Customer Reviews

The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times

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Westad's book offers a new interpretation of the second half of the twentieth century, one that focuses on how the conflict between the US and the USSR-- and the division of the world into two halves-- played out in the Third World, and shaped and was shaped by the politics of those regions. The first two chapters are fairly heavy going, as Westad lays out sweeping statements about first the US, then the USSR, arguing that both countries developed around ideas that committed them to an almost evangelical form of statehood, of exporting their way of life. As he moves into the middle of the book, however, the story really takes off; he offers well-informed, fascinating case studies ranging from Angola and Ethiopia to Iran and Afghanistan. In every case, he illuminates the way in which the US and USSR offered only two sides on the playing field, and how people in these Third World countries responded by playing the superpowers off one another. One of the central processes that he brings to light is the way in which this situation eventually encouraged the rise of sectarian movements in many of those countries, including fundamentalist Islam, which appears here as a natural development from a generation who had watched their predecessors cast in with one of the two superpowers, and end up pawns in a global chess game. After finishing this book, I felt that I had an entirely new perspective on American history in the 20th century and better understood current-day issues from the rise of Islam to American support for Israel to the politics of central Africa. Certainly NOT a light read, but an invaluable one.

This is by far the best book available about the Cold War in the Third World. I have been waiting for a good book on this subject for quite some time, and I was not disappointed.
Westad starts out with a broad overview of American and Soviet history with particular emphasis on the importance of ideology and expansionism. He shows that the Cold War was primarily an ideological struggle between two powers that occurred at a time when when many new nations were coming into being due to European decolonialization. The two forces contributed to the radicalization and violence of the Third World in the Cold War.
Westad does an excellent job of providing both wide scope and in-depth analysis of a number of conflicts. He covers Cuba, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Somalia, Angola, Iran, Afghanistan and Central America. Unless you are an expert in all these conflicts, you are sure to learn something from this book. I am somewhat familiar with a few of them and found no major inaccuracies. And Westad does a great job of integrating them together into a tight narrative and argument.
My only complaint is that the book ends with an argument against "intervention." After 400 pages of explaining why past interventions were so important to the direction of modern history, it seems a bit of a contradiction to the rest of the book. But this is just a tiny criticism of an otherwise great book.

This fine book is devoted to a hugely important topic typically neglected in most discussions of the Cold War; the course and impact of the Cold War in the Third World. Most overview monographs on the Cold War concentrate on US-Soviet relations and/or the impact of the Cold War in Europe and Japan. Westad successfully attempts an overview and structural analysis of the Cold War in the Third World. Westad opens with a pair of summary chapters on the USA and Soviet Union leading up to the beginning of the Cold War. He then covers the early decades of the Cold War in the Third World concisely, and devotes much of the book to the last 2 decades of the Cold War, including detailed analyses of the events in Afghanistan, Africa, and Central America. Based on a wealth of secondary sources and analysis of primary literature from both US and Soviet archives, the narrative is comprehensive, clear, and punctuated with thoughtful analysis.

There is a lot of surprising information. While many readers will be aware of US interventions in places like Guatemala and Iran, Westad's descriptions of the depth of US interventions in places like Indonesia and Brazil will come as a surprise. Similarly, his description of how the Soviet involvement in the Third World came to be seen as a crucial element of the legitimacy of the Soviet state goes a long way towards explaining why the events in Afghanistan had such importance. With respect to the battleground states of the various Third World countries where US and Soviet interventions took place, this is generally a series of tragic stories, usually involving considerable bloodshed and impoverishment.

Westad goes considerably beyond good narrative. Several well articulated themes run through the narrative. A basic concept is that the Cold War was driven by two competing ideologies about what should be the basis of modern society - American liberal capitalism and Soviet communism. Westad is very good on how ideological considerations consistently drove US and Soviet policy decisions, including the many cases where ideology led to gross misunderstandings of reality. Another important theme is the independent role of local elites in Third World countries. Over and over again, these elites or portions of them sought superpower support to pursue their own ends, often quite different from those of the superpowers. This led, for example, to the depressingly frequent US support of brutal dictatorships and the Soviet support of regimes who suppressed local communist parties. Westad is very good as well at showing how the Cold War involvement of the superpowers was entangled with decolonialization, another important theme. Both the US and Soviet Union presented themselves as, and made serious efforts to act as, modernizers. In a series of particularly ironic developments, both US and Soviet policies often mimicked the development policies of the imperial states they displaced.

My only substantial criticisms of Westad are his treatment of the origins of the Cold War. Westad presents US policies as rooted in a long history of US expansionism and capitalist ideology. There is considerable truth in this position but it ignores some of the specific circumstances of the 1940s. The failure of the post-WWI settlement seemed to demand a dominant international US role after WWII. Similarly, as Westad's own narrative shows, US fears of the Soviet Union were driven in good part by Stalin's aggressive and paranoid behavior.

