ORIGINS, CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE COLD WAR: WHEN DID THE COLD WAR REALLY START?
The beginning of the Cold War is generally traced back to the period immediately following the Second World War (from 1948-1950) as a direct consequence of the exhaustion of the convergence of geopolitical interests that had united the capitalist West and the Soviet Union. Since the alliance, of a merely opportunistic nature, had matured thanks to the need to defeat the common bitter enemy represented by National Socialist Germany. The threat posed by Hitler was in fact potentially deadly both for Moscow (directly attacked by the Wehrmacht in June 1941) and for the West as a whole. And it cannot be said, given the power of the German army, to what extent the Soviet and Anglo-Saxon empires, if they had fought individually against Hitler, could have achieved a decisive victory against National Socialism. The alliance therefore had a purely instrumental role and lasted only the time necessary to annihilate the German hegemonic attempt. After which the natural conflict between the Anglo-Saxon-led West and the Soviet Union resumed. The geopolitical interests of which diverged on practically everything. And the two economic models represented by the two blocks appeared completely incompatible with each other. In truth, the beginning of the Cold War should be traced back to the period immediately following the October Revolution since the West, after the failed attempt to invade Russian territory (which became necessary after having noted the impossibility of an affirmation of the White armies over the revolutionary ones in the Eurasian country) effectively isolated the newborn geopolitical reality of the Soviet Union and ceased, de facto, any relationship with it. The Soviet Union therefore lived in total international isolation after 1917, starting an economic and geopolitical path totally independent and divergent from the rest of the world. The geopolitical agreement with the West was only anti-German. And to understand the reasons for the rapprochement between the West and the Soviet Union it is necessary to understand the extent of the threat that nationalism represented both for Moscow and for Washington and London.
ORIGINS, CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE COLD WAR: THE EXISTENTIAL THREAT REPRESENTED BY HITLER’S GEOPOLITICAL AIMS FOR THE ANGLO-SAXON AND SOVIET EMPIRE
We have already had the opportunity to clarify what the real causes of the Second World War were and how these were in some way produced by a terrible miscalculation by the Western political leadership in financing and encouraging the rise of National Socialism in Germany, precisely as a function anti-communist and anti-Soviet (REAL CAUSES OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR (geopolitika.it)). The situation soon got out of hand and already at the beginning of the second half of the 1930s Germany began a powerful rearmament program that left no doubt about the geopolitical developments of the years to come. The real problem was represented by the irreducibility of the German political leadership and its unwillingness to be bought by Western financial capital. Hitler set up a deadly war machine that defeated all the armies of continental Europe that challenged the Wehrmacht in the period 1939-41. Including the Soviet one which suffered enormous losses in the early stages of Operation Barbarossa. The extent of the German threat was also clear when Germany, due to the immense human and material potential brought against it by the Allied powers, began to suffer very heavy military setbacks (1943). The development of German military technology impressed its adversaries. Who understood how far behind they were in military technology (with the exception of electronic warfare where the British and Americans proved to be slightly ahead of the Germans) in many key fields such as, for example, missiles and the atomic sector. The start of the Barbarossa operation gave way to a joint anti-German war effort by the Anglo-Saxon and Soviet empires. Which throughout 1941 appeared to be in great difficulty and militarily impotent in the face of the Wehrmacht. Since the Russians were literally overwhelmed on the battlefield (with consequent German occupation of the most economically prosperous parts of the country) and England continued to suffer, until the summer of 1941, continuous bombings on its cities against which was able to do little or nothing (despite traditional historiography reminding us of the great exploits of the English air force in the period of the so-called “Battle of Britain”).This small historical digression seems necessary if only to help us understand the reason for the alliance between the Soviet Union and the West following the German invasion of the USSR. In summary, the impressive existential threat that the German army represented for both the Anglo-Saxon and Soviet empires led to an unnatural alliance between the two bitter rivals. Since individually, in all likelihood, they could not have prevailed against Hitler’s Germany.
