The Cold War: A Very Short Introduction
by Robert J. McMahon
Robert J. McMahon’s "The Cold War: A Very Short Introduction" explores the multifaceted nature of the Cold War, highlighting how interconnected military, strategic, and economic dimensions shaped the global order. A central theme is the American post-World War II vision for a world system based on free trade and open economies, seen as crucial for preventing future conflicts, in contrast to the protectionist policies preceding the war. The narrative also delves into specific flashpoints and the complex interplay of international relations, as exemplified by the Suez Crisis. This event underscores how seemingly isolated decisions, like the US withdrawal of Aswan Dam financing, could trigger intense geopolitical reactions and escalate tensions, demonstrating the volatile and interconnected nature of Cold War-era diplomacy and power struggles.
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On 19 July 1956, Secretary of State Dulles abruptly announced that the United States was rescinding its Aswan Dam financing offer. ‘May you choke to death on your fury’, a defiant Nasser railed at the United States. World Bank President Eugene Black warned Dulles that ‘all hell might break loose’.
The military-strategic dimensions of world order were, in American thinking, inseparable from the economic dimensions. US planners viewed the establishment of a freer and more open international economic system as equally indispensable to the new order they were determined to construct from the ashes of history’s most horrific conflict. Experience had instructed them, Secretary of State Cordell Hull recalled, that free trade stood as an essential prerequisite for peace. The autarky, closed trading blocs, and nationalistic barriers to foreign investment and currency convertibility that had characterized the depression decade just encouraged interstate rivalry and conflict. A
