Soviet Union–United States relations

Soviet–American relations
Soviet Union	United States

The relations between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1917–1991) succeeded the Russian Empire–United States relations (1776–1917) and predate the post-Soviet Russia–United States relations (1992–present). Full diplomatic relations between the two countries were established late due to mutual hostility. During World War II, the two countries were briefly allies. At the end of the war, the first signs of post-war mistrust and hostility began to appear between the two countries, escalating into the Cold War; a period of tense hostile relations, with periods of détente.

Pre-World War II relations

Following the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, the U.S. government was hostile to Soviet Russia. The United States extended its embargo of Germany to include Russia, and orchestrated a series of covert actions against Soviet Russia, including secretly funding its enemies. U.S. Secretary of State Robert Lansing yearned for a military dictatorship for Russia, of the type General Lavr Kornilov attempted to establish in 1917.^[1]^[2] The United States sent troops to Siberia in 1918 to protect its interests from Cossacks; thousands of troops were landed at Vladivostok and at Arkhangelsk.^[3]

Beyond the Russian Civil War, relations were also dogged by claims of American companies receiving compensation for the nationalized industries they had invested in. This was later resolved with the U.S. promising to take care of such claims.

U.S. hostility towards the Bolsheviks was not only due to countering the emergence of a proletarian revolution. The Americans, as a result of the fear of Japanese expansion into Russian held territory, and support of the Czech legion (who were supportive of the allied cause), sent a small number of troops to Northern Russia and Siberia. Once Lenin had gained control after the November Revolution and after the overthrow of the social democratic provisional government, one of his first actions was the halting of Russian involvement in the Great War and thus fulfilling German goals. The aftermath was significant because Germany could now reallocate most of its troops towards the Western Front since the Eastern front no longer posed a high substantial threat.^[4]

The U.S. attempts of hindering the Bolsheviks were not very much on the militaristic level as to secret and legitimate financial aid towards Bolshevik enemies and in particular the White Army and white armies. Aid was given mostly by means of supplies and food. President Woodrow Wilson had various issues to deal with and did not want to intervene in Russia with total commitment due to Russian public opinion and the belief that many Russians were not part of the growing Red Army and in the hopes the revolution would eventually fade towards more democratic realizations. An aggressive invasion would have allied Russians together and depicted the U.S. as an invading conquering nation. Following World War I, Germany was seen as the puppeteer in the Bolshevik cause with indirect control of the Bolsheviks through German agents.^[5]

"The fact is that while Germany in a way has been using the Bolshevik element either directly through bribes of some of its leaders or as a result of the principles of government they espouse and practice, Germany is appealing to the conservative elements of Russia as their only hope against the Bolsheviks".^[6]

World War II (1939–45)

Main article: World War II

Before the Germans decided to invade the Soviet Union in June 1941 (Operation Barbarossa), US-Soviet relations remained strained, as the Molotov-Ribbentrop stirred even more cause for concern in the minds of the Allies. Come the invasion of 1941, the Soviet Union entered a Mutual Assistance Treaty with Great Britain, and received aid from the American Lend-Lease Act, relieving American-Soviet tensions, and bringing together former enemies in the fight against the Nazis and the Axis powers.

Though operational cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union was notably less than that between other allied powers, the United States nevertheless provided the Soviet Union with huge quantities of weapons, ships, aircraft, rolling stock, strategic materials, and food through the Lend-Lease Program. The Americans and the Soviets were as much for war with Germany as for the expansion of an ideological sphere of influence. During the war, Truman stated that it did not matter to him if a German or a Russian soldier died so long as either side is losing.^[7]

Cold War (1945–91)

Main articles: Cold War, Cold War (1947–53), Cold War (1953–62), Cold War (1962–79), Cold War (1979–85) and Cold War (1985–91)

Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin with U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson at the 1967 Glassboro Summit Conference.

The end of World War II saw the resurfacing of previous divisions between the two nations. The expansion of Soviet influence into Eastern Europe following Germany's defeat worried the liberal democracies of the west, particularly the United States, which had established virtual economic and political primacy in Western Europe. The two nations promoted two opposing economic and political ideologies and the two nations competed for international influence along these lines. This protracted a geopolitical, ideological, and economic struggle—lasting from about 1947 to the period leading to the dissolution of the Soviet Union on December 26, 1991—is known as the Cold War.

