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• W2267475063 abstract "In recent years, histories of the origins of the Cold War have gained a measure of popularity and scholarly acceptance. Relying on the analytical framework of economic determinism, these accounts argue that the United States, because it pursued aggressive foreign policies determined by its economic needs, bears a greater share of responsibility for the advent of the Cold War in the late 1940's than does the Soviet Union. Despite their apparent relevance in an era when conventional assumptions about the conduct of American foreign policy continue to be rigorously questioned, accounts of the origins of the Cold War are frequently factually inaccurate and based on weak reasoning. A central contention of revisionists such as Gabriel Kolko, Lloyd C. Gardner, and William Appleman Williams, is that the United States used its preponderant military and economic strength to coerce the Soviet Union into accepting the American blueprint for reconstruction of the post-World War II world—a pax americana which envisioned an open world in which the United States could invest and market its surplus goods. In pressuring the Soviet Union, the United States provoked a defensive reaction manifested in the consolidation of Russian control in Eastern Europe from 1947 on. This argument does not 1 withstand careful examination. Most importantly, the examples of American diplomatic use of military and economic power most frequently cited by scholars are based on serious distortions of fact. Only by neglecting contradictory evidence and misrepresenting the evidence they do cite are these scholars able to demonstrate the existence of a consistent American policy of economic and military diplomacy. Moreover, scholars impute a motivation underlying ostensible instances of such a policy—the maintenance of an open world in which to market surplus goods— without any directly supporting evidence. Finally, the argument that American attempts to put pressure on the Soviet provoked it to consolidate control in Eastern Europe after 1947 and to maintain an antagonistic stance toward the United States, rests upon the assumption that prior to instances of American muscleflexing, Soviet policy—particularly in Eastern Europe— was moderate and characterized by tolerance of limited pluralism. This too is incorrect. Well before many of the ostensible instances of American muscle-flexing that scholars cite, the Soviet Union demonstrated its intention to control Eastern Europe by using whatever means were necessary. CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION The Cold War, the state of tension between the Soviet Union and the United States that developed in the immediate post-World War II period, lasted until the early 1970's, and in many ways continues to exist, has strongly influenced the course of recent history. Conventional understanding of the origins of the Cold War saw the state of tension arising from Soviet expansionistic tendencies and the felt American need to respond to those tendencies in ways that would stem them without precipitating the nuclear holocaust that possession of atomic weapons by both nations seemed to make likely. The perceived failure and high cost in resources, lives, and human suffering occasioned by this conventional understanding of the Cold War have in recent years brought the conventional understanding into sharp question, with revisionist historians questioning not only the immediate policies growing out of the conventional understanding, but questioning also the assumptions that could produce so dismal a problem as the Vietnam War—ultimately offering explanations for events starkly at odds with the conventional. The nagging suspicion in recent years that American involvement in Vietnam was based on faulty assumptions, or worse, and was an outgrowth of a deeply flawed political and economic structure, has contributed to a greater willingness in recent years to accept revisions and reinterpretations of the origins, nature, and course of American foreign policy in the post-World War II period. The bitter fruit born of conventional assumptions has prompted closer and more critical attempts to understand and evaluate their intellectual integrity. Although William Appleman Williamss The Tragedy of American Diplomacy was first published in 1959, interpretations of the origins of the Cold War proliferated and gained popularity in the mid-tolate 1960's. Gar Alperovitz's Atomic Diplomacy appeared in 1965, while Gabriel Kolko's Politics of War and Lloyd C. Gardner's Architects of Illusion were published in 1968 and 1970 respectively. This paper will seek to examine the scholarship of radical historians, i.e., those scholars who posit an economically determined motivation to American foreign policy and place greater blame for the development of the Cold War on the United States. Using the writings of Kolko, Williams, and Gardner, particularly, as examples of a strain of thought relying on the analytical framework of economic determinism, this paper will focus on one of the central themes found in these works: that the United States attempted to use its military and economic strength to achieve its economically determined 4 diplomatic ends, and in so doing exacerbated Soviet-American tensions, contributing substantially to what is called the Cold War. By making American inflexibility and willingness to brandish military and economic strength one of the central causes of the Cold War, scholars stand Cold War history on its head. In place of a belligerent, hostile Soviet Union one finds a moderate, defensive nation simply intent upon reconstruction and maintenance of physical security. In place of a moderate defender of freedom (the United States), one finds a nation seeking markets for surplus production, determined to maintain an open world, and willing to exercise the levers of military and economic strength to fulfill these ends. It is the task of this paper to evaluate this argument. CHAPTER 2: THE OPEN DOOR AND SPHERES OF INFLUENCE Revisionist and orthodox historians of the origins of the Cold War agree that conflicting foreign policy aims and philosophies underlay the growth of tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union in the aftermath of World War II. A major theme of that growth of tensions is that of the clash between conflicting views of world order. Arthur Schlesinger suggests that One theme indispensable to an understanding of the Cold War is the clash between ... the 'universalist' view, by which all nations shared a common interest in all the affairs of the world, and the 'sphere-of-influence' view, by which each great power would be assured by the other great powers of an acknowledged predominance in its own area of special interest. In the closing days of World War II, the American universalist view of the world, characterized by a Wilsonian faith in collective security, clashed with a clear Soviet desire to establish a tier of subordinate or friendly states in Eastern Europe. This theme, in a variety of forms and interpretations, runs through the accounts of orthodox, revisionist, and neo-revisionist historians. In summarizing the traditional understanding of American universalism as it affected the American hopes for the Yalta conference, Schlesinger quotes Franklin Roosevelt, who said upon returning from Yalta that the conference would" @default.
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• W2267475063 date "1977-01-01" @default.
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• W2267475063 title "A critique of selected radical revisionist historical contentions concerning the origins of the Cold War." @default.
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