Cold War's first hot war

[Robert Rojas]

Greetings to both citizen Xavier and the community as a whole. Howdy Xavier! Well sir, in respect to your posting of Monday - February 18, 2019 -12:33pm, unbeknownst to you, the Spanish Civil War was NOT the first act of extraterritorial adventurism that the Soviet Union had actively engaged in. Now, as far as I know anyway, it was the RUSSO-POLISH WAR (1919-1920) where the then fledgling Soviet Regime made its premier military foray beyond its own recognized frontiers. Oh, and by the way, assuming that the Republicans had been victorious over the Nationalists in the autumn of year 1939, then I can wholeheartedly assure you that the IBERIAN PENINSULA would have been the very next strategic objective of the AXIS after the collapse of Western Europe in the Summer of year 1940. Needless to say, the AXIS conquest of Spain would also entail Great Britain's subsequent loss of Gibraltar. The Mediterranean Sea would obviously transform itself into an AXIS lake. Enough said. Well, that's my latest two Yankee cents worth on this exercise into geopolitical interpretation - for now anyway. In any case, I would like to bid you an especially copacetic day down in your corner of Old Mexico. Adios!


Best Regards,
Uncle Bob

[South]

Good morning Xavier,

Just read your 15:33 post and Uncle Bob's reply to it.

No Soviet bastion in and around the Iberian peninsula......a confrontation zone: Yes. Soviet 1936 force projection could not handle Great Power alliances. The Iberian peninsula had a complexion like the Central American peninsula a little south of you. Great Powers were present in both areas because of the wealth: the waterway revenue routes.

French Morocco and the French Riviera were also close to - and affected - by above.

The IDEOLOGICAL confrontation combined with Great Power combat wasn't in the land where Hemingway wrote great books no longer read.

Uncle Bob explained.

~ Bob
eastern Virginia, USA

[Globalization41]

Hitler could have bottled up the Med. at Gibraltar. He could have consolidated his position in North Africa by occupying Malta and thus avoiding numerous sunken supply convoys. The Turkish Straits could have been taken. Hitler could have wiped out the Dunkirk pocket, which would have required enormous resources (as later did the Stalingrad encirclement) and might have given Paris time to establish a proper defense. Hitler's primary goal (from the 1920s on) was the Ukraine. … Intervention in Spain was more of a diversionary assistance to Stalin, instead of an ideological objective. A lot of uncontrollable Old Bolsheviks were being eliminated. It didn't bother Stalin if Hitler moved west. The pre-Franco government let Stalin hold their gold for safekeeping. If the Fascists took Gibraltar, the strategic position of Stalin's most-feared enemy Great Britain would have been lessened. Much of Stalin's attention at this time anyway was focused on internal political purges and the state expropriation of agriculture yields. … Stalin may have learned lessons of overextension during the Polish invasion of the early 1920s. Invasions later became a big fad and Stalin (forgetting about earlier lessons of overextension in Poland) jumped on the bandwagon with the invasion of Finland. It seemed like a good idea at the time because the Red Army had steamrolled Japanese overextensions and expeditions in Asia earlier that past summer. After all, a strong and mean Japan lived and breathed all things military. Finland was just a happy little country. However, Stalin learned another lesson on logistical overextension (complicated in this case by recent army purges) when the Finns checked the bullying Soviet Union. … Meanwhile, Hitler concluded the Red Army was even less operationally capable than he had hoped for and added that to his list of pretexts for invading the U.S.S.R. … Stalin's disengagement in Spain paved the way for Franco who (unlike Mussolini) resisted Hitler's friendly advice and stayed out of the war (except for a token division or two on the Eastern Front). … Hitler failed to observe that Japan's poor showing against the Red Army, which could not even defeat little Finland, might indicate weakness on Japan's part. Therefore, in a grouchy mood due to a developing stalemate against Russia, Hitler didn't think twice about declaring war on America upon the news of Pearl Harbor.

Globalization41.

[Sid Guttridge]

I think we need to define "Cold War".

To my mind it is an atomic age phenomenon in which the major nuclear armed powers dared not go to war with each other themselves for fear of MAD.

They therefore confronted each other indirectly through other "cold" means such as ideological rivalry, economic competition, propaganda campaigns, proxy wars, etc., etc.

