The United States and the Soviet Union: War Without Battle

“Since 1939, there has not been a single day that war was not being waged somewhere in the world.” With the first serious taste of the Cold War emerging in 1947, many people may assume that countless battles took place between the United States and Soviet Union. Ironically enough, the Cold War never actually witnessed a direct military engagement between the two countries. Instead, treaties were proposed and alliances were forged – the physicality of the nuclear arms race was virtually pointless. So what actually happened during the Cold War? With a carefully plotted (and accurate) timeline, the ever-fluctuating relationship between the United States and Soviet Union can be analyzed in depth.

First and foremost: an explanation for the war without combat. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to identify one specific reason for the Cold War, or even exactly when it started, but there are speculations. Much of the tension and distrust is traceable back to the outbreak of World War II, and though the Cold War didn’t escalate for many years, the United States’ extreme fear of communism definitely fueled the fire. A perfect example of this is the Truman Doctrine – announced in 1947, the Truman Doctrine ensured the United States’ commitment to the “containment” of communism and opposition to further expansion. Despite the lack of mushroom clouds, there existed an extreme competition between the two countries – in military coalitions, in industrial and technological advances (such as the space race), in defense spending, and, perhaps the most popular of all, in a massive conventional and nuclear arms race. Considering that neither side deployed its weapons, we can only hope that the leaders of both countries knew the opposition’s firepower could, and most likely would, completely annihilate them, along with the better half of the world. Nonetheless, both the United States and Soviet Union amassed sickening quantities of missiles. You wouldn’t be able to tell on your own, but relations were not always this hostile. In fact, the two countries were allied against Nazi-Germany and “initially set out into their domination of the world with pledges to cooperate in building a new, peaceful political order.” Unfortunately, the United States and Soviet Union’s political and economic goals conflicted with one another, as did their political philosophies.

With the general details aside, there are several treaties and events demanding attention. On May 14, 1955, less than a week after West Germany joined NATO, the Warsaw Pact was officially recognized as a military alliance for the Socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe. It was established with the intent to maintain control over newly Soviet states, and it did just that for over thirty years. In 1961, following the Warsaw Pact, the Berlin Wall was built up by Soviets in order to minimize the number of people escaping from East Germany. The next big treaties to acknowledge the arms race were the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty). These treaties were obviously designed to go hand-in-hand, seen in that both focused on limiting nuclear weapons stock and were passed on the very same day. SALT – or SALT I – capped off strategic ballistic missile launchers and, following the deconstruction of older submarine-launched ballistic missile launchers, allowed for new ones. The ABM Treaty, signed by President Nixon and General Secretary of the Communist Party, Leonid Brezhnev, was focused more on limiting anti-ballistic missile systems, which protect against missile-delivered nuclear weapons. Shortly after, in 1979, SALT II was designed in order to curb the production of strategic nuclear weapons, but the Reagan Administration accused Soviets of violating the pact and withdrew in 1986. Just months after the SALT II agreement, in December of 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. This led to the United States’ boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics, held in Moscow, which, in turn, caused Soviet allies to boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.