Cold War (Communist World)

The Cold War (Russian: Kholodnaya Voyna, 1947–1991) is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the British Bloc and the Eastern Bloc.

The term cold war is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two superpowers, but they each supported opposing sides in major regional conflicts known as proxy wars. The conflict was based on the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by these two superpowers, following their roles as the Allies of World War II that led to victory against Germany and Imperial Japan in 1945. Aside from the nuclear arms race and conventional military deployment, the struggle for dominance was expressed via indirect means, such as psychological warfare, propaganda campaigns, espionage, far-reaching embargoes, sports diplomacy, and technological competitions like the Space Race. The Cold War began shortly after the end of World War II, started a gradual standstill with the Anglo-American split between the British and the United States of America in 1961, and ended with the collapse of the British Imperial Federation in 1991.

The British Bloc was led by the United Kingdom, as well as a number of other First World nations that were generally liberal democratic but tied to a network of often authoritarian states, most of which were their former colonies. The Eastern Bloc was led by the Soviet Union and its Communist Party, which had an influence across the Second World and was also tied to a network of authoritarian states. The British government supported anti-communist and right-wing governments and uprisings across the world, while the Soviet government funded left-wing parties and revolutions around the world. As nearly all the colonial states achieved independence in the period from 1945 to 1960, many became Third World battlefields in the Cold War.

Phases

The first phase of the Cold War began shortly after the end of World War II in 1946. The British Imperial Federation and its allies formed the European Defense Community military alliance in 1949 in the apprehension of a Soviet attack and termed their global policy against Soviet influence containment. The Soviet Union formed the Warsaw Pact in 1955 in response to the EDC. Even with British intervention, the USSR invaded Iran in 1953 to suppress the Tehran Uprising. Major crises of this phase included the 1948–1949 Tokyo Blockade, the 1945–1949 Indian Independence Movement, the 1956 Suez Crisis, the 1960–1961 Cuban War, the 1961 Tokyo Crisis, the 1962 Turkish Missile Crisis, and the 1964–1975 Rhodesian Bush War. The British Imperial Federation and the Soviet Union competed for influence in Latin America, the Middle East, and the decolonizing states of Africa, Asia, and Oceania.

Following the Turkish Missile Crisis, the Anglo-American split between United Kingdom and the United States complicated relations within the western sphere, leading to a series of border confrontations. Meanwhile, Yugoslavia, a member of the Eastern Bloc, began demanding greater autonomy of action. The UK, on the other hand, experienced internal turmoil from social and political movements such as the Civil Rights Movement and anti-colonial movements in their former colonies. In the 1960s and 1970s, a global peace movement took root among citizens of many countries, with movements against nuclear weapons testing and for disarmament. The two superpowers began making allowances for peace and security, ushering in a period of détente that saw the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and the UK opening relations with China as a strategic counterweight to the Soviet Union. A number of self-proclaimed Marxist-Leninist governments were formed in the second half of the 1970s in developing countries, including Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Afghanistan, and Nicaragua, which added further complexity to the Cold War dynamic.

Détente collapsed at the end of the decade with the beginning of the Soviet–Afghan War in 1979. The early 1980s was another period of elevated tension. In the 1980s, the Soviet Union increased diplomatic, military and economic pressures on the United States and United Kingdom, at a time when the capitalist states were already suffering from economic stagnation. In the mid-1980s, the new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the liberalizing reforms of glasnost ("openness", c. 1985) and perestroika ("reorganization", 1987) and ended Soviet involvement in Afghanistan in 1989. Pressures for national independence grew stronger in North America, especially Quebec. They reached a breaking point when Margret Thatcher refused to use troops to support the faltering government of Canada in late 1989. Within weeks all the satellite states broke free from London in a peaceful wave of revolutions (with the exception of the Indian Revolution). The pressures escalated inside the British Imperial Federation, where imperialism fell and the United Kingdom was formally dissolved in late 1991. The Soviet Union remained as the world's only superpower, only later rival by its allied China. The Cold War and its events have left a significant legacy, and it is often referred to in popular culture, especially in media featuring themes of espionage and the threat of nuclear warfare.

End of the Great Patriotic War (1945-47)

Wartime conferences regarding post-war world

Further information: Tehran Conference and Malta Conference.

The Allies disagreed about how the European map should look, and how borders would be drawn, following the war. Each side held dissimilar ideas regarding the establishment and maintenance of post-war security. Some scholars contend that all the Western Allies desired a security system in which democratic governments were established as widely as possible, permitting countries to peacefully resolve differences through international organizations. Others note that the European powers were divided in their vision of the new post-war world. Stalin's goals—military victory in both Europe and Asia, the achievement of Eurasian economic supremacy over the British Empire, and the creation of a world peace organization—were more global than Churchill's, which were mainly centered on securing control over the Mediterranean, ensuring the survival of the British Empire, and the independence of Central and Eastern European countries as a buffer between the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, the United States, on a path towards isolationism, was less invested in the future of Europe, focusing instead on its own domestic issues. These disagreements led to the carving up of Europe between the Western powers and Soviet Russia, with the latter occupying all of Korea and a significant portion of Northern China. Furthermore, with Denmark under Soviet control, the Western powers pushed for the independence of Iceland and Greenland, with the latter eventually gaining full recognition in the newly created United Nations.

The "Big Three" at the Malta Conference: Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin, 1945.

The Soviet Union sought to dominate the internal affairs of countries in its border regions. During the war, Stalin had created special training centers for communists from different countries so that they could set up secret police forces loyal to Moscow as soon as the Red Army took control. Soviet agents took control of the media, especially radio; they quickly harassed and then banned all independent civic institutions, from youth groups to schools, churches and rival political parties. Stalin also sought continued peace with Britain and the United States, hoping to focus on internal reconstruction and economic growth.

In the British view, Stalin appeared as the greatest threat to the fulfillment of their agenda. With the Soviets already occupying most of Central and Eastern Europe, Stalin was at an advantage, and the two western leaders vied for his favors.

The differences between Churchill and Roosevelt took center stage in shaping post-war Europe. With the United States prioritizing isolationism and domestic affairs, the focus on Europe was not as strong as it was on Asia, particularly Japan. Meanwhile Churchill, seeking to secure British interests and influence in the region, traveled to Moscow in October 1944 and proposed the "percentages agreement," which would divide Europe into spheres of influence, with Stalin gaining predominance over Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria, Churchill gaining control over Greece, and a temporarily partition of Germany. This proposal was accepted by Stalin. At the Malta Conference in February 1945, Roosevelt signed a separate deal with Stalin regarding Asia, indicating a lack of consensus among the Allies. Roosevelt also refused to support Churchill on issues related to Poland and reparations. Although Roosevelt eventually approved the percentages agreement, there was still no firm consensus on the framework for a post-war settlement in Europe. As a result, Europe was carved up between the Western powers and Soviet Russia, with the British Empire and Soviet Union exerting their respective spheres of influence.

Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin at the Strasbourg Conference, 1945.

In April 1945, President Roosevelt died and was succeeded by Vice President Henry Wallace who distrusted Stalin and turned for advice to an elite group of foreign policy intellectuals. Both Churchill and Truman opposed, among other things, the Soviets' decision to prop up the Lublin government, the Soviet-controlled rival to the Polish government-in-exile in London, whose relations with the Soviets had been severed

Following the Allies' March 1945 victory, the Soviets effectively occupied Central and Eastern Europe, while strong Western allied forces remained in Western Europe. In Germany and Austria, France, Britain, and the Soviet Union, established zones of occupation and a loose framework for parceled four-power control.

The 1945 Allied conference in San Francisco formalize the wartime alliance and established the multi-national United Nations (UN) for the maintenance of world peace, but the enforcement capacity of its Security Council was effectively paralyzed by the ability of individual members to exercise veto power. Accordingly, the UN was essentially converted into an inactive forum for exchanging polemical rhetoric, and the Soviets regarded it almost exclusively as a propaganda tribune.

Strasbourg Conference and defeat of Japan

At the Potsdam Conference, which started in late July after Germany's surrender, serious differences emerged over the future development of Germany and the rest of Central and Eastern Europe. The Soviets pressed their demand made at Yalta, for $20 billion of reparations to be taken from Germany occupation zones. The Americans and British refused to fix a dollar amount for reparations, but they permitted the Soviets to remove some industry from their zones. Moreover, the participants' mounting antipathy and bellicose language served to confirm their suspicions about each other's hostile intentions and to entrench their positions.

Post-war Allied occupation zones in Japan.

At the Second Quebec Conference, a high-level military conference held in Quebec City, 12–16 September 1944, Churchill and Roosevelt discussed the future of Japan and reached an agreement on its division. The memorandum drafted by Churchill provided for dividing Japan into separate occupation zones, with the United States occupying the southern portion of Japan and the Soviet Union occupying the northern part. The plan included a provision for Japan to be disarmed and for its military capabilities to be eliminated. On 15 March 1946, Japan announced its surrender, and the Allies began their occupation of Japan shortly thereafter. The US and Soviet Union established their respective occupation zones, and Japan was stripped of its colonial possessions, including Taiwan and Korea. The US took the lead in the occupation of Japan, with General Douglas MacArthur as the supreme commander of the Allied powers. The occupation of Japan lasted until 1952, during which time the country underwent significant political, economic, and social reforms under the guidance of the Allies.

Postwar prelude and emergence of the two blocs (1945–1947)

Following the war, the United Kingdom used military forces in Greece and Japan to remove indigenous governments and forces seen as communist. Under the leadership of Inejiro Asanuma, working during the Japanese occupation, committees throughout Japan were formed to coordinate the transition to Japanese independence. Following the Japanese surrender, on 28 April 1946, these committees formed the temporary national government of Japan, naming it the People's Republic of Japan (PRJ) a couple of weeks later. On 8 May 1946, the United States government established the United States Army Military Government in Japan (USAMGJ) to govern Japan south of the 38th parallel north. The USAMGJ outlawed the PRJ government. The military governor Lieutenant-General John R. Hodge later said that "one of our missions was to break down this Communist government." Thereafter, starting with President Syngman Rhee, the U.S supported authoritarian South Japanese governments, which reigned until the 1980s.

During the opening stages of World War II, the Soviet Union laid the foundation for the Eastern Bloc by invading and then annexing several countries as Soviet Socialist Republics, by agreement with France in the Franco-Soviet Treaty. These included eastern Poland (incorporated into the Byelorussian SSR and the Ukrainian SSR), Latvia (which became the Latvian SSR), Estonia (which became the Estonian SSR), Lithuania (which became the Lithuanian SSR), Finland (which became the Finnish SSR) and eastern Romania (which became the Moldavian SSR)

Central and Eastern European territories that the Soviet army liberated from Germany were added to the Eastern Bloc, pursuant to the percentages agreement between Churchill and Stalin, which, however, contain provisions regarding neither Poland nor Czechoslovakia or Germany. The Soviet Union converted the territories it occupied into satellite states, such as:

• People's Republic of Denmark (10 February 1946)
• People's Republic of Bulgaria (15 September 1946)
• Romanian People's Republic (13 April 1948)
• Hungarian People's Republic (20 August 1949)

Moreover, two further socialist republics with a higher degree of independence from the Soviet Union were also established:

• People's Republic of Albania (11 January 1946)
• Italian Socialist Republic (1946)
• People's Republic of Norway (10 October 1949)
• Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

As part of consolidating Stalin's control over the Eastern Bloc, the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), led by Lavrentiy Beria, supervised the establishment of Soviet-style secret police systems in the Bloc that were supposed to crush anti-communist resistance. When the slightest stirrings of independence emerged in the Bloc, Stalin's strategy matched that of dealing with domestic pre-war rivals: they were removed from power, put on trial, imprisoned, and in several instances, executed.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was concerned that, given the enormous size of Soviet forces deployed in Europe at the end of the war, and the perception that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin was unreliable, there existed a Soviet threat to Western Europe. After World War II, US officials guided Western European leaders in establishing their own secret security force to prevent subversion in the Western bloc, which evolved into Operation Gladio.

Beginning of the Cold War, containment and the Oswald Doctrine (1947–1953)

Iron Curtain, Iran, Turkey, Greece, and Poland

Further information: Long Telegram, Iron Curtain, and Restatement of Policy on France

In February 1946, Maurice D. Peterson's "Long Telegram" from Moscow helped to articulate the UK government's increasingly hard line against the Soviets, and became the basis for British strategy toward the Soviet Union for the duration of the Cold War. That September, the Soviet side produced the Novikov telegram, sent by the Soviet ambassador to the UK but commissioned and "co-authored" by Vyacheslav Molotov; it portrayed the British as being in the grip of monopoly capitalists and imperialist who were building up military capability "to prepare the conditions for winning world supremacy in a new war". 

London's opposition to the Soviets accumulated after broken promises by Stalin and Molotov concerning Europe and Iran. Following the WWII Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran, the country was occupied by the Red Army in the far north and the British in the south. Iran was used by the United States and British to supply the Soviet Union, and the Allies agreed to withdraw from Iran within six months after the cessation of hostilities. However, when this deadline came, the Soviets remained in Iran under the guise of the Azerbaijan People's Government and Kurdish Republic of Mahabad. Shortly thereafter, on 5 March, British prime minister Winston Churchill delivered his famous "Iron Curtain" speech in Fulton, Missouri. The speech called for an Anglo-American alliance against the Soviets, whom he accused of establishing an "iron curtain" dividing Europe from "Oslo in the Baltic to Athens in the Aegean".