ORIGINS, CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE COLD WAR: THE NATURE OF THE COMPARISON BETWEEN THE USSR AND THE WEST IN THE COLD WAR PERIOD
The Cold War was above all a geostrategic confrontation fought on a global level which never degenerated into a direct conflict between Moscow and Washington (hence, precisely, the definition of “Cold War”). It was characterized by an endless series of proxy wars that were fought on almost all the geopolitical chessboards of the world and which resulted in the Cuban missile crisis (1962), the Vietnam war (1965-1973) and the war in Afghanistan (1979-1989) his highlights. It was also an ideological confrontation between the Western capitalist model and the communist one of the USSR and its satellite countries. A confrontation that shook public opinions around the world. The war was also fought on an economic level. The two empires had very different economic-financial bases. The Western bloc had on its side enormous financial resources deriving from the privileges of owning the reference currency for world trade (ensuring that the proceeds deriving from the latter flowed into the debt US public, effectively financing Washington and its war machine). The wealth of the Soviet Union was essentially based on the export of its immense mineral resources (primarily oil). From a purely economic point of view, the superiority of the West over the USSR was abysmal. Nor did Moscow have the power to undermine (as it is doing today together with its Chinese ally) Anglo-Saxon economic-financial power. This made the outcome of the conflict between Washington and Moscow practically predictable in the long term. And it was precisely at the moment in which the USA agreed with the Saudis (the largest oil producers in the world together with the Russians) to increase oil production in an exceptional way, thus determining a real collapse in oil prices (before in 1979, the year the war in Afghanistan began which led to an exponential increase in Moscow’s military spending, and then in 1985), that the Soviet economy began to stagger to the point of total bankruptcy and the dissolution of the Soviet Union itself. Decreeing the indisputable victory of the West in the confrontation in question.
ORIGINS, CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE COLD WAR: THE AFFIRMATION OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA AND THE REBIRTH OF RUSSIAN POWER
Following the dissolution of the USSR, the dominion of the Anglo-Saxon empire was, at least for twenty years, practically unchallenged. The expansion of US influence was also very strong in Central Asia (traditional area of Soviet influence) thanks to the installation of military bases also in the former Soviet republics. Therefore, in that period the implementation of the famous US “anaconda strategy” aimed at preventing a return of Russian expansionism began. Western economic penetration into Russia was also very strong starting from 1992. The West bought most of the rights to exploit the enormous Russian mineral deposits and in particular those of hydrocarbons. At the same time, the adoption of the capitalist system “freed” the immense energies of the country which began a truly impressive economic growth (parallel to what was happening in China where the adoption of the capitalist model, starting from the 1990s , determined the greatest economic growth in the history of humanity). Impressive to the point that already in the 1910s Moscow was able to buy back all the exploitation rights granted to Western multinationals. All this has made the Eurasian country a fundamental player on the world raw materials markets (and not only mineral but also agricultural given the fact that, thanks to very strong investments in the agricultural production sector, today Moscow is one of the largest producers and exporters of cereals to the world). Post-Soviet Russia has created an unprecedented economic expansion together with its ally China with which it has formed an alliance that represents a mortal threat to Anglo-Saxon hegemony in the world. Also because it is attacking the very foundations of the economic-financial power of the West. First of all, the role of the dollar which implies the possibility of continuous financing for Washington’s war machine.Financing that exploits the resources of other countries and allows the USA to live well beyond its means. In summary we can say that the defeat of the Soviet Union was preparatory for the birth of a Russia much stronger than before, so much stronger that it can today openly challenge (together with its Chinese ally) Anglo-Saxon hegemony. Having an economy and a financial system not only totally independent from the Western one (particularly after the start of hostilities in Ukraine) but also in direct competition with it. In summary, the victory of the Anglo-Saxon empire in the Cold War laid the foundations for the destruction of its hegemony, proving to be an ephemeral and completely evanescent triumph.