 Today's lecture will focus on the US and the postwar world. In other words, the experiences that the US has as a result of the Second World War. In our previous lecture we talked about how the US became involved in World War II and we talked a little bit about the immediate consequences of the war for the United States. For instance, that the US becomes a superpower, it becomes the economic and politically dominant nation worldwide beyond 1945. In this lecture we're going to talk more about both the social and cultural as well as some of the other international consequences of the war for the United States. We'll focus on how the war affects people living in the United States, talk a little bit about how the war affects the population of the United States, and then we'll talk some more about some of the international, long-term international consequences of World War II for the US and its relationship with the rest of the world. Certainly the war brings about this idea that the US and its allies must work together because the war, well it eliminates the threat of Nazi Germany and eliminates the threat from Imperial Japan, brings about this new threat by the Soviet Union and so the US and its allies come to realize that they have to work together in order to do something about this growing danger in Europe and in a sense worldwide. Well let's begin by talking about the social consequences of the conflict. The conflict leads to a number of very important changes within American society, socially, culturally, and some ways even economically. One of the first things is that it helps bring about an expansion of US industry. US industry which had been hurt very badly by the Great Depression and recovers during the course of the war by developing and supplying military equipment to the United States government to fight in the war. So for instance we have engines, equipment, other things like that being developed by manufacturers for the military. Another thing that happens is that we have the expansion of industry into new regions of the United States. Shipyards are being constructed in places like the West Coast and the Gulf Coast, places that hadn't had a lot of industry beforehand. New plants to produce aircraft, produce tanks and things like that are built in parts of the South, parts of the West and so the war itself helps bring about in new opportunities, new industrial employment opportunities for Americans in parts of the West and the South that really hadn't experienced a lot of industry before. The war is very good for organized labor. In a sense it helps bring about the expansion of organized labor into all, probably all parts of the US and union membership increases dramatically during this time period. Union membership goes from relatively a small portion of the overall economy to nearly a third of all workers in industry are unionized by the end of World War II. It's a level that's never reached since. That was the peak of union membership in industry in the United States. The war also has an impact for African Americans for a number of reasons we'll talk about in this lecture. One of those is that it helps lead to increased mobility for African Americans, both civilians and African American military recruits. For civilians it helps bring about new job opportunities. Many African Americans migrate from the South to the North and West to get jobs in defense industries and other kinds of industries during the war. Nearly 700,000 African Americans migrate during the early years of the conflict. For African American military recruits the war helps expose them to a much broader world. For those who had grown up in the North and had really not experienced the awful nature of Jim Crow segregation in the South, many of them go South for training and they experienced just what true segregation was like. It makes them very angry and upset and interested in civil rights. For Southern recruits, African American recruits, many who go to the North for training, they're exposed to what life is like in a region without the kind of systemic Jim Crow segregation that they had grown up with in the South. The war itself helps give African Americans a new perspective and certainly encourages them to fight to end segregation in the military, to fight to end segregation in society and helps bring about many of the kind of modern origins of the civil rights movement which becomes very important in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s. Once again, the war is important for women. Women gain many job opportunities in the war. Women's expansion in the workforce goes from being a quarter of the workforce to about a third of the workforce and this is a dramatic opportunity for women and of course the war is important because it really changes people's perspective on society. We become much more comfortable with a larger, more powerful federal government controlling a lot of aspects of the economy and a lot of aspects of American society as well, whereas before that that would have been less tolerated. Well, let's talk a little bit more detail about some of the domestic consequences of conflict and we'll talk a little bit about the international ones as well. One of the most immediate aspects of the conflict itself is that in the wake of the war we see a massive baby boom in the United States. GIs returning from the war have kids and as a result the birth rate in the United States that had been steadily declining since the first decade of the 20th century skyrockets between 45 and roughly 1965 and we have this massive boom as it's put in the rate of births in the United States. Roughly 78 million children are born between this time period and it creates this huge demographic bubble, if you will, in the American population and this large, large cohort of young people who all grow up about the same time and all enter college about the same time and all get jobs about the same time has a huge impact on American society between 1945 and ultimately the present. We still have the baby boomers who are now retiring in great numbers and putting stress on the American system of social security at other institutions like that. So the baby boom is huge, is a huge impact of the war. We also have many GIs returning from the war wanting to do something with their lives. A lot of GIs who are recruited are coming from farming backgrounds, rural communities or some cases, blue collar jobs. They even come home wanting college education and so as a result during the war, Congress passes the GI Bill of Rights which guarantees servicemen a college level education if they want it. And so millions of GIs return from the war and enter college for the first time and many of them for they were the first people in their families to go to college and so with this huge boom in the number of people getting higher education, getting college education in the United States. Again, I