What are your definitions?

Cheers,

Sid

[Globalization41]

It seems like the Soviets took every cheap measure they could to wear down the U.S. The Berlin blockade, the Korean War, Sputnik, the Vietnam War, sowing ethnic envy, etc. The U.S. fell into Stalin's trap by countering with the most expensive countermeasures. Massive amounts of expensive humanitarian aid combined with the military industrial complex created demand in the U.S. for housing, food, transportation, energy, education, health care, roads, bridges, etc. America prospered. Therefore, Stalin's misinterpretation of economic theories benefited the U.S.

Globalization41.

[South]

Good morning Sid,

There are some already defined definitions of the Cold War.

The basic definition in use is post WWII to the 1989 "adjustments" coupled to the 1991 disestablishment of the USSR. The "Cold War" meant no direct US-USSR military confrontation - only via proxies eg think of the Middle East wars, sub-Sahara Africa,... your ol' stomping ground.., Mao's China and Chiang's Taiwan...includes Quomoy and Matsou (Don't know correct spellings).

Some historians and politicos refine the above so as to address political maneuvers - DURING - WWII and thus readjust the starting marker to within the war.

Uncle Bob "polished" the above refinement that clearly enough demonstrates the rivalry started earlier and using the same basic components used to define the Cold War from after WWII to USSR closing down, shows that the rivalry started immediately after Versailles when the US sent it's expeditionary force to Vladivostok in tandem with British and US (and some allies [eg Czech.]) operations in the Murmansk - Archangel area.

The "Cold War" is less a math formula and more so a tool.

I've changed my view to accept Uncle Bob's analysis. Working in the Manchurian area of PR China and the northern neighbor Maritime Oblasts really does requiring the use of a definition with origins to 1919. Otherwise, nothing would be understood. The resentments and political concerns go back much further than Potsdam or even some of the WWII events like Dresden, Hamburg bombings. After all, a huge segment of the world's population say that WWII (two) started 18 September 1931; "Mukden Incident". George F. Kennan's "Long Telegram" didn't address Mukden. Kennan's long gone and the problems remain.

~ Bob
eastern Virginia, USA

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi #21,

US involvement may only have begun in 1919, but if we are to keep going back to find roots for the Cold War, the British and French had already conducted the Crimean War to contain an autocratic Russia ideologically incompatible with their developing liberal democracies and the British had been conducting proxy campaigns against Russia in Central Asia during the "Great Game" of the 19th Century.

I would prefer to keep Cold War to its post-Iron Curtain meaning.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Globalization41]

Maybe the Winter War was the Cold War's first hot war.

Globalization41.

[South]

Good morning Sid XXII,

Well received.

I do think its worthy of review and reflection in re:

"an autocratic Russia ideologically incompatible with the developing liberal democracies".

Russia during the Crimean War transitioned from Czar Nicholas I to Czar Alexander II. Queen Victoria with her secular leaders like Derby, Aberdeen, Palmerston and Derby,......I'm looking for the contrast. ... OK, I'll concede Napoleon III helped develop liberal democracy. The Ottoman's Abdul Mejid: I like Turkish coffee but I'm not renouncing consumption of the Scotch single malt beverages for Sharia compliance. The US Presidents of the era do get "E" for efforts involving the development of liberal democracy, but.......



The Crimean War allied the developing liberal democracies of the UK, France, Turkey and later Sardinia. What were these developing liberal democracies doing in the eastern Med and around Sevastopol ?

The Great Game involved 2 imperial powers displaying attributes far from differences. The Great Game was played far from the British Isles and the Moscovy fishing villages.

Actually, if seeking a benchmark for the start of liberal democracy - there will be more than one - add Czar Alexander II's ("Czar Liberator") freeing of all the Russian serfs (3 March '61).

We can discuss all the above at our meeting at Balaklava and Inkerman, far from Londonderry and Dublin.

Like I wrote, these definitions are tools and not math formulas.


~ Bob, # -------Sid, I don't know history and now I'm supposed to know numbers !!!
eastern Virginia, USA

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi South,

My point is that history doesn't begin with the first US involvement.