Westad concludes by highlighting the frequently tragic consequences of US and Soviet intervention in Third World states, often transforming local conflicts into major disasters. The results of US and Soviet interventions in the Third World are among the most important results of the Cold War, and these results have been largely negative.

The core of this book is what appears to be very detailed notes of official Soviet correspondence related to the wars in Afghanistan (1979-1989), Angola (1975-1976), and Somalia-Ethiopia (1974-1978). It is padded with much less-detailed, less recondite information about Cold War operations in Latin America, Indonesia, and the Arab World (mostly the former South Yemen). That, in turn, is further padded with some "analysis" that highly damaging to the book's value as history.

The first layer of "padding" includes most of chapter 3 ("Creating the Third World"), in which Westad races through an unmanageably long itinerary of newly liberated colonies of Western Europe, or else Latin America. This is actually valuable at times, especially if one follows the endnotes: Westad focuses on the destructive aspect of the US in the 3rd World to 1960, and documents it with many non-radical sources. However, Westad is apparently convinced that the former colonial powers or Latin states were entirely without agency of any kind; so the result is that he can simply treat the US as a malevolent black box.

Westad is clearly far more sympathetic to the Soviets, probably because his research tends to pursue Soviet motives through (a) official memoranda to (b) a series of compelling motivations. In contrast, the motives of US figures are documented through informal tapes, and not pursued. The Soviets are therefore portrayed as cautiously evading conflict, and responding only to multiple US provocations; the Usonians are portrayed as omnipotent louts whose behavior requires no explanation.*

The most damaging aspect of the book lies in what I called the "outer" layer of padding. It's padding because it purports to be "analysis" of the overall sweep of events, but it shows clear signs of having been included as boilerplate. First, Westad entirely ignores the role of Europeans. Oddly, the East Germans are represented frequently as having independent influence; the French, almost never. Westad claimed this was because he believed the 3rd World, not Europe, was the "real" theater of the Cold War. This is silly, because Europe was still a participant in the 3rd world. I think there are two other reasons he didn't mention.

1. First, acknowledging the colonial powers as as having agency would have made everything more complicated. Instead of being 4/5ths padding, the book would have been highly distilled and required enormous effort to write.

2.Second, Westad has no desire to indict capitalism, just the US. This book has a remarkably crude, even Manichaean, view of historical causality. There is no inner division within the USA, and no sharing of agency among Western elites. Westad allows for deep turmoil and complexity in the Soviet leadership, but not in the "Western camp."

This becomes spectacular in his attempts to blame the entire poverty of the 3rd world on the USA, rather than acknowledging Europe's share of responsibility. His economic narratives presuppose, for example, omnipotence by the US government, complete ability to anticipate consequences, and complete discretion.** Likewise, he "blames" the US for creating the IMF in order to "Americanize" developing nations; the real reason was that the IMF was vital to the new recovery scheme, in which growth rates were delinked from gold. Again, the Western European contributions to both demands for and approval of US policies are ignored, for clearly invidious reasons.

Those interested in finding a better thought-out and more accurate indictment of US economic/security policies should consider Galeano's Open Veins of Latin America, which is infinitely superior.
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*It's understandable that Westad might simply be kinder to the USSR because it lost, and the USA survived. No doubt he regards the USSR as the natural defender of native rebellions against oppressive neocolonial polities. But rather than really make his case, he uses very manipulative language, such as endlessly following the death toll from each US intervention with a figure representing the same percentage of Americans; for example, 30K Nicaraguans killed in the civil war there, followed by 1.2 million (the same percentage of Americans as 30K is of Nicaraguans). He does nothing like this for the Soviets.

** For example, he claims the US caused the debt crisis by "deliberately" driving its currency up (1980's); in fact, the US government was trying to stop galloping inflation at considerable expense to its own economy. He mixes up real and nominal interest rates, and blames US deficits for a global credit crisis (the US public deficit in the early 80's was not unusually large as a share of GDP for OECD countries in that time period).

Fiscal and monetary policies of large countries accommodate interests inside and outside that country. In a crisis like the period 1971-1984, no policy option could avoid causing widespread unhappiness. In any parallel universe, any alternative course of action could have been deemed "selfish." And so on.

From reading Westad's book it appears that the American loss in Vietnam actually led to the Soviets losing the Cold War. After the American defeat in Vietnam, the Soviets believed that they could ignore the popular front strategy that they used in Spain during the thirties and continued in Egypt and Indonesia, and replace it with a more revolutionary strategy that would abandon the popular front phase. This was the main reason they supported the revolutionary governments in Angola and Ethiopia. However wars in these African countries and Central America drained the Soviet economy. Finally the Soviets believed that they could prevent Afghanastan from falling to the competing revolutionary ideology of Islamic fundamentalism. Ths further led to financial and human losses for the Soviet Union and finally its collaspse. It is ironic after the Soviet loss in the Cold War the Americans find themselves blinded by triumphalism and committing serious mistakes in the Middle East and Latin America.

