHOFF

The fundamental underlying cause of the Cold War was the reinforcing
belief in both the Soviet Union and the United States that confrontation was
unavoidable, imposed by history. Soviet leaders believed that communism
would ultimately triumph in the world and that the Soviet Union was the
vanguard Socialist/Communist state. They also believed that the Western
"imperialist" powers were historically bound to pursue a hostile course against
them. For their part, American and other Western leaders assumed that the
Soviet Union was determined to enhance its own power and to pursue
expansionist policies by all expedient means in order to achieve a Soviet-led
Communist world. Each side thought that it was compelled by the very
existence of the other side to engage in a zero-sum competition, and each saw
tne untolding mstory or the Cold War as confirming its views.
The prevailing Western view was wrong in attributing a master plan to
the Kremlin, in believing that Communist ideology impelled Soviet leaders to
advance, in exaggerating Communist abilities to subvert the Free World, and
in thinking that Soviet officials viewed military power as an ultimate
recourse. But the West was not wrong in believing that Soviet leaders were
committed to a historically driven struggle between two worlds until,
ultimately, theirs would triumph. To be sure, other motivations, interests, and
objectives played a part, including national aims, institutional interests, and
personal psychological considerations. But these influences tended to enhance
the ideological framework rather than weaken it. Moreover, the actions of each
side were sufficiently consistent with the ideological expectations of the other
side to sustain their respective worldviews for many years.
Within the framework of ideological conflict, the Americans and the
Soviets waged the Cold War as a geopolitical struggle, more in terms of
traditional balance-of-power politics than in terms of class struggle or global
containment/deterrence theory. If ideology was the only thing driving the
superpowers in the Cold War, why do we see that conflict as arising from the
ashes of World War II rather than as stemming from the October Revolution
of 1917? The answer is clear. In 1917 and over the next twenty-five years the

287

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 288 DIPLOMATIC HISTORY

Soviet Union was relatively wea

multipolar world. By the end of
Japan had been crushed, Britai
enlarged Soviet Union, even t
seemed to pose an unprecedente
their presence deep in Centra
Stalin's reassertion in 1946 and 1947 of the division of the world into two
contending camps seemed truer and more threatening than ever before.
So the Cold War had both an ideological and a geopolitical dimension. A
Manichean Communist worldview spawned a Manichean anti-Communist
worldview. Each side imputed unlimited objectives, ultimately world
domination, to the other. In addition, each side's operational code looked to the
realization of its ambitions (or its historical destiny) over the long term and
thus posited an indefinite period of conflict. But even though both sides
envisioned a conflict of indefinite duration, and even though policy decisions
were pragmatic and based on calculation of risk, cost, and gain, there was
always the hazard of a miscalculation that could be especially dangerous, given
the historical coincidence of the Cold War and the first half-century of the
nuclear age. Nuclear weapons, by threatening the existence of world
civilization, added significantly to the tension of the epoch; the stakes were
utterly without precedent and beyond full comprehension.
This is not to deny that nuclear weapons also helped to keep the Cold War
cold, to prevent a third world war in the twentieth century. Indeed, in the final
analysis and notwithstanding their awesome power, nuclear weapons did not
cause, prevent, or end the Cold War, which would have been waged even had
such weapons never existed. But it is to argue that the arms race and other
aspects of the superpower rivalry were driven in part by ideological
assumptions. As a result, while the Cold War and the nuclear arms race could
be attenuated when opportunities or constraints led both sides to favor a
relaxation of tensions, they could not be ended until the ideological
underpinnings had also been released. This occurred under Mikhail Gorbachev's
leadership, which saw a fundamental réévaluation in Moscow of the processes
at work in the real world, a basic reassessment of threats, and finally a deep
revision of aims and political objectives.
The West did not, as is widely believed, win the Cold War through
geopolitical containment and military deterrence. Nor was the Cold War won
by the Reagan military buildup and the Reagan Doctrine, as some have
suggested. Instead, "victory" for the West came when a new generation of
Soviet leaders realized how badly their system at home and their policies
abroad had failed. What containment did was to successfully stalemate
Moscow's attempts to advance Soviet hegemony. Over four decades it
performed the historic function of holding Soviet power in check until the
internal seeds of destruction within the Soviet Union and its empire could
mature. At that point, however, it was Gorbachev who brought the Cold War
to an end.
Despite the important differences among them, all Soviet leaders from
Lenin until Gorbachev had shared a belief in an ineluctable conflict between
socialism and capitalism. Although Gorbachev remained a Socialist, and in his

