The Cold War
An interesting question: Some scholars argue that the United States and the Soviet Union, along with China, were primarily interested in protecting and advancing their political systems—that is, democracy and communism, respectively. In other words, these scholars postulate that the Cold War was a battle over ideology. Another camp of scholars contends that the superpowers were mainly acting to protect their homelands from aggressors and to defend their interests abroad. These theorists maintain that the Cold War was fought over national self-interest. These opposing theorists have in large measure determined how people understand the Cold War, a conflict that had been a long time in the making.
My question: what do you think? Battle over ideology or over national self-interests.
Are they the same in some manner ?If I had to pick one I’d go w/national interests. This would seem to bear out the Wests and U.S. specifically making allies w/ those that didn’t share our ideology. Shah,Noreiga etc. Ironically Ho Chi Minh wanted better relations w/ US and we went for the French instead. That paid off. Anyway Michael,It’s your B-Day and you said something about light blogging today,your filling my blog surfer page.
Happy Birthday.
So is it a cop out if I say both?
Actually, I want to lean towards national security/interests, but that might be because I’m being influenced by a book I’m reading for review that documents the history of torture in America.
It starts off by taking a close look at the beginning of the cold war where Western folks would get caught up in Hungary and find themselves confessing to doing things there was no way they could have or would have done. Not just the unlikeliness of these confessions, but the stressed and bazarre state in which they were delivered sparked a kind of nationwide fear in the US.
What were the commies doing to these good, God fearing citizens of democracy?
It was also from this stuff where terms like “brainwashing” were first coined.
But while perhaps the underlying motive was a battle of ideology, what allowed it to grow to such huge proporitions was this insane fear that continuously fueled the fire. Much like the conflict we see now between the US and radical fundamentalist Islamists, the story which is being peddled for greater consumption is one of good versus evil.
Currently reading the Secrets of Inchon by Eugene Clark USN. It mentions it for sure.
Personally I think a combination of the both, we use National Interests to achieve Ideology or vice versa when it helps the peeps in charge.
I think that both the Cold War and the current clash between the West and Islamists are/were about reactions to expansionist ideology. I did a term paper back in the day on Kruschev’s ideology, exploring whether or not peaceful coexistence would have been possible if the US had adopted different policies, and for what it’s worth my conclusion was that it would not have been possible. Maybe that was my bias, or the bias of the reference materials I read, but I clearly saw that the Soviet ideology was not meant to be confined to the borders of the USSR.
Same with our current perceptions of the Islamists. Are we correct, or are we reading too much into the stated goals of a worldwide Islamic Caliphate? That’s hard to say, but many of us don’t want to take the risk of underestimating those goals either.
And on the flip side, could it also be said that the Western goals of spread of democracy and other ideals of the Enlightenment are expansionist? I guess one could see it that way, but (again admitting my bias), it’s a lot harder for me to see that as a true threat to people since the ideology is meant to improve freedom and human rights.
During the Cold War, “national interests” were often defined by both sides in terms of ideology. Thus, there is no real difference between the two explanations.
Contrary to the simplistic tone of much political discourse, “national interests” are not objective claims. The content of “national interests” varies widely according to, among other things, ideology.