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Counterinsurgency Wars: Vietnam and Afghanistan BTAN 3010 MA 03 Room 106 Fall 2011 Session Two: Lecture Outline Origins of the Cold War. Historical Outline of Vietnam. "Method of structured focused comparison of cases" (for Thursday, Sept. 22, 2011) A. Definition of cold war: A period of intense hostility without actual "hot war," i.e. no direct combat, between the two superpowers B. Two main periods of the Cold War: a) 1947 to 1963; b) 1964 to about 1989 C. Three historiographical schools of thought about who "started" the Cold War. 1) Traditionalist: The Soviets (e.g. Joseph Stalin) were aggressive and expansive, while American diplomacy was essentially defensive and awoke gradually to the threat. 2) Revisionist: Cold War was caused by Americans, who were overly suspicious and expansionist. USSR was isolationist. U.S. was much stronger than USSR after World War II. a). "Soft" revisionists focus on individuals (e.g. Roosevelt's death and transition to the inexperienced and brash Harry Truman) b). "Hard" revisionists focus on the nature of the U.S. as a capitalist society. 3) Post-Revisionist: Traditionalists and revisionists are both right. Cold War resulted from spiral of suspicion and hostility, cycle of action--reaction. (International system level of analysis: the tense bipolar structure). D. There are four phases of the "tight" Cold War, or the period from 1947 to 1963. 1) gradual onset, 1945-1947 2) declaration of cold war, 1947-1949 3) most rigid period, 1950 to 1955 4) Khrushchev's globalism and the beginnings of dtente, 1955-1962 E. There are seven key issues that contributed to the onset of the Cold War in the 19451947 period 1) the role of Poland in Eastern Europe 2) sudden curtailment of US Lend Lease aid to the USSR (May 1945) 3) disagreements over how to reconstruct Germany 4) US refusal to allow a Soviet zone of occupation in Japan 5) disagreements about UN control of the atomic bomb 6) Soviet troops in northern Iran (March 1946); US backed Iran in UN to force Russians to pull out. 7) Russians were pressuring Greece and Turkey. (Turkey: Soviet pressure to control Strait of Dardanelles. Greece: civil war between communist and non-communists. US thought Soviets not doing enough to restrain the communists in Greece.) F. Could appeasement of Stalin have worked to avoid the Cold War?

G. Three major shocks in 1949 1) August 29, 1949: Russia successfully tested an atom bomb. 2) October 1949: Mao Zedong's Chinese Communists won in civil war against noncommunist Nationalist Chinese 3) 1950: U.S. State Dept. official Alger Hiss accused of being a Soviet spy (in 1948) and convicted of perjury in 1950. H. U.S. Involvement in Indochina 1) June 26, 1950: North Koreans invade South Korea 2) June 27, 1950: Truman announced aid to French in Indochina I. NSC-68 ("United States' Objectives and Programs for National Security: A Strategic Reassessment of the World Situation") a). There will be a power struggle between USA and USSR b). We can no longer distinguish between global and national security. c). USA must be world policeman d) Since USA has power, it has responsibility to use it J. U.S. view of Ho Chi Minh 1) Office of Strategic Services (OSS) had worked with Ho Chi Minh and his Viet Minh guerrillas to harass Japanese troops. Ho helped rescue downed American pilots. 2) But Americans viewed him first as a communist, and only second as a nationalist K. French in Indochina 1) First colonized Indochina beginning in the 1840s. Divided Indochina into 3 parts: Tonkin in the north, Annam, and then Cochin China. Capital Saigon in the south. 2) Renewed efforts after World War II to retain their colony in Indochina L. Battle of Dienbienphu 1) French wanted to lure the Vietnamese in a set-piece battle and have a major victory in time for the Geneva conference (April 26 July 20, 1954) 2) Underestimated Vietnamese morale and perseverance 3) First major victory of anticolonial forces against an imperial power 4) Entire French mobile forces defeated, so French left the war. Americans step in.