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WHY DID THE COLD WAR ARISE? 289

own terms perhaps even a Marxist-Leninis

inevitable world conflict. His avowed acceptanc
world, of the priority of all-human values
indivisibility of common security marked a r
That change, which Gorbachev publicly dec
insufficiently noted), manifested itself in many
in deeds as well as in words, including policies
Soviet perception of the Western threat and a
perception of the Soviet threat
In 1986, for example, Gorbachev made c
nuclear weapons. In 1987 he signed the INF Tr
Soviet and American missiles deployed since t
of the Soviet strategic theater missile forces th
three decades. What is more, the treaty instit
system of verification. In 1988, Gorbache
reductions in Europe under a plan that wou
numerical superiority, and also launched a
reduction. In 1988 and 1989 he withdrew all S
At about the same time, he encouraged the
leadership in Eastern Europe and accepted the
allied states into non-Communist neutral s
signed a CFE Treaty accepting Soviet conventi
the Urals that were considerably lower than th
as well he had not only accepted Germany
membership of a unified Germany in NATO. A
Warsaw Pact and the CMEA economic union an
cuts in strategic nuclear forces.
Although Gorbachev may not have expec
communism (and Soviet influence) in Eastern
and 1990, he had made clear to the 27th Cong
Party as early as February 1986 that a new
replace the previous one and that the confronta
No longer speaking in Leninist terms of conte
worlds, Gorbachev spoke instead of one world,
ways integral world." He denied that any c
military power, either for defense or deterren
be found through political means, and only on
asserted, should be the "creation of a compreh
security" that embraced economic, ecologica
political and military, elements. Hence, th
support to the United Nations, including colle
the world economic system. Hence, the cooper
regional conflicts in Central America, souther
Cambodia, Afghanistan, and the Middle Eas
Union's support for the UN's collective act
Moscow's willingness to countenance the disso
illiance and Socialist commonwealth, which
security requirements and ideological imp

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 290 DIPLOMATIC HISTORY

abandoned. These moves we

Gorbachev laid down in early
In the final analysis, only a
and Gorbachev set
out delibe
had understood the
impermiss
the first to recognize that r
military power for deterrence
the Soviet Union's relationsh
that Gorbachev drew from thi
finally permitted the Iron C
confrontation of the Cold War.
Gorbachev, to be sure, seriou
Soviet Union, and this led to p
program for the transformat
resurrected socialism built o
demokratizatsiya was never
political union was beyond rea
modified his goals or changed
clear, probably even to him
Gorbachev both understood an
end of the Cold War, even
exaggerated the capacity for re
in Eastern Europe.
As the preceding discussio
American role in ending the C
are a number of reasons for
American worldview was derivative of the Communist worldview.
Containment was hollow without an expansionist power to contain. In this
sense, it was the Soviet threat, real or imagined, that generated the American
dedication to waging the Cold War, regardless of what revisionist historians
have to say. These historians point to Washington's atomic diplomacy and to
its various overt and covert political, economic, paramilitary, and military
campaigns. Supposedly designed to counter a Soviet threat, they argue, these
initiatives actually entailed an expansion of American influence and dominion.
The revisionist interpretation errs in attributing initiative and design to
American diplomacy, but it is not entirely wrong. American policymakers
were guilty of accepting far too much of the Communist worldview in
constructing an anti-Communist antipode, and of being too ready to fight fire
with fire. Indeed, once the Cold War became the dominant factor in global
politics (and above all in American and Soviet perceptions), each side viewed
every development around the world in terms of its relationship to that great
struggle, and each was inclined to act according to a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The Americans, for example, often viewed local and regional conflicts of
indigenous origins as Cold War battles. Like the Soviets, they distrusted the
neutral and nonaligned nations and were always more comfortable when
countries around the world were either their allies or the satellites and
surrogates of the other side. Thus, many traditional diplomatic relationships
not essentially attendant on the superpower rivalry were swept into the vortex

