The Iranian-Soviet crisis
The Iran-Soviet crisis was the very first showdown of what was to become the Cold War, and focused on Iran. In the summer of 1941, the USSR and Britain, seeking a route for arms and supplies to the Russian front, agreed to each occupy one half and depose the shah Reza Pahlevi, guilty of too much sympathy with the Axis.
His son, Mohamed Reza, who succeeded him, concluded a treaty with these powers providing for the withdrawal of their troops no later than March 2, 1946.
Very quickly, however, the USSR supported two independence movements in the north of the country in order to form a protective glacis in the south, as it had done in Europe. This led to Iranian negotiations and Western pressure that eventually led the Red Army to withdraw.
The first Berlin crisis (1948-1949)
In July 1945, at the Potsdam conference, the three leaders of the main Allied powers, Churchill (then his successor, Labor Attlee), Stalin and Truman agreed on the division of Germany and Austria into four zones of occupation:American, British, French and Soviet. Similarly, Berlin, the former capital of the Reich, is divided into four occupation sectors. Landlocked in the Soviet zone, air, highway and rail access roads connect it to the western zones.
After the Prague coup in February 1948, Westerners decided to transform their trizone in the short term into a sovereign West German state (London conference, April-June 1948). The first phase of the process is the creation of the Deutsche Mark, which on June 20 becomes the common currency for the three western zones. Stalin protested against this de facto division of Germany and, on June 23, 1948, he took advantage of the geographical isolation of Berlin to block all land and river access to the western sectors. More than two million inhabitants and 30,000 Allied soldiers find themselves taken hostage behind the Iron Curtain.
At first, the Allies plan to force the blockade, according to General Clay's proposal. But they do not want to take the risk of provoking an armed conflict which they would have taken the initiative. Nor can they not react, since that would have meant the failure of the policy of containment.
To save the city from asphyxiation, the British and Americans finally decided to set up an airlift, that is to say to ensure supplies (food, fuel, coal) by plane. During the eleven months that the blockade lasts, a carrier lands on average every thirty seconds in West Berlin, at the airports of Tempelhof, Gatow and Tegel. In total, two and a half million tonnes of freight (of which coal constitutes two-thirds) are transported by 275,000 flights. It is estimated that less than 5% of West Berliners preferred to get their supplies from the Soviet authorities. On May 12, 1949, aware of his failure, Stalin decided to lift the blockade.
During the crisis, the United States deployed three squadrons of USAF B-29 strategic bombers to the United Kingdom to signal that it was ready to respond to a possible invasion of Western Europe. However, they never considered resorting to the threat of an atomic ultimatum (they then had the nuclear monopoly) to end the blockade of Berlin and force the Soviet Union to also withdraw from all the countries where it had refused to "form interim governments broadly representative of all the democratic elements of the population, which would undertake to establish as soon as possible, through free elections, governments answering to the will of the people. (see Yalta Accords). Indeed, Western Europe is in full reconstruction and the conventional military power of the Eastern Bloc is far superior to that of the West. In this way, the United States endorses de facto the division of Europe that Stalin had wanted to see in the Yalta Accords.
On May 23, 1949, the division of Germany became official, with the promulgation of the Basic Law (Grundgesetz), the birth certificate of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, Bundesrepublik Deutschland). On October 12, the Soviet zone in turn became a sovereign state, the German Democratic Republic (GDR, Deutsche Demokratische Republik). The two entities refuse to recognize each other legally. Now Germany finds itself at the heart of the Cold War.
This crisis will diminish the prestige of the USSR in the world, on the one hand because of these images of starving Berliners resisting its policy of force and on the other hand the military humiliation, and will at the same time increase that of the United States in the eyes of the West Germans and their status changed from that of occupier to that of protector.
The Korean War (1950-1953)
The context of the Korean War is Mao Zedong's victory over the nationalist Chiang Kai-shek in China (October 1) 1949. The United States is ready to do anything to prevent another country in Asia from falling into communism.
After the Japanese defeat in August 1945, Korea was cut in two at the 38th parallel:to the south, the pro-American Republic of Korea, led by Syngman Rhee, to the north, the pro-Soviet People's Republic of Korea, led by Kim Il Sung.
In 1948 and 1949, the Soviet and American armies left their respective occupation zones, on either side of the 38th parallel.
On January 12, 1950, U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson told reporters that the U.S. perimeter defense included the Aleutian Islands, Ryūkyū Islands, Japan, and the Philippines. In other words, Korea apparently wasn't one of them.
On June 25, 1950, the North Korean army crossed the 38th parallel, with Stalin's agreement, perhaps encouraged by American declarations.
On June 27, the United Nations condemned the North Korean aggression and decided to come to the aid of South Korea. Since February 1950, in order to protest against the presence of Taiwan and not of the People's Republic of China, the USSR boycotted the meetings of the Security Council and was therefore unable to veto this resolution. General MacArthur, the victor of the Pacific, was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the UN forces, made up mostly of American contingents.
At the end of September 1950, MacArthur reached the Chinese border.
In October, faced with the intervention of 850,000 "Chinese people's volunteers", in fact regular troops, he had to withdraw to the 38th parallel, where the front finally stabilized in March 1951.
To achieve victory, MacArthur then proposed an insane plan to Truman:bombardment of Manchuria, naval blockade of the Chinese coasts, landing of General Chiang Kai-shek's forces in southern China and, if necessary, use of atomic weapons. . Truman, who was convinced that such a move would provoke Soviet intervention, dismissed MacArthur and replaced him with General Ridgway.
On July 27, 1953, after Stalin's death and two years of talks, the armistice was signed at Panmunjeom, but was not followed by any peace treaty.