Sukhman Chahal

Defense of Ideology in the Cold War

The cold war was seen as a war fueled by ideological differences. In this war espionage
was frequent, proxy wars were abundant, and extreme measures were taken to preserve the
power that each superpower held. However the primary purpose of each superpower (the
Americans and the USSR) was to secure their ideology in this war, and to defend it against the
aggression of the other. The Cold war was primarily a defense of ideology, along with its
preservation. The preservation of each ideology came from the attempts of espionage carried
out by both parties,

During the cold war, One the most notable actions taken by the Americans to ensure that
the USSR did not spread its influence aggressively and breakdown capitalism was the creation
of NATO Pact in 1949. Which unified the capitalist countries in Western Europe, and North
America, in order to combat the possible aggressive invasion of the soviets into Western
Europe. This action was also in part due to the fixed elections that Stalin had held in order to
secure Eastern Europe for the USSR and have more opportunities to spread communism. The
intentions of NATO were purely in defense of the liberal nations, and was initially nonaggressive. The policy of NATO was never focused in being the aggressors, whereas the
soviets continuing expanse of their influence, e.g. the fixed elections in Eastern Europe, caused
the defensive reaction. The society also responded quite defensively to this Pact by creating its
own in 1955 with the eastern nations it had gained its influence on, calling it the Warsaw pact.
The Warsaw Pact was implemented primarily to protect, and defend communism from foreign
powers. It was a military treaty, which bound its signatories to come to the aid of the others,
should any one of them be the victim of foreign aggression. The Warsaw Pact was a response
to NATO as well as the re-militarization of West Germany in 1954, both of which posed a
potential threat to the Eastern countries. The Primary goal of these Pacts were not to infringe

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ones ideology on the other, but to protect themselves from this sort of scenario, and avoid an
invasion.

These Pacts increased the further divided amongst the two major powers, and the major
ideologies at the time, which in turn led to a higher focus on espionage during the cold war. One
of the most controversial of these espionage attempts was the Julius & Ethel Rosenberg trials in
1951, in which the Rosenbergs were caught sending nuclear secrets the USSR and were put on
the death penalty for doing so. This specific example of espionage resulted in a direct response
to the soviet. It was an attempt to protect American privacy and defend their nation from further
soviet spying. The actions taken afterwards towards the citizens of the USA were drastic but
they were more of an attempt to persuade the citizens out of espionage and prevent the further
grip of communism in America. The espionage conducted by the Rosenbergs itself can be
classified as defensive as well; during end of the Second World War the Russian viewed the
bombing of Hiroshima as a threat to the Russians, and as a provocation. The Russian
themselves did not have the Atomic bomb at the time and so this was an attempt to gain such a
weapon in order to even the playing fields with the Americans, and to gain defensive leverage.
The U2 incident in 1960 was a similar incident but the Americans were the ones facing the
embarrassment. In May 1960, the USSR shot down an American U-2 spy plane in Soviet air
space and captured its pilot, Francis Gary Powers. Confronted with the evidence of his nations
espionage, Eisenhower was forced to admit to the Soviets that the CIA had been flying spy
missions over the USSR for several years. The U2 spying incident can be viewed as America
gathering intelligence to prepare itself for any threat against the USSR. It was defensive
measure to ensure the Americans were evenly matched with the Soviets, and were not falling
behind; that was their basis for espionage, to secure a position in which they can effectively
combat the USSR and defeat the USSR if ever provoked. The incident wasn't an attack on the

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Communist ideology, but a way to strengthen the America's defenses by assessing the
Russians firepower, so that they could defend themselves.

Due to espionage, the tensions midst the two contending powers grew, leading them to
points of extremes to defend their ideology. The creation of the Berlin in 1961 wall was one
these extreme measures taken to ensure the Communist ideology doesn't fade. When the
USSR saw that many skilled tradesmen were leaving eastern berlin and fleeing to West Berlin,
in order to escape the communist regime, the USSR began to panic and instill a land blockade
that prevented any migration to the western berlin from the east. This action is seen as the
Russians trying to prevent the collapse of their economy, and ruining their eastern Bloc. This
wall was implemented so the USSR did not lose its grip in East Germany, it was a way to
defend their ideology from succumbing to western influence. The Cuban missile crisis in 1962
was another instance where the two powers went to extremes in order to defend themselves.
With nuclear missiles placed in turkey and Italy, the USSR grew weary and needed a bargaining
chip in order to defend themselves from nuclear destruction, so it looked to Cuba. Cuba had just
gone through a soviet revolution and was a communist state, the Americans saw this as a threat
to themselves and launched a Bay of Pigs invasion, which failed miserably, and angered the
Cubans against the Americans. The USSR housed the nuclear warheads in Cuba, and use
Cuba as a launch site just as turkey was being used by the US. America, in order to prevent
soviet intervention, implemented naval blockades to protect itself, however that only escalated
the situation. To avoid the destruction of America and resolve this issue, Kennedy took to
making negotiation with the USSR, and saving his country from destruction and the USSR from
Americas missiles. That is why this is considered defensive; to save his own people and
ideology, Kennedy decided to dissolve the blockade and remove the missiles in order to defend
its prosperity.

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Along with negotiations, several pacts were made with the contending powers as well, to
ensure that they both do not end up destroying one another under the principle of Mutually
Assured Destruction (MAD). MAD is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in
which a full-scale use of high-yield weapons of mass destruction by two or more opposing sides
would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender. It could be argued
that MAD was the primary reason the whole cold war was more defensive than offensive. With
both sides having nuclear weapons, it was impossible to threaten the other without facing
certain destruction themselves, its what prevented nuclear arms conflict in the first place. It was
also his same principle that sparked the need for the United States to spend more on its
defences by investing in more nuclear war heads in order to be able to leverage America
against a nuclear threat from the USSR, and the USSR did the same in the case of American
aggression. Due to these increased tensions, the SALT treaty (1969) and the START treaty
(1991) were both constructed, in order to avoid MAD. These treaties main goals were to limit the
nuclear arms race the two powers had fallen into, to avoid nuclear destruction, and to defend
the sovereignty of both states, as they would both be wiped out if the other was provoked.
These treaties limited the amount of aggression coming from either side, and turning the war
more defensive to things like espionage and the extreme measures of isolation.

In conclusion, the majority of the Cold War was focused on the prosperity of either of the
superpowers ideology. The aim of each power was to be able to leverage themselves higher
than the other through espionage and collecting intelligence on the other. Another dominant idea
was the extreme attempts to preserve the ideologies of the superpowers like the creation of the
berlin wall to prevent the collapse of communism in Berlin, along with the creation of NATO or
the Warsaw pact in order to defend against the aggression of the other. The idea of MAD itself
put these two powers on a track of defensive strategies than offensive as it would lead to both

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the powers losing if they provoked the other. These reasons are why it can be said that the Cold
War was primarily in defence of ideology.