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WHY DID THE COLD WAR ARISE? 291

of the Cold War, at least in the eyes of the protag

actions
It is true, of course, that the Cold War led
constructive American involvements. The Marshall
not to mention American support for some democ
Congress for Cultural Freedom, and for the libe
other overt and covert involvements were more fr
and often subversive, of real liberalism and democr
American lives and treasure in such misplaced ven
and in the massive overinvestment in weaponry, o
forcing all world developments onto the procrustea
the distortion of our own understanding and values
a Communist Evil Empire controlled by Moscow
Washington, American policymakers promoted
regimes into rewarded members of the Free Worl
Communist (or even rhetorically anti-Communist)
exigencies of the Cold War to justify assassination
with drug lords and terrorists, and to transform a
however corrupt, into Freedom Fighters. Alliance t
and support for insurgencies were routinely given
American objectives as the promotion of nuclear n
development, human rights, and democracy.
Parallel Soviet sins were at least as great While S
to Socialist and "progressive" countries was
(construction of the Aswan Dam, for example,
India), it was also skewed by both the ideological e
world toward communism and by expectations of g
Cold War. Often dictatorial regimes, "Marxist" or
to the cynical claims of their leaders, provided the
with Siad Barre in Somalia, for example, or Mengi
the Soviet Union engaged in many covert political o
to national liberation movements (some authen
sometimes included elements engaged in terror
ideological beliefs combined with geopolitical co
War struggle that left many victims in its wake.
Although the decisive factor in the end of the C
these beliefs, it is worth repeating that the So
encrusted and familiar ideology only because of a p
the way Gorbachev perceived reality and becau
domestic and foreign policies to the new perceptio
these changes became evident and their validity co
some of the cumulative changes in Soviet foreig
Cold War to an end. The critical culminating event
The year between the destruction of the Berlin Wal
European conference in Paris in November 1990 saw
important concrete manifestation of the Cold War
and Europe. The division of Europe had symbolized
the two ideological and geopolitical camps in the

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 292 DIPLOMATIC HISTORY

World War II. When that div

the international balance of
hardened Cold Warriors in th
War had ended—even befor
Union or of the Soviet Unio
Eastern Europe was decisive
underpinnings of the Cold
actual balance of power. The
Europe dissolved the threat t
Europe to the center of the w
the United States, even tho
become less central.
History, including the history of international relations, inexorably moves
forward. The Cold War was an important episode, but with roots in earlier
history and with ramifications that continue to influence the post-Cold War
world. Emerging features of the new world illuminate not only die new agenda
of world politics but also the Cold War. We see a return to multipolarity in a
system of great and lesser powers. Related to this development is a shift to
wider security concerns and therefore a shift in the elements of world power.
Military power is by no means without continuing, and in the most ominous
sense, ultimate influence. But military force as a means of registering and
influencing power has declined while other factors—above all, economic
ones—have become more important. One consequence is an increase in the
relative weight of Japan and the European Community (especially with a
unified Germany) and a decrease in the relative weight of the United States and
the former Soviet Union. There will also be a new pattern of relationships
between these countries and the rest of the globe (formerly termed the "Third
World," but regarded mainly as an arena for competition between the two
worlds led by the superpowers). There are those who see, clearly with some
foundation but hopefully in exaggeration, economic and sociopolitical North
South tension replacing the ideological and politico-military East-West
confrontation of the Cold War.
Military power will be less salient in world politics, but will remain a
factor and on occasion will be used. The Gulf war waged against Iraq in 1991
by a U.S.-led coalition and supported by the Soviet Union was the first
significant example. Although probably atypical, that experience did illustrate
the enormous change in relations between the former Soviet Union and the
West. The possible proliferation of nuclear and other weapons of mass
destruction, and the efforts to deal with that danger, will be important elements
of the new political agenda—again, in contrast to the nuclear confrontation
between East and West during the Cold War.
Above all, there will be a return to the more traditional pattern of shifting
blends of cooperation and competition among all nations, including former
Cold War allies as well as former adversaries. Countries will pursue their own
perceived interests in a more open international context. They will engage not
only in new forms of cooperation but also in shifting rivalries and conflicts
similar to those that preceded the Cold War. In short, the world will resume a
pattern of political relationships free of bipolar superpower and coalition

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WHY DID THE COLD WAR ARISE? 293

rivalry. We can hope for a new world order, an

numerous local and regional conflicts that w
global confrontation of the Cold War will now
world order—or disorder—and new ones will
source of potential conflict lies in the former, n
U.S.-Russian relations in the new era will
probably with more cooperation and certain
U.S.-Soviet relations during the Cold War. Ther
relations, already advancing beyond détente,
though that outcome would depend on a numbe
confidently predicted. In all, diplomatic history
more varied, though let us hope not too excitin
It is not, however, my present purpose to loo
sketch how the emerging future differs from
attention will naturally and properly be directed
to take the opportunity to look to the past Mu
Cold War and its near half-century of confronta
is very good. We know a great deal. But there
about specific episodes and various dimensio
underlying causes and effects. With the benefit
vantage point it will now be possible to expand
understanding of international politics.

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