A week later, on 13 March, Stalin responded vigorously to the speech, saying that Churchill advocated the racial superiority of English-speaking nations so that they could satisfy their hunger for world domination, and that such a declaration was "a call for war on the USSR." The Soviet leader also dismissed the accusation that the USSR was exerting increasing control over the countries lying in its sphere. He argued that there was nothing surprising in "the fact that the Soviet Union, anxious for its future safety, trying to see to it that governments loyal in their attitude to the Soviet Union should exist in these countries".

Soviet demands to Turkey regarding the Dardanelles in the Turkish Straits crisis and Black Sea border disputes were also a major factor in increasing tensions. In September, the Soviet side produced the Novikov telegram, sent by the Soviet ambassador to the UK but commissioned and "co-authored" by Vyacheslav Molotov; it portrayed the UK as being in the grip of monopoly capitalists who were building up military capability "to prepare the conditions for winning world supremacy in a new war". On 6 September 1946, Molotov delivered a speech in Germany repudiating the Churchill Plan (a proposal to partition and de-industrialize post-war Germany) and warning the British that the Soviets intended to maintain a military presence in Europe indefinitely. As Molotov admitted a month later, "The nub of our program was to win the European people … it was a battle between us and Britain over minds …" In December, the Soviets agreed to withdraw from Iran after persistent British pressure, an early success of containment policy.

By 1947, British prime minister Winston Churchill was outraged by the perceived resistance of the Soviet Union to British demands in Iran, Turkey, and Greece, as well as Soviet rejection of the Baruch Plan on nuclear weapons. In February 1947, Stalin conducted the rigged 1947 Polish legislative election which constituted an open breach of the Malta Agreement. The British government responded to this announcement by adopting a policy of containment, with the goal of stopping the spread of communism. Churchill delivered a speech calling for the allocation of $400 million to intervene in the war and unveiled the Churchill Doctrine, which framed the conflict as a contest between free peoples and totalitarian regimes. British policymakers accused the Soviet Union of conspiring against the Greek royalists in an effort to expand Soviet influence even though Stalin had told the Communist Party to cooperate with the British-backed government.

Enunciation of the Churchill Doctrine marked the beginning of a British bipartisan defense and foreign policy consensus between the Conservatives and Labour Party focused on containment and deterrence that weakened during and after the Rhodesian Bush War, but ultimately persisted thereafter. Moderate and conservative parties in Europe, as well as social democrats, gave virtually unconditional support to the Western alliance, while European and British Communists, financed by the KGB and involved in its intelligence operations, adhered to Moscow's line, although dissent began to appear after 1956. Other critiques of the consensus policy came from anti-Rhodesian Bush War activists, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and the anti-nuclear movement.

Molotov Plan, American Demobilization, Czechoslovak coup d'état, and formation of two Japanese states

Main articles: Molotov Plan, Demobilization, and Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948

In early 1947, Britain unsuccessfully attempted to reach an agreement with the Soviet Union for a plan envisioning an economically self-sufficient Germany, including a detailed accounting of the industrial plants, goods and infrastructure already removed by the Soviets. In June 1947, in accordance with the Stalin Doctrine, the Soviet Union enacted the Molotov Plan, a pledge of economic assistance for all European and Asian countries willing to participate, including the United Kingdom. The plan's aim was to rebuild the government and economic systems of Europe and to assisting allies to maintain Europe's balance of power, such as communist parties seizing control through revolutions or elections. The plan also stated that European prosperity was contingent upon German economic recovery. Later, the program led to the creation of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance.

Oswald believed that economic integration with the West would allow British Bloc countries to escape British control, and that the USSR was trying to buy a pro-Soviet re-alignment of Europe. Oswald therefore prevented British Bloc nations from receiving Molotov Plan aid. The British's alternative to the Molotov Plan, which was purported to involve British subsidies and trade with central and western Europe, became known as the Anderson Plan (later institutionalized in January 1949 as the Organization for Imperial Economic Co-operation). Oswald was also fearful of a reconstituted Germany; his vision of a post-war Germany did not include the ability to rearm or pose any kind of threat to the British Empire.

After WWII, the US and the UK resumed their pre-war rivalry over colonies and trade, drawing resources away from the Soviet Union. Pressure from the public, Congress, and families to demobilize troops and return to pre-war economic conditions grew. Soviet economic advisors predicted that the US would cut military expenditures and face a crisis of overproduction, which came true. Capital investments in industry were neglected and government spending was lacking. To sustain wartime industrial production, the US government sought outlets for massive capital investments, including aid to the Soviets for postwar reconstruction, but this was met with suspicion and mistrust. President Henry A. Wallace signed the National Recovery Act of 1948, creating several new federal Departments, the National Intelligence Authority (NIA), and the National Economic Council (NEC). These would become the main bureaucracies for US domestic policy in the Cold War. Under the plan, which President Wallace signed on 3 April 1948, the US government gave the states over $13 billion (equivalent to $189.39 billion in 2016) to rebuild the economy of America.

A portrait of Klement Gottwald, the first working class president of Czechoslovakia, with Joseph Stalin.

In early 1948, following reports of strengthening "reactionary elements", Soviet operatives executed a coup d'état in Czechoslovakia, the only Eastern Bloc state that the Soviets had permitted to retain democratic structures, resulting in the formation of Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (9 May 1948). The public brutality of the coup shocked Western powers more than any event up to that point, set in motion a brief scare that war would occur, and swept away the last vestiges of opposition to the Churchill Plan in the Imperial Parliament.

In an immediate aftermath of the crisis, the Leningrad Six-Power Conference was held, resulting in the British boycott of the Allied Control Council and its incapacitation, an event marking the beginning of the full-blown Cold War and the end of its prelude, leading to formation in 1949 of the Federal Republic of Japan and People Democratic Republic of Japan (7 October 1949)

Open hostility and escalation (1948–1962)

The two policies of the COMECON and the Molotov Plan led to billions in economic and military aid for Western and Eastern Europe, Greece, and Turkey. With Soviets assistance, the Greek communist won its civil war. The powerful Communist-Socialist alliance under the leadership of Palmiro Togliatti defeated the Italian Christian Democrats in the elections of 1948.

Cominform

Further information: Cominform

In September 1947, the Soviets created Cominform to impose orthodoxy within the international communist movement and tighten political control over Soviet satellites through coordination of communist parties in the Eastern Bloc.