The Soviet Union detonated its first Nuclear weapon in 1949, ending the United States' monopoly on nuclear weapons. The United States and the Soviet Union engaged in a conventional and nuclear arms race that persisted until the collapse of the Soviet Union. Andrei Gromyko was Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, and is the longest-serving foreign minister in the world.

L–R: Llewellyn Thompson, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko and Dean Rusk

After Germany's defeat, the United States sought to help its Western European allies economically with the Marshall Plan. The United States extended the Marshall Plan to the Soviet Union, but under such terms, the Americans knew the Soviets would never accept, namely the acceptance of free elections, not characteristic of Stalinist communism. With its growing influence on Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union sought to counter this with the Comecon in 1949, which essentially did the same thing, though was more an economic cooperation agreement instead of a clear plan to rebuild. The United States and its Western European allies sought to strengthen their bonds and spite the Soviet Union. They accomplished this most notably through the formation of NATO which was basically a military agreement. The Soviet Union countered with the Warsaw Pact, which had similar results with the Eastern Bloc.

Soviet Union-United States (Including Spheres of Influence) relations
United States	Soviet Union

In December 1989, both the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union declared the Cold War over, and in 1991, the two were partners in the Gulf War against longtime Soviet ally Iraq. On 31 July 1991, the START I treaty cutting the number of deployed nuclear warheads of both countries was signed by Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President George H. W. Bush. However, many consider the Cold War to have truly ended in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

References

↑ "Review of book by David S. Foglesong, America's Secret War Against Bolshevism: U.S. Intervention in the Russian Civil War, 1917–1920". Humanities and Social Sciences On-Line.
↑ David S. Foglesong, "American Intelligence Gathering, Propaganda and Covert Action in Revolutionary Russia", America's Secret War Against Bolshevism: U.S. Intervention in the Russian Civil War 1917–1920
↑ Gibson Bell Smith (Winter 2002), "Guarding the Railroad, Taming the Cossacks The U.S. Army in Russia, 1918–1920", Prologue Magazine (The National Archives) 34 (4)
↑ Fic, Victor M (1995), The Collapse of American Policy in Russia and Siberia, 1918, Colombia University Press, New York
↑ Marc De Zwaan (May 2007), American "Intervention" in the Russian Civil War: 1918–1920 – Why did President Woodrow Wilson decide to send American troops into Siberia and Northern Russia on August 16, 1918?, International Academy
↑ Levin, N (1970), Gordon Jr. Woodrow Wilson and World Politics: America's Response to War and Revolution, Oxford University Press, New York, p. 19
↑ "National Affairs: Anniversary Remembrance". Time magazine. 2 July 1951. Retrieved 2013-10-12.

Foreign relations of the Soviet Union

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Foreign relations of the United States

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Doctrines, policies, concepts

Presidential doctrines	Proclamation of Neutrality Monroe Roosevelt Corollary Good Neighbor policy Truman Eisenhower Kennedy Johnson Nixon Carter Reagan Clinton Bush Obama

Other doctrines	Lodge Corollary Stimson Kirkpatrick Weinberger Powell Rumsfeld Wolfowitz

Policies and concepts	Blowback Containment Domino theory Non-interventionism Progressive realism Rollback Special Relationship Taiwan Relations Act

Cold War

USA USSR ANZUS NATO Non-Aligned Movement SEATO Warsaw Pact

1940s	Dekemvriana Yalta Conference Operation Unthinkable Potsdam Conference Gouzenko Affair Operation Masterdom Operation Beleaguer Operation Blacklist Forty Iran crisis of 1946 Greek Civil War Corfu Channel incident Turkish Straits crisis Restatement of Policy on Germany First Indochina War Truman Doctrine Asian Relations Conference Marshall Plan 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état Tito–Stalin Split Berlin Blockade Western betrayal Iron Curtain Eastern Bloc Western Bloc Chinese Civil War (Second round) Malayan Emergency

