Cold War (1979–85)

For other uses, see Cold War (disambiguation).

Alliances in 1980: NATO & Western allies, Warsaw Pact & other Soviet allies, nonaligned states, China and Albania (communist countries not aligned with USSR), ××× armed resistance

Origins of the Cold War
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World War II (Hiroshima and Nagasaki) War conferences Eastern Bloc Western Bloc Iron Curtain
Cold War (1947–53)
Cold War (1953–62)
Cold War (1962–79)
Cold War (1979–85)
Cold War (1985–91)
Frozen conflicts
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The Cold War (1979–1985) refers to the phase of a deterioration in relations between the Soviet Union and the West arising from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. With the election of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1979, and United States President Ronald Reagan in 1980, a corresponding change in Western foreign policy approach towards the Soviet Union was marked with the abandonment of détente in favor of the Reagan Doctrine policy of rollback, with the stated goal of dissolving Soviet influence in Soviet Bloc countries. During this time the threat of nuclear war had reached new heights not seen since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan following the Saur Revolution in that country, ultimately leading to the deaths of around one million civilians.^[1] Mujahideen fighters succeeded in forcing a Soviet military withdrawal in 1989. In response, US President Jimmy Carter announced a US-led boycott of the Moscow 1980 Summer Olympics. In 1984 the Soviets responded with their own boycott of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California. Tensions increased when the US announced they would deploy Pershing II missiles in West Germany, followed by Reagan's announcement of the US Strategic Defense Initiative, and were further exacerbated in 1983 when Reagan branded the Soviet Union an "evil empire".

In April 1983 the United States Navy conducted FleetEx '83, the largest fleet exercise held to date in the North Pacific.^[2]^[3] The conglomeration of approximately forty ships with 23,000 crewmembers and 300 aircraft, was arguably the most powerful naval armada ever assembled. U.S. aircraft and ships attempted to provoke the Soviets into reacting, allowing U.S. Naval Intelligence to study Soviet radar characteristics, aircraft capabilities, and tactical maneuvers. On April 4 at least six U.S. Navy aircraft flew over one of the Kurile Islands, Zeleny Island, the largest of a set of islets called the Habomai Islands. The Soviets were outraged, and ordered a retaliatory overflight of the Aleutian Islands. The Soviet Union also issued a formal diplomatic note of protest, which accused the United States of repeated penetrations of Soviet airspace.^[4] The following September, the civilian airliner Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was downed by Soviet fighter jets over nearby Moneron Island.

In November 1983, NATO conducted a military exercise known as "Able Archer 83". The realistic simulation of a nuclear attack by NATO forces caused considerable alarm in the USSR, and is regarded by many historians to be the closest the world came to nuclear war since the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.

This period of the Cold War would continue through US President Reagan's first term (1981–1985), through the death of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in 1982, the brief interim period of Soviet leadership consisting of Yuri Andropov (1982–1984), and Konstantin Chernenko (1984–1985). This phase in the Cold War concluded with the ascension of reform-minded Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985, who brought a commitment to reduce tensions between the East and West, and bring about major reforms in Soviet society.

Rollback strategy

In 1984, journalist Nicholas Lemann interviewed Reagan Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and summarized the strategy of the Reagan administration to roll back the Soviet Union:

Their society is economically weak, and it lacks the wealth, education, and technology to enter the information age. They have thrown everything into military production, and their society is starting to show terrible stress as a result. They can't sustain military production the way we can. Eventually it will break them, and then there will be just one superpower in a safe world – if, only if, we can keep spending." ^[5]

Lemann notes that when he wrote that in 1984, he thought the Reaganites were living in a fantasy world. But in 2016, he says, that passage represents "a fairly uncontroversial description of what Reagan actually did."

The Reagan strategy also included escalating conflicts on the periphery of the Soviet empire, especially Afghanistan and Central America. It included diplomatic moves to win the approval of Western Europe for American missiles pointed at the Soviet Union. It included a massive Star Wars spending program to invent space-based antimissile systems that would neutralize the major Soviet military threat.^[6]

The strategies proved effective.^[7] The East European satellites all revolted against the Soviet Union, and expelled communism in late 1989. Russia itself overthrew the communist system in 1991. Without support from Moscow, subsidized communist movements in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America virtually collapsed.^[8]

Culture and media

Dozens of the board wargames were published covering both historical and hypothetical conflicts at scales ranging from man-to-man to global thermonuclear war. Historical conflicts include the Falklands War, the Iran–Iraq War, the invasion of Grenada, and the Angolan Civil War. The vast majority of titles concerned contemporary World War III "what-if" scenarios wherein the Cold War turns hot and focused on a presumed Warsaw Pact invasion of Western Europe. Notable games include Ultimatum (1979), The China War (1979), NATO Division Commander (1980), Fifth Corps series (1980), and MechWar 2 (1980), Task Force (1981), Harpoon (1983), Silo 14 (1983), Assault series (1983), Gulf Strike (1983), Firepower (1984), The Third World War series (1984), Air Cav (1985) and Main Battle Area (1985).

