Cold-War

Can you name a war fought by Icelanders? Kind of a difficult task. One would have to search deep in the past to find when was the last time inhabitants of this remote northern island resorted to weapons and methods of warfare. Well, nothing strange for a country that doesn’t even have a proper army and hasn’t had one for centuries. Yet, in the second half of the twentieth century, in the midst of the Cold War, Iceland was involved in three related conflicts. Truth be told, the wars fought over fishing rights lacked usual military engagements. Still, they caused a severe crisis in international affairs, especially regarding the unity of the NATO pact. How come? Island fought the Cod Wars against one of its closest allies, the United Kingdom.

Introduction

As a new world emerged from the ruins of World War II, a novel confrontation began to emerge. It was much less volatile, earning the nickname “Cold War”. It was an ideological and political struggle between two major world powers – the Soviet Union representing communism and the United States heralding capitalism. This simmering hostility went on to define international politics for the rest of the 20th century. Yet this simplified portrait of the struggle between eastern and western blocs is rather misleading because as it depicts two alliances as unified monoliths. This wasn’t true in neither case, but it was substantially more prominent in the communist sphere where two larges countries came to the brink of an actual armed confrontation.

In May 1945 the war ended in Europe. The moment was welcomed with relief by millions on the old continent as years of death and despair came to an end. Still, the shadow of war still hung over Europe. Without Nazis on the scene, new hostilities were born. On the ruins of the European pre-war political system, Communism began to rise. Following the footsteps of the Red Army, communists seized the rule in the entire Eastern Europe. Only in Greece did the communists meet resistance. It was a prelude to the Greek Civil War - the first armed conflict in Europe after World War Two.

As World War II came to an end, both Europe and the world slowly started to divide between two major powers – the US in the west and the USSR in the east. Though in the immediate post-war years these two blocs tried to at least present themselves as friends, by the late 1940s it was clear that the two ideological camps entered a confrontation that was quickly dubbed the Cold War. It was painted as an ongoing struggle for world supremacy of two ideas – capitalism in the west and communism in the east.

Introduction

What appears to be the end, always turns into a beginning. When World War Two ended in 1945, people truly believed the world had learned its lessons. The all-consuming war exhausted the material and human resources of the belligerent countries. The European continent was left ruined from Moscow to London. Hardly anyone would believe at that moment that only 10 years later the continent would slide into yet another partition. This time it was Democracy against Communism, West versus East. Countries in the West were standing under the umbrella of the NATO pact. Opposed to them were countries of the Warsaw Pact.

The Vietnam War before the Tet Offensive

The most iconic conflict of the Cold War era is undoubtedly the Vietnam War (1955-1975) otherwise known as the Second Indochina War. The fighting was spread across Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, with substantial civilian and military casualties of the local population with some estimates going over 4 million deaths. The Vietnam War was in all senses a continuation of the First Indochina War (1946-1954) in which Vietnam was divided along the 17th parallel, with the communist rule in the north and anti-communist government in the south. According to the Geneva Conference, two states were supposed to unite after a countrywide election in 1956. However, the US feared that sooner rather than later the Communist Party of Vietnam would take over the entire country, causing a domino effect and dragging the surrounding states to fall under communist rule. Because of the domino theory, the Americans backed South Vietnam to opt-out of the election. It caused a severe reaction from the North Vietnamese, who began first covert operations in late 1956, starting the Vietnam War. Almost immediately the USSR and China began supporting North Vietnam, while the US aided the South. Thus, the war quickly attained its Cold War nature, as a confrontation of two blocks and two ideologies. Here it is vital to note that both Vietnamese states were autocratic and oppressive, despite the propaganda both sides spread to further their cause.