Was the Cold War an ideological battle between the US and the USSR? Or was it, by nature, a global conflict? Westad argues the latter. In The Global Cold War, he resists the traditional paradigm of US democracy/capitalism versus USSR communism. His reason? If theoretically or ideologically the battle was between the two superpowers, the praxis of the philosophies, by and large, manifested itself in the so-called "Third World."

It's an important study and an even more important argument. In eschewing common historical tropes, the author adopts a more reasonable, inclusive, and accurate definition of the "Cold War," which, under this new definition, shouldn't be considered 'Cold' anymore. If American troops didn't directly engage Soviet troops, American capital and Soviet capital did fund active, "hot" battles. Should we, as historians, intellectuals, academics, or readers, simply ignore this?

It was a period of global change and ideological confrontations, and while the superpowers did have an enormous role from 1945-1991, they weren't the sole actors. In fact, Westad presents an alternate theory that defines Cold War politics as based on a global paradigm, in which the US and the USSR adopted pivotal roles.

All in all, it's a very intriguing book, well written and argued, substantiated by facts, and original enough to warrant a look even if you've read other books on the era.

However, my only criticism is that the subject is far too large to compound in one book; as a result, he doesn't devote enough attention to particular case-studies that merit recognition as important.

He covers the "traditional" case studies, but it leaves us wanting more--more countries, more information, different experiences that we haven't already read hundreds of times.

It's a good and informative read, but for people already familiar with Cold War case studies and internationalist "Third Worldist" perspectives on the Cold War, it might not be incisive enough.

If you consider yourself an expert on the topic, read the Introduction and Conclusion at your local library (the thesis is very intriguing, but the rest of the book won't offer much new information that you haven't already read in countless other Cold War books). Otherwise, buy the book, read it and enjoy it, because it'll be an informative read.

Westad presents a disturbing but comprehensive and balanced evaluation of U.S. and Soviet policies towards Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia in the 1946-1991. His research is exhaustive, and his conclusions are cautionary for American interventionists in the post-Cold War era.

In the book "The global cold war- third world interventions and the making of our times" Odd Arne Westad has written one of the most impressive and conclusive coverage's of the cold war that I have ever read. It goes into great detail to explain the dynamics of this important piece of history. The book focuses on the conflicts between the Soviet Union and the United States in the third world (today sometimes referred to as the global south). These countries where traditionally seen not to be aligned with capitalism and Nato or the communist movement and the Soviet Union. After the Second World War ended both the Russians and the Americans (who both came out as winners) started a global scramble for power and resources in the third world countries.

The author describes how the successes of Castros Cuban revolution and development of communism close to America as well as the success of the North Vietnamese in the Vietnam war both came as two major setbacks against the Americans. These two factors would galvanize the US government to press harder policies in relation to what they saw as a growing global communist threat. Eventually when the Cubans started aiding resistance movements in Africa the Americans would supply help and weapons to their opponents. The Soviets also joined in with money and supplies leading to wars by proxy being fought on the African continent between America and Russia.

Angola was one of these places. Angola was an old Portuguese colony and the conflict there began around 1975 and was fought between the communist People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the the anti-communist National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). There where other factions who where involved in the fighting as well. The eastern bloc threw in their support of the pro communists and the Chinese came to the aid of the anti communists since they at this point had started going against the Russians on the world stage after the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960's. The South African government also stepped in to help the anti communist forces.

In the operation IA FEATURE the CIA supplied almost 50 million dollars to be used to fight anti MPLA troops. This heightening of US support would drive the Soviets and Cubans to escalate their involvement as well. 12000 Cubans where flown to Africa and they where given tons of heavy arms and tanks and also some planes from the Russians. The Russians would come out on the winning side of this conflict and in America the Ford administration felt dejected and there was also a strong anti interventionist sentiment among the American public. Now Castro spoke of Angola, Cuba and Vietnam as "the main anti-imperialist core" of the world. The Soviets also thought that with the successes in Vietnam and Angola that the world was moving in their direction. The Chinese at this point where furious that the Americans had lost against the Russians in Angola and thought this was another example of their powerlessness.