In addition, the period witnessed the release of several videogames dealing with the Cold War and Cold War related issues. Examples include Atari's well-known arcade-game Missile Command (1980), the somewhat infamous Raid over Moscow (1984), which lets you blast through soviet airdefence and finally destroy Moscow (hence the name), as well as Theatre Europe and Balance of Power (both 1985), which simulate an all-out conventional, albeit hypothetical, war between the Warsaw Pact forces and NATO troops over control of Central Europe. Some of these games, especially the latter, advise strongly against the use of nuclear weapons, reflecting a widespread fear of nuclear holocaust at the time.

Two films released in 1983, WarGames and The Day After, dealt with potential all-out nuclear war between the US and the Soviet Union. President Reagan was given a private screening of The Day After and was said to be deeply shaken. He revised his posture toward nuclear war in favor of eventual nuclear abolition, at least in part due to his experience watching the film.^[9]

References

↑ Marek Sliwinski, "Afghanistan: The Decimation of a People," Orbis (Winter, 1989), p. 39.
↑ Johnson, p. 55
↑ Richelson, p. 385
↑ 1983: The most dangerous year by Andrew R. Garland,University of Nevada, Las Vegas
↑ Nicholas Lemann, "Reagan: The Triumph of Tone" The New York Review of Books 10 March, 2016
↑ Andrew E. Busch, "Ronald Reagan and the defeat of the Soviet empire." Presidential Studies Quarterly 27.3 (1997): 451-466.
↑ Thomas Bodenheimer and Robert Gould. Rollback!: right-wing power in US foreign policy (South End Press, 1989).
↑ Kenneth Roberts, "Bullying and Bargaining: The United States, Nicaragua, and Conflict Resolution in Central America." International Security 15.2 (1990): 67-102.
↑ Mann, James (2009). The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of the Cold War. New York: Penguin Group. pp. 41–42.

Sources

Ball, S. J. The Cold War: An International History, 1947–1991 (1998), a British perspective
Beschloss, Michael, and Strobe Talbott. At the Highest Levels:The Inside Story of the End of the Cold War (1993)
Bialer, Seweryn and Michael Mandelbaum, eds. Gorbachev's Russia and American Foreign Policy (1988).
Brzezinski, Zbigniew. Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Adviser, 1977–1981 (1983);
Edmonds, Robin. Soviet Foreign Policy: The Brezhnev Years (1983)
Gaddis, John Lewis. Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the Cold War (1987, 1989)
Gaddis, John Lewis. The United States and the End of the Cold War: Implications, Reconsiderations, Provocations (1992)
Gaddis, John Lewis and LaFeber, Walter. America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945–1992 7th ed. (1993)
Gaddis, John Lewis. The Cold War: A New History (2005)
Garthoff, Raymond. The Great Transition:American-Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War (1994)
Halliday, Fred. The Making of the Second Cold War (1983, Verso, London).
Heuser, Beatrice. "The Soviet response to the Euromissile crisis, 1982–83", in Leopoldo Nuti (ed): Reheating the Cold War: From Vietnam to Gorbachev, 1975–1985 (London: Routledge, 2008), ISBN 978-0-415-46051-4, pp. 137–149.
Hogan, Michael ed. The End of the Cold War. Its Meaning and Implications (1992) articles from Diplomatic History online at JSTOR
Kyvig, David ed. Reagan and the World (1990)
Matlock, Jack F. Autopsy of an Empire (1995) by US ambassador to Moscow
Mower, A. Glenn Jr. Human Rights and American Foreign Policy: The Carter and Reagan Experiences ( 1987),
Powaski, Ronald E. The Cold War: The United States and the Soviet Union, 1917–1991 (1998)
Shultz, George P. Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State (1993)
Sivachev, Nikolai and Nikolai Yakolev, Russia and the United States (1979), by Soviet historians
Smith, Gaddis. Morality, Reason and Power:American Diplomacy in the Carter Years (1986).
Westad, Odd Arne The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (2006) ISBN 0-521-85364-8

Cold War

USA USSR ANZUS NATO Non-Aligned Movement SEATO Warsaw Pact

1940s	Hukbalahap Rebellion Dekemvriana Yalta Conference Guerrilla war in the Baltic states Forest Brothers Operation Priboi Operation Jungle Occupation of the Baltic states Cursed Soldiers Operation Unthinkable Potsdam Conference Gouzenko Affair Operation Masterdom Operation Beleaguer Operation Blacklist Forty Iran crisis of 1946 Greek Civil War Corfu Channel incident Turkish Straits crisis Restatement of Policy on Germany First Indochina War Truman Doctrine Asian Relations Conference Marshall Plan 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état Tito–Stalin Split Berlin Blockade Western betrayal Iron Curtain Eastern Bloc Western Bloc Chinese Civil War (Second round) Malayan Emergency Albanian Subversion

