The Cold War Was Mostly Our Fault
Source: YouTube
Speaking of Communist Russia, readers who are of a certain age will remember how we almost blew up the world several times during the 40-year Cold War. The official history of the Cold War is that Stalin was evil, so he tried to take over the world, but the Reds were eventually put in check by bold statesmanship and tough talk from the U. S. o’ A. It makes a neat story, and it lets us all enjoy an Ickey Shuffle at the now-defunct Checkpoint Charlie, but it just isn’t accurate…except for the part about Stalin being evil. That part is true.
In 1948, Soviet forces imposed a blockade of Berlin in an effort to drive out French, British, and American occupying forces. In response, the US Air Force organized one of the most amazing logistical operations in world history to supply the besieged city. Stalin eventually relented, but the Iron Curtain fell and everybody in Eastern Europe went on a decades-long sulk. That part of the story is clearly Russia’s fault.
What wasn’t Russia’s fault was the arms race. The United States pioneered the construction – and use! – of nuclear weapons. When the Soviet Union got one, in 1949, the United States freaked out and started building up a huge arsenal of nukes. Beginning around 1949, the United States built up its partially demobilized military, proclaimed a doctrine of “containment,” as if Communism spread like smallpox, and began research into ever-bigger nuclear weapons. When the Soviet Union caught up on H-bomb research, the United States Senate initiated a purge of the government to root out suspected communists and launched deep-penetration reconnaissance missions through Soviet airspace. President Eisenhower publicly announced that Red provocations would be met with instant nuclear holocaust, and then set about provoking the Russians with a campaign of espionage, proxy war, and public confrontations.
Speaking of confrontations, Mrs. Kennedy’s eyes are up here, Nikita. Source: Flickr
It is impossible to overstate how close this almost exclusively one-sided brinksmanship pushed the world to total meltdown. In 1956, for example, after the French and British had merrily encouraged the United States to invade Egypt, the Soviet government proposed joint action with America to stop the invasion. The Eisenhower Administration declined both offers, but on November 5, unconfirmed reports started rolling into Washington about hundreds of Soviet aircraft over Syria, British bombers being shot down, and a Soviet fleet passing through the Dardanelles to attack NATO. Unidentified aircraft were also said to be swarming over Turkey, causing alarm. The United States nearly launched an attack over this, until someone started making phone calls and realized that: the British bomber had mechanical problems, the few Soviet planes over Syria were escorting Syria’s president home after a state visit, the Black Seas fleet was on normal maneuvers, and Turkey was being overflown by geese.
In 1961, a single balky motor at a communications relay in Colorado caused simultaneous loss of contact with three early-warning stations. NORAD put B-52s on the tarmac, armed with nuclear payloads, until an overflight confirmed that the stations hadn’t been destroyed. In 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a bear climbed a fence at a military base in Duluth. An alert (and panicky) guard hit the “sabotage” alarm, but, because of literally crossed wires, the “gonna die” alarm went off at Volk Field, in Wisconsin, where a nuclear-armed F-106 actually started rolling before a flight officer got in his car and drove onto the runway to stop it. A couple of days later, a previously scheduled missile launch took place at Vandenburg AFB. Nobody had thought to cancel what must have looked a hell of a lot like a first strike to Soviet monitors. Also during the Crisis, the destroyer USS Beale dropped depth charges on Soviet submarines in the Caribbean. Thankfully, Captain Vasili Arkhipov had a cool head and stopped the other officers from just straight-up launching a nuclear torpedo and getting World War III underway for real.
Sure, it looks bad, but at least the Americans will stop trolling us now. Source: Wallpoper
This lethal combination of carelessness and paranoia was exacerbated with occasional deliberate provocations. It was the United States that decided to put medium-range ballistic missiles in Turkey, well before Russia put them in Cuba. The 1964 presidential race was partly decided on which candidate seemed most eager to nuke Moscow. During the 1980s, all of the American military radios in the world would mysteriously go quiet for 10 minutes a day to simulate a final countdown protocol and give Gorbachev a heart condition. American think tanks and politicians crowed about Star Wars missile shields, which the Soviets knew would allow the United States to strike them with impunity, and so on.