1950s	Bamboo Curtain Korean War 1953 Iranian coup d'état Uprising of 1953 in East Germany 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état Partition of Vietnam First Taiwan Strait Crisis Geneva Summit (1955) Poznań 1956 protests Hungarian Revolution of 1956 Suez Crisis Syrian Crisis of 1957 Sputnik crisis Second Taiwan Strait Crisis Cuban Revolution Kitchen Debate Bandung Conference Bricker Amendment McCarthyism Operation Gladio Iraqi July Revolution "We will bury you"

1960s	Congo Crisis Sino-Soviet split 1960 U-2 incident Bay of Pigs Invasion 1960 Turkish coup d'état Soviet–Albanian split Berlin Wall Portuguese Colonial War (Angolan War of Independence Guinea-Bissau War of Independence Mozambican War of Independence) Cuban Missile Crisis Sino-Indian War Sarawak Communist Insurgency Iraqi Ramadan Revolution 1963 Syrian coup d'état Vietnam War 1964 Brazilian coup d'état United States occupation of the Dominican Republic (1965–66) South African Border War Transition to the New Order Domino theory ASEAN Declaration Laotian Civil War 1966 Syrian coup d'état Argentine Revolution Korean DMZ Conflict Greek military junta of 1967–74 USS Pueblo incident Six-Day War War of Attrition Cultural Revolution Prague Spring Malaysia Communist Insurgency War Invasion of Czechoslovakia Iraqi Ba'athist Revolution Goulash Communism Sino-Soviet border conflict Communist insurgency in the Philippines Corrective Move

1970s	Détente Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Black September in Jordan 1970 Syrian Corrective Revolution Cambodian Civil War Realpolitik Ping-pong diplomacy 1971 Turkish coup d'état Corrective Revolution (Egypt) Four Power Agreement on Berlin 1972 Nixon visit to China 1973 Chilean coup d'état Yom Kippur War Carnation Revolution Strategic Arms Limitation Talks Rhodesian Bush War Angolan Civil War Mozambican Civil War Ogaden War Ethiopian Civil War Lebanese Civil War Sino-Albanian split Cambodian–Vietnamese War Sino-Vietnamese War Iranian Revolution Operation Condor Dirty War Bangladesh Liberation War Korean Air Lines Flight 902 Seven Days to the River Rhine

1980s	Soviet war in Afghanistan 1980 and 1984 Summer Olympics boycotts 1980 Turkish coup d'état 1986 Black Sea incident 1988 Black Sea bumping incident Solidarity Soviet reaction Contras Central American crisis RYAN Korean Air Lines Flight 007 Able Archer 83 Star Wars Invasion of Grenada People Power Revolution Nagorno-Karabakh War Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall Revolutions of 1989 Glasnost Perestroika

1990s	Mongolian Revolution of 1990 Breakup of Yugoslavia Dissolution of the Soviet Union Dissolution of Czechoslovakia

Frozen conflicts	Abkhazia China Korea Nagorno-Karabakh South Ossetia Transnistria Sino-Indian border dispute

Foreign policy	Truman Doctrine Marshall Plan Containment Eisenhower Doctrine Domino theory Hallstein Doctrine Kennedy Doctrine Peaceful coexistence Ostpolitik Johnson Doctrine Brezhnev Doctrine Nixon Doctrine Ulbricht Doctrine Carter Doctrine Reagan Doctrine Rollback Sovereignty of Puerto Rico during the Cold War

Ideologies	Capitalism Chicago school Keynesianism Monetarism Neoclassical economics Reaganomics Supply-side economics Thatcherism Communism Marxism–Leninism Castroism Eurocommunism Guevarism Hoxhaism Juche Maoism Naxalism Stalinism Titoism Liberal democracy Social democracy

Organizations	ASEAN CIA Comecon EEC KGB Non-Aligned Movement SAARC Safari Club MI6 Stasi

Propaganda	Active measures Izvestia Pravda Crusade for Freedom Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Red Scare TASS Voice of America Voice of Russia

Races	Arms race Nuclear arms race Space Race

See also	Brinkmanship NATO–Russia relations Soviet espionage in U.S. Russian espionage in U.S. Soviet Union–United States relations US–Soviet summits

Category Portal Timeline List of conflicts

Soviet Union–United States relations

Pre-World War II relations

World War II (1939–45)

Cold War (1945–91)

See also

References