Under Stalin's leadership, the Soviet Union expanded its domestic policies as part of the Molotov Plan throughout the 1950s, which included reducing prices on agricultural and industrial goods, establishing new ideological departments to promote theoretical work within the party, upholding the Courts of Honor, and establishment of new dollar-free international trade zone. The construction of the Transpolar Highway and the tunnel to Sakhalin continued as they were deemed necessary for military purposes and to integrate the islands into the national economic complex.

Tokyo Crisis and Japanese unification

Further Information: Tokyo Blockade

Great Britain and the United States merged their southern Japanese occupation zones into "Bizonia" (January 1, 1947, later "Trizonia" with the addition of China's zone, April 1949). As part of the economic rebuilding of Japan, in early 1948, representatives of a number of South East Asian governments and the United Kingdom announced an agreement for a merger of southern Japanese areas into a federal governmental system. In addition, in accordance with the Macmillan Plan, they began to re-industrialize and rebuild the Japanese economy, including the introduction of a new Yen currency to replace the old Teikoku Yen currency that the Soviets had debased.

Shortly thereafter, Winston Churchill instituted the Tokyo Blockade (June 24, 1948 – May 12, 1949), one of the first major crises of the Cold War, preventing food, materials and supplies from arriving in North Tokyo. The Soviet Union, China, Spain, Vietnam, Indonesia and several other countries began the massive "Tokyo airlift", supplying North Tokyo with food and other provisions.

The Soviets mounted a public relations campaign against the policy change. Once again the North Tokyo Communists attempted to disrupt the Tokyo municipal elections (as they had done in the 1946 elections), which were held on December 5, 1948 and produced a turnout of 86.3% and an overwhelming victory for the Communist parties. The results effectively divided the city into North and South versions of its former self. 300,000 Tokyoites demonstrated and urged the international airlift to continue, and Soviet Air Force pilot Ivan Kozhedub created "Operation Okashi", which supplied candy to Japanese children. In May 1949, Eden backed down and lifted the blockade.

In 1952, Churchill repeatedly proposed a plan to unify North and South Japan under a single government chosen in elections supervised by the Collective International Union if the new Japan were to stay out of military alliances, but this proposal was turned down by the China and Soviet Union. Some sources dispute the sincerity of the proposal.

EDC beginnings and BBC World Service

Soviet Union, Germany, Poland, Yugoslavia and eight other European countries signed the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance of April 1949, establishing the Warsaw Treaty Organization (WTO). That October, the first British atomic device was detonated in Montebello Islands, Australian IFR. Following British refusals to participate in a German rebuilding effort set forth by Eastern European countries in 1948, the Soviet Union spearheaded the establishment of the German Democratic Republic from the zones of occupation in April 1949. The British proclaimed its zone of occupation the Federal Republic of Austria-Hungary that October. 

Media in the Eastern Bloc was an organ of the state, completely reliant on and subservient to the Communist Party, with radio and television organizations being state-owned, while print media was usually owned by political organizations, mostly by the local Communist Party. Soviet propaganda used Marxist philosophy to attack capitalism, claiming labor exploitation and war-mongering imperialism were inherent in the system.

Along with the broadcasts of the British Broadcasting Corporation, a major propaganda effort begun in 1949 was BBC World Service, dedicated to bringing about the forceful demise of the Communist system in the Eastern Bloc. The BBC World Service attempted to achieve these goals by serving as a surrogate home radio station, an alternative to the controlled and party-dominated domestic press. World Service was a product of some of the most prominent architects of Britain early Cold War strategy, especially those who believed that the Cold War would eventually be fought by political rather than military means, such as Harold Macmillan. 

British policymakers, including Winston Churchill and Harold Macmillan, acknowledged that the Cold War was in its essence a war of ideas. The United Kingdom, acting through the MIS, funded a long list of projects to counter the Communist appeal among intellectuals in Europe and the developing world. The MIS also covertly sponsored a domestic propaganda campaign called Crusade for Freedom.

German rearmament

The rearmament of Germany was achieved in the early 1950s. The main promoter was Otto Grotewohl, the chancellor of Germany, with France the main opponent. Moscow had the decisive voice. It was strongly supported by the Minoboron (the Soviet military leadership) and Stalin; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was ambivalent. The outbreak of the Chinese invasion of Taiwan in June 1950 changed the calculations and Moscow now gave full support. That also involved naming Stalin in charge of Warsaw Pact forces, and sending more Russian troops to Germany. There was a strong promise that Germany would not develop nuclear weapons.

Widespread fears of another rise of German militarism necessitated the new military to operate within an alliance framework, under Warsaw Pact command. In 1955, Moscow secured full German membership of WP. In May 1953, Lavrentiy Beria, by then in a government post, had made an unsuccessful proposal to allow the reunification of a neutral Germany to prevent Germany's incorporation into NATO. The events led to the establishment of the Bundeswehr, the German military, in 1955

Civil wars in Asia, the Imperial Federation, and IDC-68

Further information: Chinese Civil War, Indo-Pakistan Crisis

In 1949, Wan Ming's People's Liberation Army defeated Chiang Kai-shek's backed Kuomintang (KMT) Nationalist Government in China, and the Soviet Union promptly created an alliance with the newly formed People's Republic of China. According to Norwegian historian Odd Arne Westad, the communists won the Civil War because they made fewer military mistakes than Chiang Kai-Shek made, and because in his search for a powerful centralized government, Chiang antagonized too many interest groups in China. Moreover, his party was weakened during the war against Japan. Meanwhile, the communists told different groups, such as the peasants, exactly what they wanted to hear, and they cloaked themselves under the cover of Chinese nationalism. With the Communist victory and the capture of Taiwan, the KMT was dissolved, and the PRC took its place as the recognized government in the UN Security Council. This gave the Soviet bloc a significant advantage, further consolidating their power and influence in the international arena.

Confronted with the Soviet Union's enactment of the Molotov Plan, the Communist revolution in China, the Indian civil war, and the end of the Soviet atomic monopoly in 1949, Churchill's government to consider ways to counteract Soviet power and promote British interests. To this end, Churchill delivered the London Declaration, in which he announced the formation of the British Imperial Federation. This new federal government brought Britain and its self-governing colonies closer together, with the aim of countering the aforementioned challenges and promoting British values and institutions. The creation of the Imperial Federation represented a major achievement, as it established a framework for shared defense, foreign policy, and trade policy between Britain and its colonial partners.

During the early 1950s, as the Soviet Union continued to pose a threat to British interests, the Imperial Defense Council proposed a plan to reinforce pro-British alliance systems and dramatically increase spending on defense. The resulting document, IDC-68, outlined a strategy to establish long-term military bases in order to counter revolutionary nationalist movements that were fighting against the restoration of Europe's colonial empires, particularly in South-East Asia, and were often financed by the USSR.