1950s	Bamboo Curtain Korean War 1953 Iranian coup d'état Uprising of 1953 in East Germany 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état Partition of Vietnam First Taiwan Strait Crisis Geneva Summit (1955) Poznań 1956 protests Hungarian Revolution of 1956 Suez Crisis Syrian Crisis of 1957 Sputnik crisis Second Taiwan Strait Crisis Cuban Revolution Kitchen Debate Bandung Conference Bricker Amendment McCarthyism Operation Gladio Iraqi July Revolution "We will bury you"

1960s	Congo Crisis Sino-Soviet split 1960 U-2 incident Bay of Pigs Invasion 1960 Turkish coup d'état Soviet–Albanian split Berlin Wall Portuguese Colonial War Angolan War of Independence Guinea-Bissau War of Independence Mozambican War of Independence Cuban Missile Crisis Sino-Indian War Communist insurgency in Sarawak Iraqi Ramadan Revolution 1963 Syrian coup d'état Vietnam War 1964 Brazilian coup d'état United States occupation of the Dominican Republic (1965–66) South African Border War Transition to the New Order Domino theory ASEAN Declaration Laotian Civil War 1966 Syrian coup d'état Argentine Revolution Korean DMZ Conflict Greek military junta of 1967–74 USS Pueblo incident Six-Day War War of Attrition Cultural Revolution Prague Spring Communist insurgency in Malaysia Invasion of Czechoslovakia Iraqi Ba'athist Revolution Goulash Communism Sino-Soviet border conflict CPP-NPA-NDF rebellion Corrective Move

1970s	Détente Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Black September in Jordan Corrective Movement (Syria) Cambodian Civil War Realpolitik Ping-pong diplomacy 1971 Turkish military memorandum Corrective Revolution (Egypt) Four Power Agreement on Berlin Bangladesh Liberation War 1972 Nixon visit to China North Yemen-South Yemen Border Conflict 1973 Chilean coup d'état Yom Kippur War Carnation Revolution Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Rhodesian Bush War Angolan Civil War Mozambican Civil War Ogaden War Ethiopian Civil War Lebanese Civil War Sino-Albanian split Cambodian–Vietnamese War Sino-Vietnamese War Iranian Revolution Operation Condor Dirty War Korean Air Lines Flight 902 Saur Revolution New Jewel Movement 1979 Herat uprising Seven Days to the River Rhine Struggle against political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union

1980s	Soviet–Afghan War 1980 and 1984 Summer Olympics boycotts 1980 Turkish coup d'état Invasion of Grenada 1986 Black Sea incident 1988 Black Sea bumping incident Solidarity Soviet reaction Contras Central American crisis RYAN Korean Air Lines Flight 007 Able Archer 83 Star Wars People Power Revolution Nagorno-Karabakh War Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall Revolutions of 1989 Glasnost Perestroika

1990s	Mongolian Revolution of 1990 Yemeni unification Fall of Communism in Albania Breakup of Yugoslavia Dissolution of the Soviet Union Dissolution of Czechoslovakia

Frozen conflicts	Abkhazia China Korea Nagorno-Karabakh South Ossetia Transnistria Sino-Indian border dispute

Foreign policy	Truman Doctrine Marshall Plan Containment Eisenhower Doctrine Domino theory Hallstein Doctrine Kennedy Doctrine Peaceful coexistence Ostpolitik Johnson Doctrine Brezhnev Doctrine Nixon Doctrine Ulbricht Doctrine Carter Doctrine Reagan Doctrine Rollback Sovereignty of Puerto Rico during the Cold War

Ideologies	Capitalism Chicago school Keynesianism Monetarism Neoclassical economics Reaganomics Supply-side economics Thatcherism Communism Marxism–Leninism Castroism Eurocommunism Guevarism Hoxhaism Juche Maoism Naxalism Stalinism Titoism Liberal democracy Social democracy

Organizations	ASEAN CIA Comecon EEC KGB Non-Aligned Movement SAARC Safari Club MI6 Stasi

Propaganda	Active measures Izvestia Pravda Crusade for Freedom Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Red Scare TASS Voice of America Voice of Russia

Races	Arms race Nuclear arms race Space Race

See also	Brinkmanship NATO–Russia relations Soviet espionage in the United States Russian espionage in the United States American espionage in the Soviet Union Soviet Union–United States relations US–Soviet summits

Category Portal Timeline List of conflicts

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Cold War (1979–85)

Rollback strategy

Culture and media

See also

References

Sources