America's Cold War [Paperback]

Written by two experts on Cold War history, this very readable volume is a nice overview of America's role in the Cold War. Contrary to what some other reviewers claim, this is not a radical new interpretation of the Cold War and largely reflects what appears to be a broad consensus among scholars of the Cold War. Logevall and Campbell, not surprisingly, do emphasize some features and interpretations of specific events and trends, but I don't think there is anything in this book which constitutes a fundamental effort at revision.

This is not an overview history of the Cold War but focuses on American actions, American motivations, and the American experience of the Cold War. The authors adopt an "intermestic" view of the Cold War, specifically examining the many linkages and interactions between American international policy and domestic politics. In common with quite a few other scholars, they see the dynamics of American politics, often only loosely linked to international realities, as a major feature of the Cold War and in particular, as a major determinant of US policies.

Logevall and Campbell present the Cold War not as an inevitable conflict between 2 powers competing for world domination. With WWII, the USA was faced with the reality that it no longer benefited from "free security" due to the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. As the USA emerged from WWII, it was clearly the most powerful nation and American policy makers set out to develop an international system the would protect American security and based on a preponderance of American power. Stalin's deeply wounded Soviet Union, in contrast, is presented as a relatively conservative and defensive state, aiming to preserve its autarchy and security but not fundamentally aggressive. To both rebuff Soviet opportunism, prevent the emergence of threatening governments in Western Europe and Japan, and maintain American preponderance, the USA implemented the containment policy of responding to apparent Soviet aggression and bolstering democratic states in Europe and Japan. As the authors show, these policies were imaginative, demanding, and ultimately quite effective.

Containment, however, was accompanied embedding of the Cold War in American society with the development across the 1950s of the military-industrial complex and Cold War issues becoming prominent in American electoral politics. Across the 1950s and 1960s, American commitments and investment in the Cold War increased dramatically, often driven by domestic concerns and political calculations rather than objective security needs. The enormous arms race, neglect of diplomacy, and expansion across the globe became persistent features of American policy. The authors argue that the containment policy was essentially successful by the 1950s and that the nuclear arms race had stabilized, in American favor, by the early 1960s. The bipolar nature of the Cold War, the dynamics of American politics, and the existence of nuclear weapons, however, prolonged the Cold War well beyond its logical end.

As Logevall and Craig point out, the prolonged Cold War had significant adverse consequences both for the USA and especially for 3rd world nations which often became proxy battlegrounds for the USA and Soviet Union. The authors cover the end of the Cold War quite well, with nuanced discussions of the roles of Gorbachev and Reagan. As most other serious scholars of this conclude, the popular triumphalist view of Reagan era America crushing the Soviet Union is clearly wrong though Reagan receives his just due for truly stateman-like behavior in becoming Gorbachev's interlocutor.

The conclusion of this book is particularly good, providing a nice assessment of the successes and failures of American policy. The authors particularly stress the costs of the Cold War with the enormous waste of American resources, the destructive nature of proxy wars and its lasting distortions of the American political system. As Melvyn Leffler wrote, we had to fight the Cold War, but we didn't have to fight it so hard. It should be mentioned, however, that the Cold War had some very beneficial fallout. Ostensible American defense of democratic values abroad probably helped the Civil Rights movement and fear of the Soviet Union was a huge stimulus for Federal investment in science and education.

In the last months there were published a number of very good books on the Cold War.This book, however, is unique, because of its excellent analysis of the ideological conflict which spanned the latter half of the twentieth century.
Briefly stated, the authors' thesis is runs like this: the Cold War could have come to an end in the late fifties or in 1963, after the Cuban Missile Crisis ended.But there were other factors which unnecessarily prolonged the conflict and the Americans were responsible for this.
The story starts with Charles Beard's advice that, since America is a superpower separated from Europe, there "is no need for its militarization".Reality was different and the era of Woodrow Wilson
proved that if the USA did not become actively involved in worldly affairs, it would become isolated in light of the rising dictatorships in Europe and elsewhere.After the end of WW2,the Cold War started because of many and various reasons.The arms race gained momentum especially after the dropping of the two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities.It was only a matter of time and good intelligence gained from Russian spies for the Russians to get an atomic bomb of their own.President Truman,who is described by the authors as seeing the world in terms of black and white, preferred to take a tough hand against the Russians.The McCarthy years only inflated this atmosphere .The famous NSC-68 paper, drawn by Paul Nitze, advocated an aggressive approach towards the Reds.
But how to to this? How can you intimidate your enemy? By building a massive and expensive arsenal which was to be achieved by a military- industrial complex.Thus, the military budget shot up from $14 billion in 1949 to $ 53 billion in 1953(See page. 127)
In the bipolar world after 1945, the United states could not deal adequately with the Soviet Union ,their bombs and the Chinese by strengthening thier alliances or establishing new one.Therefore,The USA turned to increase its own military capabilities.As a result of this policy, there were many sectors which had a lot to benefit from it-the armed forces,arms industrialists,labour unions associated with weapons industries,universities and other firms that had connections to military research.Corporations such as Lockheed,Convair,General Dynamics,McDonnell,Pratt and Whitney, and Gruman-many of them clustered in Texas and California- became hugely profitable and highly dependable on militery contracts.Their lobby representatives on the House and Senate were key players that determined defense expenditures.
Eisenhower, who took a tougher hand against the Soviets,understood how dangerous such a nexus was for the USA and the world and in one of his speeches warned and alerted the American people against this danger of "military-industrial complex"- an alliance of gropus which benefited from endless growth of military spending and endless overseas confrontation.(p.193)
All this continued during the Kennedy-Johnson administrations, in spite of the fact that specialists warned that the USA would never win the Vietnam war, and this course of events ran until the demise of the 'Evil Empire'- as it was dubbed by Reagan.All this went on in spite of the fact that the American policy- makers knew very well that from the end of the fifties the USA had the upper hand in the arms race and that the Soviet Union stopped being a real threat to the USA.Kennedy, for instance, had this information, but he had to satisfy the appetite of the military-industrialists' complex.
Add the fact that some other lobbyists- Israeli and Latin American-
put a lot of pressure on the various administrations to sell their respective countries weapons and you get an even greater ,vast panorama of this mammoth complex.
Could the Cold War have ended earlier? Yes, it could.But there was "an addiction" to magnify the supposed danger to the USA(p.369) which only increased the presence of duty personnel and military commitments in many countries in the world.The authors claim, justly, that this phenomenon is still going on these days.
This book will hammer at you on every page and you wil get new insights about this fascinating period like you never had before.
Five stars definitely go to this meticulously-researched, interesting and original book!

American Professor Frederick Logevall and British Professor Campbell Craig have teamed to give us a look at the reasons for the Cold War. Be aware you are about to look at things in a different perspective. We usually think of the United States working against the spread of Communism. This book lessens the Soviet threat and looks more closely at American politics and its impact on the Cold War. It is well worth the read to examine this idea whether you agree or not. The book often reads like an advanced lecture, but obvious these teachers are well versed and familiar with the details. RECOMMENDED