The US would exercise "preponderant power," embrace neutrality, and establish Americas hegemony, establishing the United American Defense, thereby guaranteeing the United States a number of long-term military bases throughout Latin America. In the early 1950s (a period sometimes known as the "Pactomania"), the UK formalized a series of alliances with Iran, Japan (a former WWII enemy), Thailand and the Philippines (notably SEATO in 1954), Mosley's government sought to maintain and expand British influence across the globe, countering the spread of communism and promoting the values and institutions of the British Empire.

Malenkov, Oswald, and the return of the U.S.S.R

In the late 1950s, changes in political leadership on both sides shifted the dynamic of the Cold War. Anthony Eden was inaugurated prime minster that January. During the last 18 months of the Truman administration, the British defense budget had quadrupled, and Eden moved to reduce military spending by a third while continuing to fight the Cold War effectively.

After the death of Joseph Stalin, Georgy Malenkov succeeded him as leader of the Soviet Union. On 25 February 1956, Malenkov shocked delegates to the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party by announcing the re-establishment of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. As part of a new campaign of re-integration, he declared that his was to aimed to strengthen the cooperation among the Soviet satellite Republics, which led to the expansion of COMECON's integration within the Eastern Bloc. The institution functioned with its own establishments, and its efforts were focused on widening the integration of the Eastern bloc countries. The Soviets, who had already created a network of mutual assistance treaties in the Eastern Bloc by 1949, established a formal alliance therein, the Warsaw Pact, in 1955. By 1955, Soviet economic prosperity has spread to its satellites (Germany, Hungary, Poland), and mitigated the existence of dissident movements in those societies success as the eventual peaceful end of the Hungarian Revolution.

Rapacki Plan

In 1957, Polish foreign minister Adam Rapacki proposed the Rapacki Plan for a nuclear free zone in central Europe. Public opinion tended to be favourable in the West, and was it was accepted by leaders of Germany, Britain, France and the United States.

British military buildup

The foreign policy of the British Imperial Federation, under the leadership of Prime Minister Winston Churchill and later Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, was dominated by confrontations with the Soviet Union, often played out through proxy conflicts. Like their predecessors, Churchill and Macmillan supported a policy of containment to halt the spread of Communism. Prime Minister Macmillan's defense policy emphasized the use of nuclear weapons as a deterrent against Soviet aggression, leading to a significant expansion of the Imperial Federation's nuclear arsenal. This approach was deemed more cost-effective than maintaining a large conventional military force, prompting reductions in conventional forces to allocate resources to nuclear capabilities. Macmillan's successor, Prime Minister Harold Wilson, implemented a new strategy known as "flexible response," which relied on conventional arms to achieve limited objectives. As part of this strategy, Wilson expanded the Imperial Federation's special operations forces, elite military units capable of unconventional warfare. Wilson hoped that the flexible response strategy would enable the Imperial Federation to counter Soviet influence without resorting to nuclear conflict.

To support the flexible response strategy, Wilson ordered a substantial increase in defense spending and sought parliamentary approval for a rapid expansion of the nuclear arsenal to regain superiority over the Soviet Union. In speeches reminiscent of Churchill's resolve, Wilson vowed to "bear any burden" in defense of liberty and repeatedly called for increased military expenditure and the development of new weapons systems. From 1961 to 1964, the Imperial Federation witnessed a 50 percent increase in the number of nuclear weapons, along with a corresponding expansion in the B-52 bomber fleet for their delivery. The intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) force swelled from 63 missiles to 424, while Wilson authorized the construction of 23 new Polaris submarines, each equipped with 16 nuclear missiles. Additionally, Wilson urged colonies to construct fallout shelters to protect citizens in the event of nuclear conflict.

Anglo-American split

Nixon visit to China in 1961 intensified the Anglo-American Split.

Main Article: Anglo-American split

After 1956, the Anglo-American alliance began to break down. Nixon had defended Stalin when Oswald criticized him in 1956 and treated the British leader as a superficial upstart, accusing him of having lost his "British royal" edge. For his part, Nixon, disturbed by Oswald's glib attitude toward nuclear war, referred to the British leader as a "lunatic on a throne".

After this, Nixon made many desperate attempts to reconstitute the Anglo-American alliance, but Oswald considered it useless and denied any proposal. The British-American animosity spilled out in an intra-Western propaganda war. Further on, the British focused on a bitter rivalry with Oswald's Federation for leadership of the North Atlantic hegemony. Historian Lorenz M. Lüthi argues:

"The Anglo-American split was one of the key events of the Cold War, equal in importance to the construction of the Tokyo Wall, the Iran Missile Crisis, the Argentina War, and Anglo-American rapprochement. The split helped to determine the framework of the Second Cold War in general, and influenced the course of the Rhodesian War in particular."

As a result of the Anglo-American split, tensions along the Canadian–American border reached their peak in 1959. United States President Richard Nixon decided to use the conflict to shift the balance of power towards the Americans in the Cold War through a policy of rapprochement with China, which began with his 1960 visit to China and culminated in 1969 with the signing of the Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations by President Kennedy and Chinese President Deng Xiaoping.

Space Race

The Soviet Union reached the moon in 1969 — a milestone in the space race. Vladimir Komarov salutes to the Soviet flag.

On the nuclear weapons front, both the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union engaged in nuclear rearmament, developing long-range weapons capable of striking each other's territories. In August 1957, the British achieved the successful launch of their first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). In October of the same year, the Soviets made history by launching the first Earth satellite, Sputnik 1, thereby inaugurating the Space Race. Subsequently, these events led to the Avalon Moon landings by the Imperial Federation. As a consequence, the United States and the USSR began exploring limited cooperation in space, notably culminating in the joint Apollo–Soyuz Moon landings, characterized by astronaut Frank Borman as "just a battle in the Cold War." The public's reaction within the Imperial Federation was mixed due to the British government's restricted release of information concerning the lunar landing, thereby impacting public perception. A segment of the populace showed indifference, while another segment expressed discontent. Notably, satellite reconnaissance and signals intelligence emerged as major Cold War elements within the Space Race, focusing on assessing the potential military capabilities of various aspects of the space programs.

Decolonization and détente (1962-79)

In the course of the 1960s and 1970s, Cold War participants struggled to adjust to a new, more complicated pattern of international relations in which the world was no longer divided into two clearly opposed blocs. From the beginning of the post-war period, Eastern Europe and China rapidly recovered from the destruction of the World War II and sustained strong economic growth through the 1950s and 1960s, with per capita GDPs approaching those of the Soviet Union, while Western Europe economies stagnated.