One can find roots of conflict between Russia/USSR and the liberal democracies going back well before 1919. The Monroe Doctrine helped define this difference as, although a US policy against the intrusion of autocratic powers in the Americas, only the Royal Navy was capable of enforcing it for decades.

Allied intervention in Russia after WWI looks more like a luke-warm hot war than a cold war as it place British, American, French and Japanese troops on Soviet soil.

I see the "Cold War" as a phenomenon of the post-WWII ("Hot War") nuclear age, when the possession of nuclear weapons increasingly forced both sides to resort to indirect means ("Cold War") of competing.

But, as you say, it is more an art than a science to define it, so there is probably no absolutely right answer.

Cheers,

Sid.

[South]

Good morning Sid,

Well received.

~ Bob XXV
eastern Virginia, USA

[Robert Rojas]

Greetings to both brother South and the community as a whole. Howdy Bob! Well sir, in continuing reference to your introductory posting of Saturday - February 16, 2019 - 2:19pm, in light of the commentaries (plural) of citizen Sid Guttridge, old yours truly is now REALLY confused about what technically constitutes a "HOT WAR" as opposed to a "COLD WAR". I rather imagine if I were a United States Army ground pounder way out yonder in the boondocks of Siberia and some Red Star wearing yahoo should take a shot at me and I duly return the pleasantry, it is my relative understanding that such an exchange is indicative to a conventional "HOT WAR". Now, it was quite a learning moment for old Uncle Bob when I read about the notion of a "LUKE-WARM HOT WAR". Have you ever heard of a "LUKE-WARM HOT WAR" before? Is that tantamount to the legions of the Warsaw Pact rolling into Western Europe without the deployment of weapons of mass destruction? From my limited perspective anyway, if am sending lead down range, that's a HOT WAR. If I am on that radio desperately attempting to call in a fire mission, that's a HOT WAR. If I am using a garotte to eliminate a sentry, that's a HOT WAR. If I am burying an entrenching tool into someone's skull, that's a HOT WAR. If I am driving a knife into someone's guts, that's a HOT WAR. And no, I have not altered my position at all about the ANGLO-AMRERICAN INTERVENTION in year 1918. That WAS the first overt clash of arms between the fledgling Soviet State and the Capitalists of the WEST and that was a HOT WAR. Well, that's my latest two cents, pence or kopecks worth on this topic of now divergent perceptions of ideological events - for now anyway. As always, I would like to bid you an especially copacetic day over in your corner of the Old Dominion that is the Commonwealth of Virginia.


Best Regards,
Uncle Bob

[South]

Good afternoon Uncle Bob,

With the post-Potsdam to end of USSR period containing the Korean police action and the Vietnam mosquito eradication program and the Middle East oil redistribution program and the Castro brothers not upgrading their wardrobes like Meyer Lansky frequently did, I must rely on my initial view that there is more than 1 definition.

A Cold War requires Great Powers' great rivalry involving ideological intensity. A Cold War requires proxies so that the 2 Great Powers do not directly have large armed confrontations.

A high-quality summary follows:

Someone I served with in US Army was overseas in an African nation. He carried a M1 carbine and a .45 auto. He was wounded by someone who tried to kill him. No Purple Heart medal was awarded because the enemy rifle person (gender-neutral terminology) was not designated as an enemy of the US. Don't know specifics but knowing the US Army, maybe the rifle person was a friend.

There is more than 1 definition.

Otherwise, we're dealing in math and Aristotelian logic. What counts outside of math is not to let the protoplasm get in the flight path of projectiles or shrapnel.

The atomic age definition doesn't work in the Middle Kingdom and most definitely doesn't work in the land of the Czars.

A summary's conclusion. It's like the definition of an "assault rifle". A defensive 12 gauge street broom, with slug ammo, can be used for an assault. So can a pistol. An assault rife can be used to defend one's home or stage coach. Only George Orwell can settle all this Cold War confusion.

~ Bob
eastern Virginia, USA

[South]

https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/l ... ry-history

Good morning all,

Above article got my attention because of:

"Vietnam is no longer a separate class and has been tucked into the broad 'Cold War' portion..."

I believe above quote relates to our discussion here.

The link is also a good stand-alone article.


~ Bob
eastern Virginia, USA