mentioned the war itself is a huge boon for the civil rights movement because African American organizations launch during the war what they call the double V campaign, victory abroad and victory at home. In other words, let's fight for democracy abroad against the Nazis and against the Japanese and we're going to fight for democracy at home in the form of civil rights in the form of equality for African Americans. Another aspect of the war is that the end of the war leads to the beginnings of what's termed the Cold War. We'll talk to us briefly about some of the factors that lead to the origins of the Cold War. During the war itself, the United States is allied with Great Britain and allied with Soviet Union. Here we have British leader Winston Churchill, American president Roosevelt and we have the Russian dictator Joseph Stalin. It was a very much an alliance of convenience. Neither Roosevelt nor Churchill particularly cared for Stalin and Stalin certainly didn't particularly care for them either but they were a common enemy. Well by the end of the war, these allies are starting to go their separate ways. Stalin becomes more concerned about maintaining Russia and Soviet control over Eastern Europe and the Americans and British begin to grow concerned about what Russia is going to do in Europe and these tensions begin to grow and undermine this alliance that had been set up during the Cold War and during World War II. As a result, we begin to see this development of kind of an armed standoff between these nations, between the nations of the West and the Soviet Union and then this eventually becomes termed the Cold War because the US and its Western allies become convinced that the Soviet Union is trying to undermine the West, undermine democratic institutions and spread Soviet Communism throughout the world and in some ways they were and the Soviet Union also at the same time is very fearful that the West intends to try to do away with it which in some ways they were. So it was needless to say both sides had reasons for being paranoid but this paranoia grows into military fear as the United States gains access to nuclear weapons as a result of developing them during the Second World War Russia becomes very afraid of the US and develops its own crash course in creating nuclear weapons including using spies in the United States and Britain to steal information to do so but the war brings about this state of Cold War where both sides are opposed militarily to each other and fearful of what the other side might do. We'll talk a little bit more about the Cold War and its origins here because it's very important to understand why and how the Cold War came about because it really does shape much of the second half of the 20th century certainly between 1945 and 1989 when the Soviet Union begins to crack up and loses control of many of these Eastern European nations. Well the Cold War begins as I said with the end of World War II. The end of World War II Soviet Union controls all the territories really east of this green line this line which is oftentimes becomes known as the Aaron Curtin. It controls Eastern Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and other nations. Meanwhile the Western allies the United States, France, Great Britain occupy the Western part of Germany and parts of Austria as well and what you have is that these two sides are largely kind of standing off and opposing each other politically as well as in some cases militarily. Well in 1946 Winston Churchill, former Prime Minister and then would become Prime Minister again of Great Britain, gives a speech at a small liberal arts college in Missouri and he talks about his fears that a so-called Iron Curtin is falling over Europe and it's going to isolate Eastern Europe here from isolate Eastern Europe here from Western Europe and the Soviet Union will dominate Eastern Europe will destroy its potentially democratic institutions here Joseph Stalin will reach out and conquer all of Eastern Europe and control it and the West well who knows what will happen to the West. Churchill worries about what the West is going to do if the Soviet Union controls the East and drops this Iron Curtin down to prevent the West from knowing what's happening in the East. Now initially Churchill's speech and Churchill's phrasing of this that this is an Iron Curtin is somewhat criticized. People don't want to believe the Soviet Union has means means to do harm to the West or means to export communism to the West but gradually more and more people begin to start seeing that maybe Churchill has a good point that indeed maybe the Russians or the Soviets do intend to try to perhaps as they say put America under communism or perhaps as these you know popular kind of cartoons indicate the red iceberg the Soviet Union expanding control over all these other regions and eventually the United States is next and you're going to end up with a situation where we're all under you know Soviet style communism we lose our freedoms and so forth. So Churchill's really the first to conceptualize this idea but pretty soon other Americans namely American diplomats begin to start expressing the same viewpoints and one of the first of these diplomats to really talk about how America needs to deal with the Soviet Union is a gentleman by the name of George Kennan and Kennan's an American diplomat he's been stationed in the Soviet Union for years he knows the Russians pretty well he knows what they think he felt like he has a pretty good understanding of Russian culture and Russian society and Kennan in 1946 writes a telegram old school communication means that there is writes a telegram back to the State Department expressing his views on what's going on in the Soviet Union and how the United States needs to deal with it and this becomes known as the long telegram and this long telegram Kennan talks about American efforts to sort of bargain or work with the Soviet Union he says it's misguided he says the US can't bargain with the Soviets because they work according to their own internal mechanisms basically says Russia's policy of occupying Eastern Europe is part of an internal policy as part of Stalin's belief system it's not simply a reaction to the West in other words many Americans felt that oh maybe if we're nice to the Soviets and we don't do anything bad or mean to them they'll stop worrying about occupying these nations in Eastern Europe and maybe we can negotiate with them and so forth and Kennan says no you can't negotiate with the Soviet he says the Soviet Union does what they want they don't they're not reacting to the West this is what Joseph Stalin wants he wants to control Eastern Europe he wants to occupy it he wants to use it as a buffer against the West because Stalin's afraid that the United States and other Western and the Western nations intend to attack the Soviet Union well Kennan expands on this