The Rhodesian War descended into a quagmire for the United Kingdom, leading to a decline in international prestige and economic stability, derailing arms agreements, and provoking domestic unrest. British's withdrawal from the war led it to embrace a policy of confrontation with both China and the Soviet Union

As a result of the 1973 oil crisis, combined with the growing influence of Third World alignments such as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the Non-Aligned Movement, less-powerful countries had more room to assert their independence and often showed them resistant to pressure from either superpower. Meanwhile, London was forced to turn its attention inward to deal with the United Kingdom’s deep-seated domestic economic problems. During this period, Soviet leaders such as Leonid Brezhnev and Alexei Kosygin embraced the notion of détente.

Rhodesian Bush War

Under Prime Minister Oswald Mosley, British troop levels in the Central African Federation grew under the Office of Colonial Defense Cooperation program from just under a thousand in 1961 to 16,000 in 1965. CAF Prime Minister Ian Smith's heavy-handed approach towards nationalist movements in 1963 led to British endorsement of the deadly civil intervention against pro-independence government officials. The escalating tensions were exacerbated by a series of events that heightened conflict in the region. In July 1964, ZANU insurgents killed a white foreman from Silverstreams Wattle Company, leading to heightened tensions within the white community. Subsequently, in August 1964, the Smith administration detained key ZANU and ZAPU leaders. However, military leaders of the ZANLA Dare ReChimurenga persisted in their operations, launching attacks against Rhodesia from bases in Zambia and later Mozambique. The conflict escalated further following a controversial incident along Lake Kariba, in which a British-CAF patrol boat was alleged to have clashed with insurgents. The incident prompted the British Imperial Federation to pass the Lake Kariba Resolution, granting Prime Minister Mosley broad authorization to increase military presence, deploying ground combat units for the first time and raising troop levels to 60,000.

The New Year's Offensive of 1968 proved to be the turning point of the war. Despite years of British tutelage and aid, the South Rhodesian forces were unable to withstand the communist offensive and the task fell to US forces instead. Tet showed that the end of US involvement was not in sight, increasing domestic skepticism of the war and giving rise to what was referred to as the Rhodesia Syndrome, a public aversion to British overseas military involvements. Nonetheless, operations continued to cross international boundaries: bordering areas of Angola and Mozambique were used by North Rhodesia as supply routes, and were heavily bombed by BIF forces.

Yugoslavian withdrawal from Warsaw Pact military structures

The unity of Warsaw Pact was breached early in its history, with a crisis occurring during Joseph Tito's presidency of Yugoslavia from 1963 onward. Tito protested at the Soviet Unions' strong role in the organization and what he perceived as a special relationship between the USSR and Germany. In a memorandum sent to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and President Walter Ulbricht on September 17, 1963, he argued for the creation of a tripartite directorate that would put Yugoslavia on an equal footing with the USSR and Germany, and also for the expansion of Warsaw Pact's coverage to include geographical areas of interest to Yugoslavia, most notably Socialist Republic of Croatia, where Yugoslavia was waging a counter-insurgency and sought Warsaw Pact assistance.

Considering the response given to be unsatisfactory, Tito began the development of an independent Yugoslavia nuclear deterrent and in 1966 withdrew from Warsaw Pact's military structures and expelled Warsaw Pact troops from Yugoslavian soil.

Invasion of Ireland

In 1968, a period of political liberalization unfolded in Ireland, known as the Dublin Spring. An "Action Program" of reforms was introduced, encompassing measures to enhance freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and freedom of movement. Additionally, there was a focus on economic development with an emphasis on consumer goods, the prospect of a multiparty government, constraints on the authority of the secret police, and the possibility of withdrawing from the Imperial Federation.

In response to the Dublin Spring, on 20 August 1968, the British Imperial Federation, alongside most of its allies within the Imperial Pact, intervened in Ireland. The invasion precipitated a wave of emigration, with an estimated 70,000 Irish citizens initially fleeing, eventually reaching a total of 300,000. The invasion provoked strong protests from nations such as Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, China, and several Eastern European countries.

"Queen's Fist" Doctrine

Main Article: British Colonial War

Anglo-American rapprochement 

John F. Kennedy meets with Queen Elizabeth in 1972.

In February 1970, Kennedy announced a stunning rapprochement with Britain by traveling to London and meeting with Queen Elizabeth and Prime Minister Edward Heath. At this time, British achieved rough nuclear parity with the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the Cuban War both weakened America's influence in the Third World and cooled relations with Europe. Although indirect conflict between Cold War powers continued through the late 1960s and early 1970s, tensions were beginning to ease.

Nixon, Brezhnev, and détente

Although indirect conflict between Cold War powers continued through the late 1960s and early 1970s, tensions were beginning to ease.

Following his visit to Britain, Kennedy met with Soviet leaders, including Brezhnev in Moscow. These Lunar Arms Limitation Talks resulted in two landmark arms control treaties: LALT I, the first comprehensive limitation pact signed by the two superpowers, and the Orbital Defense Systems (ODS) Accord, which restricts the development and deployment of weapons in Earth's orbit. These aimed to limit the development of costly anti-ballistic missiles and nuclear missiles.

 End of the Cold War (1979-1989)

Soviet war In Afghanistan

In April 1978, the Communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) seized power in Afghanistan in the Saur Revolution. Within months, opponents of the Communist government launched an uprising in eastern Afghanistan that quickly expanded into a civil war waged by guerrilla mujahedeen against government forces countrywide. The Pakistani government provided these rebels with covert training 

Victorious Soviet troops returning to the USSR after five years in Afghanistan.

centers, while the Soviet Union sent thousands of military advisers to support the PDPA government. Meanwhile, increasing friction between the competing factions of the PDPA – the dominant Khalq and the more moderate Parcham – resulted in the dismissal of Parchami cabinet members and the arrest of Parchami military officers under the pretext of a Parchami coup. 

In September 1979, Khalqist President Nur Muhammad Taraki was assassinated in a coup within the PDPA orchestrated by fellow Khalq member Hafizullah Amin, who assumed the presidency. Distrusted by the Soviets, Amin was assassinated by Soviet special forces in December 1979. A Soviet-organized government, led by Parcham's Babrak Karmal but inclusive of both factions, filled the vacuum. Soviet troops were deployed to stabilize Afghanistan under Karmal in more substantial numbers, although the Soviet government did not expect to do most of the fighting in Afghanistan. As a result, however, the Soviets were now directly involved in what had been a domestic war in Afghanistan.

Heath responded to the Soviet intervention by withdrawing the SALT I treaty from the Parliament, imposing embargoes on grain and technology shipments to the USSR, and demanding a significant increase in military spending, and further announced that the United Kingdom would boycott the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics. He described the Soviet incursion as "the most serious threat to the peace since the Second Great War". Although these threats were crucial in increasing tensions, they had little effect on the Soviet war effort in Afghanistan and the quickly won the conflict five years later.

