THE COLD WAR, an introduction

We hate each other guts, but

we won't get to each other's throats.

Carl von Clausewitz, a Prussian general and historian, defined war as "politics by another means." Well, no. It is not. War is the introduction of massive violence into human relations. Politics is the field of ordaining power to organized communities or societies, which excludes any violence, explicit or hidden. War means killing people and destroying property to exercise control and impose someone's will on others. It is a disgrace that coerces the liberties of everybody, both aggressors and victims. Armies and military organizations restrict their members' freedom through discipline and ranks, frequently forcing them to carry orders that entail hateful things they would not do in their good senses. 

Cold War (Lippmann, 1947) was a term concocted at the end of World War II, initially as an idea and later encompassing a historical period that roughly ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall four decades later. By 1945, it was quite obvious that the East and West were not going to get any closer once the war ended. The conservative powers of the capitalistic world could not tolerate any growth of communist ideas or, God forbid! practices in their midst. Western democracies were fighting against totalitarianism as represented by the nazi, fascism, and Japanese imperialism, and only tolerated the Stalinists as the Russians were providing the most of the war burden in terms of lives lost. The millions of Russian war casualties, taking Stalin's dictum, were mere statistics. (Stalin had uttered once: one death is a tragedy, one million deaths are just statistics). The American and British military considered the extraordinary, tremendous death toll due to the strategic and tactical way of the Soviets' military conduct of war: an utter disregard for how many casualties would cost to achieve any given objective. Those magnitudes were considered inadmissible by the Western Command. By 1945, costly operations such as Normandy or the beach landings in the Pacific theater islands were bearing hard on public opinion, both British and American.

At the same time, the danger of spreading the communist ideology, permeating into the labor forces and workers' unions was looming, in the imminent return to civilian life of masses of ex-combatants upon the end of the war. Veterans would quickly claim that their tremendous sacrifice during the war deserved the reward of good jobs and social protection. To contain that massive movement would first need to direct that working force to the postwar reconstruction effort but, soon enough, would require new developments in new enterprises and services. Along with that, a demonization of the alternative of a communist revolution. At the same time, reproducing the social protection already in existence in countries that had not suffered the miseries of the war by remaining neutral, such as Sweden, were examples to follow. Social protection by the state, from crib to grave, was well in the minds of many. In some sense, the European social system grew under the menace of the Red Army tank divisions looming on the Eastern horizon. In the end, social services and protection development turned out to be something necessary and just, and the menacing red peril was just a paper tiger. But it took until the fall of the Berlin Wall to realize that.

The Russians, for their part, would like to continue the Komintern project of extending communism all over the world. Not only taking for granted they will continue occupying the countries in Eastern Europe previously occupied by Nazi Germans but spreading their influence in all continents. Pending whatever was going to happen in China, as the victory of the Chinese communists was yet to consolidate, the Komintern had set eyes on Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia.

That was too much for Americans, who immediately started moves to put an objective opposition, tacitly admitting they would fight such a development. Hence war. Cold, though

XA. October 2024

(This is a short introduction to what it may end up being a historical assay I'll try to write soon. Or not)