this idea that he has in 1947 an article that appears in a journal called Foreign Affairs it's a popular journal of the American kind of foreign community and foreign diplomatic community and then the Foreign Affairs article he advocates a policy for how the United States has to deal with the Soviet Union and this policy eventually becomes known as containment and this policy of containment as Kennan presents it in his foreign affairs article he advocates the long-term containment or isolation of the Soviet Union he says that the United States and its Western allies can prevent the Soviet Union from expanding outward can prevent it from taking over new territories can prevent it from forming alliances with other nations around the world eventually the Soviet Union will decay from the inside out it will collapse from economic reasons from kind of social reasons because many of the groups within the boundaries of the Soviet Union didn't like being under Soviet control and would eventually break free and start border wars and he argues that given enough time the Soviet Union will collapse under its own weight and in many respects he was correct Kennan was very perceptive he did correctly anticipate what would happen but he argues that the United States has to be strong has to be tough has to form alliances to prevent the Soviet Union from expanding and ultimately this is what begins to happen is that the United States begins to form alliances with Western nations to essentially isolate the Soviet Union and prevent it from expanding outward any more than it had already done at the end of the Second World War we'll talk more about some of these alliances in the next lecture but needless to say it starts American politicians and political leaders thinking that this is what needs to happen another aspect of containment beyond military containment which is one of the things that Kennan was advocating was economic containment the United States government knew that Western Europe was under threat by communism many of the nations of Western Europe like France parts of Western and Western Germany had communist parties and those communist parties have been important in World War two many of the communists had fought in the resistance movements and had very legitimate records as resisting the Nazis but American leaders were afraid that these communist political movements would gain control in nations like France and nations like Western Germany and they were afraid they couldn't let that happen they felt the best course of action was by the US government to offer economic aid and support to help prop up democratic or at least semi-democratic governments in these nations in Western Europe and parts of the Middle East that were under threat by communism and so in 1947 Harry Truman president Harry Truman who gains who becomes president after Roosevelt's death in 1945 he advocates a plan that becomes known as the Truman Doctrine and under the Truman Doctrine the United States pledges itself to protect and defend any nation that's faced with internal or external communist threats in other words if a nation is being faced by communist guerrillas or communist revolutionaries the United States will offer support and initially the Truman Doctrine is about offering economic aid Truman eventually gets Congress to author it's about four hundred million dollars in aid degrees in Turkey to fight internal communist threats and the eventually enables also through military aid to these nations they eventually able to sort of the semi-democratic governments in charge of Turkey and Greece to fight off these communist threats another source of aid is for Western Europe and it comes about as a result of this gentleman George Marshall who had been the US commander of all US forces during World War two as chief of staff and then becomes secretary of state under Harry Truman at the end of the war Marshall as secretary of state proposes a plan that's known as the European economic recovery or the simply the European recovery plan oftentimes shorthand is simply referred to as the Marshall plan after George Marshall it's creator so the Marshall plan or the European recovery plan depending on how you refer to it is a proposal that the United States will offer massive economic aid to the nations of Western Europe and initially they offer aid to the Soviet Union and Soviet occupied states of Eastern Europe well the Soviet Union and it's Eastern European nations that are under its influence reject this aid and instead all the aid goes to the West goes to the Western European nations to rebuild their economies to rebuild their society so that they can become not really self-sufficient but they can become at least returned to being modern powerful industrial nations and they'll be able to use their industrial strength to help defend themselves against the threat of communism both internal communism as well as communism from the Soviet Union and so as a result of the Marshall plan the United States government gives approximately 13 billion dollars billion with a B in aid to Western Europe and aid and technical assistance to rebuild European industry to rebuild European economies and European society ultimately this would be about approximate to about 300 billion dollars in today's money so a lot of money quite a big chunk of change and ultimately this Marshall plan lasts until 1951 and it really does help rebuild Europe's economy European nations bounce back extremely quickly Germany especially bounces back extremely quickly as a result of the Marshall plan and becomes actually a very powerful economy by the 1950s and 1960s so the Marshall plan is extremely successful helping rebuild Europe there's a similar plan that's applied to Japan and Japan is rebuilt economically as well because Japan also has to defend itself against the Soviet Union in Asia and as a result of this plan this containment policy containing Europe containing communism in Europe and containing communism in Asia in some ways sees a lot of success in the late 1940s and the early part of the 1950s now in the next lecture we'll talk more about how containment has of course a military side as well and that's an aspect that causes American involvement militarily in parts of Asia and parts of certainly parts of Europe during the 1950s and 1960s but just to sum up again this Cold War environment that the United States inherits of course presents a real threat to the country and it's as a result of this that the United States begins to reorient its defense to a global defense of against communism no longer the United States able to simply defend its own shores it has to defend the shores of other nations as well and so the United States once again goes from being this isolated nation to being this international global superpower or international global policeman trying to defend the rest of the world from the threat of communism.