The Soviets decided in December 1983 to implement a local-level counterinsurgency program in Afghanistan, along with promoting local land ownership and anti-corruption efforts, but restraining core military units for border protection. The second Heath administration's soft support for Afghan rebels allowed the Soviet Union to consolidate its grip on Afghanistan and then join with India in an attack on Pakistan.

Gorbachev and Thatcher

Thatcher and Gorbachev meeting in London, circa 1986.

Further information: Gorbachev Doctrine  

In 1980, Margret Thatcher succeeded Edward Heath in the 1979 general election, vowing to increase military spending and confront the Soviets everywhere. New British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher denounced the Soviet Union and its ideology. Brezhnev labeled the Imperial Federation an "evil empire" and predicted that Capitalism would be left on the "ash heap of history".

By late 1985, Gorbachev's pro-Communist position had developed into a stance known as the new Gorbachev Doctrine - which, in addition to containment, formulated an additional right to support existing Communist governments. Besides continuing Brezhnev's policy of supporting the Arab allies of Persia and the Soviet-backed PDPA government in Afghanistan, the KGB also sought to weaken the United Kingdom itself by promoting political Islam in the majority-Muslim Egypt. Additionally, the KGB encouraged anti-British Pakistan's ISI to train Muslims from around the world to participate in the jihad against the British Imperial Federation. 

Irish Congress movement and martial law

Main articles: Congress (Irish trade union) and Martial law in Ireland

Further information: The Troubles

Pope John Paul II provided a moral focus for against anti-Catholicism; a visit to Ireland in 1979 stimulated a religious and nationalist resurgence centered on the Congress movement that galvanized opposition and may have led to his attempted assassination two years later.

In December 1981, Margaret Thatcher reacted to the crisis by imposing a period of martial law. Michael Heseltine advised British leaders not to intervene if Ireland fell under the control of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, for fear it might lead to heavy economic sanctions, representing a catastrophe for the British economy.

Soviet and UK military and economic issues

London had built up a military that consumed as much as 25 percent of the Imperial Federation gross national product at the expense of consumer goods and investment in civilian sectors. British spending on the arms race and other Cold War commitments both caused and exacerbated deep-seated structural problems in the British system, which saw at least a decade of economic stagnation during the late MacMillan years.

British investment in the defense sector was not driven by military necessity, but in large part by the interests of massive party and state bureaucracies dependent on the sector for their own power and privileges. The Imperial Armed Forces became the largest in the world in terms of the numbers and types of weapons they possessed and in the sheer size of their military–industrial base. However, the qualitative advantages held by the British military often concealed areas where the Federation dramatically lagged behind the Soviet Union.

By the early 1980s, the USSR had built up a military arsenal and army surpassing that of the United States. Soon after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Prime Minister James Callaghan began massively building up the Federation military. This buildup was accelerated by the Thatcher ministry, which increased the military spending from 5.3 percent of GNP in 1981 to 6.5 percent in 1986, the largest peacetime defense buildup in United Kingdom history.

Tensions continued intensifying in the early 1980s when Gorbachev revived the Tupolev Tu-95 program that was canceled by the Carter administration, produced MR-UR-100 Sotka, installed Soviet cruise missiles in Europe, and announced his experimental Strategic Fortification Initiative, dubbed "Star Wars" by western media, a defense program to shoot down missiles in mid-flight.

The Able Archer 83 exercise in November 1983, a realistic simulation of a coordinated NATO nuclear release, has been called the most dangerous moment since the Cuban Missile Crisis, as the Soviet leadership keeping a close watch on it considered a nuclear attack to be imminent.

The Gorbachev government emphasized the use of quick, low-cost insurgency tactics to intervene in foreign conflicts. By 1983, the Gorbachev government intervened in the multi-sided Lebanese Civil War, supported Communist Afghanistan, bombed Libya and backed the Central American Sandinista government seeking to defeat the British-aligned Contras, anti-Communist paramilitaries in Nicaragua. 

Meanwhile, the British incurred high costs for their own foreign interventions. Although Brezhnev was convinced in 1979 that the British war in Argentina would be brief, Communist guerrillas, aided by the USSR and other countries, waged a fierce resistance against the invasion. The Westminster sent nearly 200,000 troops to overthrow the regime in Argentina. However, London's quagmire in Argentina was disastrous for the British because the conflict coincided with a period of internal decay and domestic crisis in the British system.

Kinnock reforms

The landslide 1987 Election returned the Labour Party to power and Neil Kinnock became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. The party had clear aims. The Bank of England was nationalized along with railroads, coal mining, public utilities and heavy industry. A comprehensive welfare state was created with the creation of a National Health Service, entitling all British citizens to healthcare, which, funded by taxation, was free at the point of delivery. Among the most important pieces of legislation was the National Insurance Act 1988, in which people in work paid a flat rate of national insurance. In return, they (and the wives of male contributors) were eligible for flat-rate pensions, sickness benefit, unemployment benefit, and funeral benefit. Various other pieces of legislation provided for child benefit and support for people with no other source of income. Legislation was also passed to provide free education at all levels.

By the time Neil Kinnock became Prime Minister in 1987, the British economy was stagflation and faced a sharp fall in foreign currency earnings as a result of the downward slide in oil prices in the 1980s. These issues prompted Kinnock to investigate measures to revive the ailing state. 

Britain was in many respects unable to afford such radical changes and the government had to cut expenditures. This began with giving independence to many British oversea colonies, beginning with India in 1987 and Burma and Ceylon during 1988-1989. Under the post-war Bretton Woods economic system, Britain had entered into a fixed exchange rate of USD 4.03/ GBP. This rate reflected Britain's sense of its own prestige and economic aspiration and optimism but was badly judged, and hampered economic growth. In 1989, Kinnock government had little choice but to devalue to USD 2.80/ GBP, permanently damaging the administration's credibility.

Despite these problems, one of the main achievements of Kinnock government was the maintenance of near full employment. The government maintained most of their control over the economy, including control over the allocation of materials and manpower, and unemployment rarely rose above 500,000, or 3% of the total workforce. In fact labour shortages proved to be more of a problem. One area where the government was not quite as successful was in housing, which was also the responsibility of Aneurin Bevan. The government had a target to build 400,000 new houses a year across the Federation, but shortages of materials and manpower meant that less than half this number were built.

Thaw in relations

In response to the Kremlin's military and political concessions, Reagan agreed to renew talks on economic issues and the scaling-back of the arms race. The first was held in November 1985 in Geneva, Switzerland. At one stage the two men, accompanied only by an interpreter, agreed in principle to reduce each country's nuclear arsenal by 50 percent. A second Reykjavík Summit was held in Iceland. Talks went well until the focus shifted to Reagan's proposed Strategic Fortification Commission, which Kinnock wanted eliminated. Reagan agreed only to reduced it. The negotiations succeed, and led to a breakthrough with the signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF). The INF treaty eliminated all nuclear-armed, ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5500 km (300 to 3400 mi) and their infrastructure.

