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What Was the Cold War? | 5 Minute Video

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The decades-long “Cold War” (1947-1989) between the United States and the Soviet Union was so named because the two global powers never came to direct blows. Yet, the war was not without its victims. In fact, millions of Cubans, Koreans and Vietnamese suffered under Communist tyranny. In this video, Renowned British historian Andrew Roberts explains why “The Cold War” could just as easily be called “The Third World War.”
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Script:

From the end of World War II, the United States and its Western European allies were involved in a nearly half-century long, titanic struggle with the Soviet Union known as “the Cold War.”

It was cold only in the sense that the Russians and the Americans never came to direct blows.

But it was certainly not cold for the Cubans, Koreans, Vietnamese, and others who got caught up in the Communists’ relentless drive to destabilize the free, democratic, capitalist world.

There were, to be sure, many morally complex moments during this long struggle, but the Cold War was, at its core, as clear a conflict of good versus evil as World War II had been. Just like that war, the Cold War was a death match between the forces representing freedom and the forces representing totalitarianism.

Because hundreds of thousands—perhaps millions—died in it, the Cold War can, with good reason, be described as ‘the Third World War.’

The instigator of this war was Josef Stalin, the mass-murdering dictator of Russia and of the many non-Russian peoples he had incorporated into what was known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or Soviet Union for short.

Stalin knew that his Soviet armed forces could not take on the might of the free West. Instead, he decided to wage this fight through the use of proxies, and by a massive use of disinformation and misinformation.

His initial prey was Eastern Europe: the Baltic States—Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia—as well as Poland, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Czechoslovakia. Stalin had troops in all these countries at the end of the war. Despite what he promised American President Franklin Roosevelt at the Yalta Conference, the Soviet leader had no intention of removing them. And gaining control over their governments proved to be quite easy.

In March 1946, Winston Churchill famously declared that “from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.”

When Stalin threatened both Greece and Turkey, President Harry Truman finally had enough. The so-called Truman Doctrine was born. The United States and its allies would not permit any further expansion of the communist empire.

The Cold War was on.

For the next five decades, and across four continents—Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America—the US and the Soviet Union battled for influence—sometimes overtly, like in Korea and Vietnam; and sometimes covertly, through their various spy agencies. But the moral lines of this battle never changed: the freedom of the West versus the communist tyranny of the Soviet East.

There are, nonetheless, as there were even at the time, those who argue that the Cold War was an over-reaction by the West: that the ambitions and strength of the Soviet bloc were greatly exaggerated; and that America, with its massive defense build-up, was just as responsible for the Cold War as was the Soviet Union. But this simply isn’t true—as an immense amount of archival evidence from Russia, not available until after the Cold War ended, now proves.

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Tags cold warcommunismnorth koreasoviet Unionunited statesvietnam warWorld War II Andrew Roberts
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35 Comments

  7. Good versus evil? Oh yeah, sure, as if only one side supported dictatorships just because they aligned with their ideology, right?
    Geopolitics at its finest, the ideology fight between the USA and the USSR was secondary to who could dominate most of the world.
    No one was "good".
    The problem is still very much alive today, except only one of the two cancers have been cured, while the other still thinks it's the "good way" to impose themselves.

  8. I agree the Soviet Union was a brutal regime that needed to be opposed, but let’s not pretend the west was perfect. I don’t think the people of Chile, Argentina, South Korea etc. experienced much freedom during their respective western back juntas. The west utilised totalitarianism when it was deemed necessary.

  9. 1. The cause and purpose of the First World War was to destroy the two strongest continental powers – the German Empire and the Russian Empire – to pit them against each other. Who benefited from this? Only Britain, whose intelligence and diplomacy did everything possible to spark this war. And Russia won this tedious war, until the Red Revolution happened in the country.
    2. The reason for the Second World War is that the Revolution of 1917 and the terrible civil war could not completely destroy Russia. The rise of “dictator” Stalin to power saved the country from collapse and self-destruction. To finish off the USSR, they needed a “useful idiot” and Adolf Hitler was brought to power, financed, and post-war Germany, which was in ruins, was transformed into an aggressive fascist militaristic state.
    3. The only and real reason for the Cold War is that Hitler failed to do his dirty work – to destroy the USSR/Russia, and our yesterday's "allies" had to continue his work.
    And neither military force, nor missiles, nor nuclear weapons, but only the traitor Mikhail Gorbachev in the early 90s was able to illegitimately destroy the USSR.
    And “according to tradition,” all the traitors and adventurers, having completed their work, for some reason, rush off… to London.

    The truth is that, according to the world's "masters of money" – the US Federal Reserve – there should not be a single strong country in the world with an independent policy (except for the USA, of course).
    Any head of state who challenges the global dominance of the dollar will be declared a dictator, a tyrant, an anti-democrat, and even Satan himself.
    “Give me the ability to control the issue of money in a country and I don’t care who writes its laws.” (Mayer Amschöld Rothschild)

    I'm G.K. from somewhere in Russia.

  10. As someone who was born in Communist Eastern Europe I can tell you the Communism never died in the Western World. It has now evolved to only be called Socialism/Woke/Social Justice. The fight is not over. It didn't end in the 90-s sadly. They're as delusional as ever. The enemy is now working its way from within.

  11. To anyone reading this, please ignore this channel. It an extreme right propaganda machine. Im saying this as someone who dislikes communism as well, but is not about ideology, we must learn from objective sources to reach our own logical conclusions. Then you can analyze debates between ideologies on the matter.

    But this video inmediatly starts with it heavy political view at 0:31. This is just wrong, and clearly for anyone with basic knowledge of the Cold war. Again, please ignore this channel, every argument it gives, even some that are valid, are based on a extremist politicar agenda. It will not help you learn about history, ethics or philosophy in a proper manner.

  12. If the US says communism fails, they why they gotta be meddling 🤔🤨 if its going to fail on its own, then let it fail. They obviously see it as a threat, and thats why the United States intervened to serve THEIR interests of protecting capital, creating and enacting documents that serve their interest, and ensuring that they remain hegemon even if thats at the expense of exploitingand killing people, and destroying the earth

  21. This isn't a video about Cold War, it's just an anti-communist essay on why communism is bad and how millions died under communism.
    Completely disregards the violations of human rights in capitalist countries making this video right-wing biased.

  27. In this video, Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet leader (r. 1985 – 1991), doesn't get enough credit. He, along with Reagan and Thatcher, was the main one responsible for the end of the Cold War.

  28. This is as much a historical video as it is an apolitical one: that is, not at all. You can't make a historical video labeling a side as "the definitive good guys" and have it be factual as well. In history there is no such thing, and for sure, such a biased perspective could never hope to portray the facts in a truthful manner; after all, why not just skip the parts where your side was the one doing immoral things and amplify the ones where your enemy did the same? Remember who won the Cold War, and remember that history is always written by the victor.

    I'm saying this as an eastern European: the Soviet Union was an empire that forcefully spread its ideology in an effort to extend its sphere of Influence. HOWEVER, the US did the exact same thing. Both sides committed admirable and horrendous acts, and both communism and capitalism have their upsides and downsides. Completely favoring one side while not understanding the position of the other is disingenuous and clearly biased, ergo should not be taken as fact.