1946-1960
By the end of World War II, the Soviet Union had a standing army of
10 to 13 million men. Undoubtedly, during the war, the Red Army was by
far more powerful than any other country. Immediately following
Germany's surrender, this number was reduced to five million; this
decline was indicative not of diminishing interest in the Soviet
military but rather of a growing interest in establishing more modern
and mobile armed forces. This policy resulted in the 1951 introduction
of the AK-47, designed four years earlier as an improvement on the submachine gun
which supplied Soviet infantry with a rugged and reliable source of
short-range firepower. Also important was the 1967 introduction of the BMP-1, the first infantry fighting vehicle
commissioned by any armed force in the world. These innovations would
help direct the course of Soviet military operations throughout the
Cold War.
Many of the Soviet forces who fought to liberate the countries of
Eastern Europe from Nazi control remained in the region even after
Germany's surrender in 1945. Mindful of the Soviet Union's
vulnerability to western invasion, Stalin used this military occupation
to establish satellite states, creating a buffer zone between Germany
and the Soviet Union. The Soviets quickly became an enormous political
and economic influence in the region and the Soviet Union actively
assisted local communist parties in coming to power. By 1948, seven
eastern European countries had communist governments.
In this setting, the Cold War emerged out of a conflict between Stalin and U.S. President Harry S. Truman over the future of Eastern Europe during the Potsdam Conference in 1945. Truman charged that Stalin had betrayed the agreement made at the Yalta Conference.
With Eastern Europe under Red Army occupation, the Soviet Union
remained adamant in the face Truman's attempt to stop Communist
expansion, and in 1955 Moscow introduced the Warsaw Pact to counterbalance the Western NATO alliance.
Conventional military power showed its continued influence when the Soviet Union used its troops to invade Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968
to suppress the democratic aspirations of their peoples and keep these
countries within the Soviet alliance system. The Soviet Union and the
western forces, led by the US, faced a number of standoffs that
threatened to turn into live conflicts, such as the Berlin Blockade of 1948-1949 and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, which saw "hawks" on both sides push the respective rivals closer towards war due to policies of brinksmanship. This attitude was tempered by fears of a nuclear conflict and desires among moderates for détente.
|