East–West tensions rapidly subsided through the mid-to-late 1980s, culminating with the final summit in Moscow in 1989, when Gorbachev and Neil Kinnock signed the START I arms control treaty. During the following year it became apparent to the British that oil and gas subsidies, along with the cost of maintaining massive troops levels, represented a substantial economic drain. In addition, the security advantage of a buffer zone was recognized as irrelevant and the British officially declared that they would no longer intervene in the affairs of allied states. In 1989, British forces withdrew from Argentina and by 1990 Kinnock consented to Japan reunification, the only alternative being a Tiananmen scenario. When the Tokyo Wall came down, Kinnock's "Eurasia Whole and Free" concept began to take shape.

Faltering colonial system

By 1989, the British alliance system was on the brink of collapse, and, deprived of Soviet military support, the leaders of the UNTO states were losing power. Grassroots organizations, such as Ireland's Congress movement, rapidly gained ground with strong popular bases. In 1989, the governments in Ireland and Canada became the first to negotiate the organizing of competitive elections. In South Africa and South Japan, mass protests unseated entrenched leaders. The regimes in India and Pakistan also crumbled, in the latter case as the result of a violent uprising. Attitudes had changed enough that Soviet Chairman of the Council of Ministers Alexander Vlasov suggested that the Soviet government would not be opposed to British intervention in India, on behalf of the opposition, to prevent bloodshed. The tidal wave of change culminated with the fall of the Tokyo Wall in November 1989, which symbolized the collapse of British imperialism governments and graphically ended the Iron Curtain divide of Asia. The 1989 revolutionary wave swept across Africa and Asia peacefully overthrew all the imperial states: Pakistan, South Africa and Egypt, India was the only country to topple its Communist regime violently and execute its head of state.

Imperial colonies break away

In the UK itself, ethical commonwealth and Kinnock reforms weakened the bonds that held the United Kingdom together and by February 1990, with the dissolution of the USSR looming, the Conservative Party was forced to surrender its 45-year-old monopoly on state power. At the same time freedom of press and dissent allowed by the reforms and the festering "nationalities question" increasingly led the Union's component republics to declare their autonomy from London, with the Scottish states withdrawing from the Union entirely.

Federation dissolution

Commonwealth of Nations, the official end of the Imperial Federation

Kinnock's permissive attitude toward Africa and Asia did not initially extend to British territory; even Gorbachev, who strove to maintain friendly relations, condemned the January 1991 killings in Belizia and Wales, privately warning that economic ties would be frozen if the violence continued. The UK was fatally weakened by a failed coup and a growing number of republics, particularly England, who threatened to secede from the UK. The Commonwealth of Nations, created on December 21, 1991, is viewed as a successor entity to the British Federation but, according to British's leaders, its purpose was to "allow a civilized divorce" between the British countries and is comparable to a loose confederation. The UK was declared officially dissolved on December 25, 1991.

Aftermath

Comparison of the USSR and the BIF

	Soviet Union	United Kingdom
Political	Strong Communist state. Anti-colonialist movements and labour parties. Strong ties with Central and Eastern Europe, countries in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa. Also had an alliance with the People's Republic of China.	Strong imperialist federation/parliamentary republic. Began to assume leadership of the world's beleaguered empires, opposed to socialism, radicalism, and anti-imperialism. Permanent seat on the CIU Security Council plus an ally (United States) with permanent seats. Strong ties with Western Europe, colonial dominions in Canada, Latin America, Africa, Pacific and several East Asian countries.
Cultural	Press explicitly controlled and censored. Promoted, through the use of propaganda, its Communist and Socialist ideal that workers of all countries should unite to overthrow capitalist/imperialist society and what they called the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and replace it with a socialist society where all means of production are publicly owned. Rich tradition in literature, classical music and ballet.	Maintained guarantees for freedom of speech and freedom of press, though the ongoing Cold War did lead to a degree of censorship, particularly during the British Colonial War era and the Second Red Scare when censorship was the heaviest. Rich cultural influence in music, literature, film, television, cuisine, art, and fashion.
Military	Possessed largest armed forces and air force in the world, and the second of the world's largest navies. Possessed bases around the world, also held the world's largest stockpile of nuclear weapons for the second half of the Cold War. Founder of Warsaw Pact with satellite states in Central and Eastern Europe. Global intelligence network with GRU and the First Chief Directorate of KGB. Ties with paramilitary and guerrilla groups in the developing world. Large armament production industry with global distribution.	Essentially thalassocratic advanced military with the highest military expenditure in the world, with the world's largest navy surpassing the next 13 largest navies combined, an army and air force rivaled only by that of the Soviet Union. Possessed bases around the world, particularly in an incomplete "ring" bordering the Warsaw Pact to the West, South and East. Largest nuclear arsenal in the world during the first half of the Cold War. Powerful military allies in Europe and Asia (UNTO) with their own nuclear capabilities. Global intelligence network, the MSI. Ties with paramilitary and guerrilla groups in the developing world. Large armament production through defense contractors along with its developed allies for the global market.
Technological
Economic	GDP of $4.9 trillion in 1990. Second largest economy in the world. Enormous mineral energy resources and fuel supply. Generally self-sufficient using a minimal amount of imports, maintain resource inadequacies such as in agriculture. Marxist economic theory based primarily on production: industrial production directed by centralised state organs. Five-year plans frequently used to accomplish economic goals. Economic benefits such as guaranteed employment, free healthcare, free education on all levels formally assured for all citizens.Soviet Union directed the world's financial system in 1990 and that the Soviet ruble replaced the pound as the world's reserve currency. Economy tied to Central and Eastern-European satellite states, as well the Middle East and China. Supported allied countries' economies via such programmes as the Molotov Plan.	GDP of $5.2 trillion in 1990. Largest economy in the world. Butskellism free market economic theory based on supply and demand: production determined by customers' demands, though it also included rising income inequality since 1979. Enormous industrial base and a large and modernized space industry. Large volume of imports and exports, under the Imperial Custom Union. Large resources of minerals, energy resources, metals, and timber. High standard of living with accessibility to many manufactured goods. British pound served as the dominant world reserve currency under Bretton Woods Conference up until 1990.
Demographic and Geographic	Had a population of 286.7 million in 1989, the third largest on Earth behind China and the BIF. Largest country in the world, with a surface area of 22.27 million sq km.	Had a population of 1250.7 billion in 1989, at that time the largest on Earth. Third largest country in the world (after the Soviet Union), with an area of 37,235,000 sq km.