At this point in history, the United States and the Soviets had on the surface been practicing a diplomatic policy toward each other called detente, which meant that they seeked to relax tensions with one another. But beneath the surface the conflicts continued. The next conflict was to be played out in the horn of Africa. In Ethiopia, Haile Selassie was the countries regent. He had together with the British helped to drive out Italy during the Second World War and was receiving American and European aid to train the countries armies and develop its industries. But many people in Ethiopia saw the countries leadership as being corrupt and many where without jobs. A famine hit Ethiopia in 1972 and there was little response from the government making peoples resentment grow. Eventually Selassie was overthrown and killed by a leftist army junta called the Derg. They quickly disposed of many of their enemies within the government. The leader of the revolution, Mengitsu, was an officer who started working the Soviets for military and economic aid. This was slow coming since the Soviets where also supplying Ethiopians enemy Somalia. But slowly the came around and gave the general what he wanted. Now Ethiopia was moving from the US and Western sphere of influence and into the Soviet and Communist one instead. Then Mengitsu released the dreaded "red terror" which was an attempt to kill as many of his opponents as possible. Thousands of men and women were rounded up and killed. According to Amnesty international the number of dead could have been up to 500,000.

Somalia who was in a conflict with Ethiopia over the Ogaden territories now saw the Soviets moving their allegiances over to Ethiopia so At this point the United States saw an opportunity to support them covertly and by proxy. They wanted to drive the Soviets out from the Horn. By 1977 the Soviets where pouring in arms and military equipment into Ethiopia. With the help of 15,000 Cuban infantrymen they succeeded in beating the Somali army who was receiving massive US military support to their government. Having lost again to the communists in Africa the Americans felt dismayed. To the American right wing Jimmy Carter had failed in containing the communist threat. Reagan who would later be president said: "in a few years we may be faced with the prospect of a Soviet empire of protégés and dependencies from Addis Ababa to Cape Town". They also feared that a communist take over of Africa's horn could lead to destabilizing governments on the Arabian Peninsula.

Odd Arne Westad has also written about the Cold War history of the Latin American region in this book. He concentrates mainly on the struggles that took place in Nicaragua and El Salvador. The leftist guerillas in El Salvador (the FMLN) were locked in a bloody conflict with the right wing government that received American support. Reagan saw the guerillas as being sponsored by the Nicaraguans and the Cubans and decided to move against them, but he couldn't employ a large scale American assault due to the public who would see it as a prelude to another Vietnam. Not only was there focus on El Salvador but on Guatemala as well.

The Sandinistas in Nicaragua who had overthrown the brutal Somoza government had a policy of revolutionary internationalism. After their first week of taking over power in Nicaragua they intensified their support for the FMLN in El Salvador. The Reagan administration tried to pressure the Sandinistas to withdraw the support for the revolutionary movement in El Salvador in return for a less antagonistic policy with the USA. But the Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega replied that Nicaragua was "interested in seeing the guerillas in El Salvador and Guatemala triumph, it is our shield-it makes our revolution safer."

The Soviets where at first weary of aiding the Nicaraguans and most of their aid would come through the Cubans. When Humberto Ortega the Nicaraguan military leader went to Kremlin in 1981 he secured the first major military support agreement which included tanks, surface to air missiles and helicopters. He also set up a system of deliveries, which had supplies coming in from Vietnam, Algeria, and Bulgaria together with direct supplies being delivered in from Cuba, the Soviet Union and the GDR.

The Reagan administrations secret war against the Sandinistas and the war against the guerillas in El Salvador met with a harsh resistance from these revolutionary movements. Many of these fighters where fighting for their land and what they perceived as outside oppressors. The political scientist Elisabeth Wood quotes an activist in the El Salvador revolution:

"Before the war we were despised by the rich. We were seen as animals, working all day and still without enough to put the kids through school. This is the origin of the war. There was no alternative. The only alternative was the madness of desperation."

Ultimately these conflicts left these small Latin American states devastated. In Nicaragua 30,000 people where killed and there were over 100,000 refugees (relative to its population this would be more than what the US lost in the civil war, both world wars, the Korean and the Vietnam wars combined). In El Salvador 70,000 were killed. In Guatemala 40,000 to 50,000 disappeared during the war and approximately 200,000 were killed.

This is an important introduction to the topic of the Third World and the Cold War which has been gaining more study recently and deservedly so. For too long the history of the Cold War focused on foreign policy and Europe, but this book examines the doctrine of intervention, beggining mostly with Eisenhower in the U.S and increasing greatly with Khruschev and Brezhnev in the U.S.S.R. The book examines unique examples such as Cuba, Vietnam, Southern Africa, and Afghanistan. But it is also a sweeping account of this phenomenon, whereby many countries went from being colonized to being politiszed between the West and the Soviet Union. A very interesting study that seeks to show how the modern state of affairs in the world is tied up with the affects of the Cold War.

Seth J. Frantzman

The author made this an unnecesarily difficult to read by using convoluted run on sentances and dancing around points instead of just stating them.

He had some good information but it was all overview level in detail. He'd say what happened but leave out how or why, which is what makes history truley interesting.

The book also seemed to lack a coherent organization, it would focus on the US or the Soviets for a long while then switch, which made it difficult to view the cold war in any kind of chronological order.