In Orwell's description, due to the mutual checks and balances of destructive weapons, direct wars between great powers can be avoided, but they are replaced by endless hostile actions hovering on the edge of danger: espionage, conspiracy and Machiavelli-style tactics ..... The world has thus fallen into an "uneasy peace".
A word became a prophecy.
With Churchill's "Iron Curtain Speech", Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan were introduced one after another. A "distrust vortex" of mutual suspicion and suspicion involved the western group headed by the United States and the eastern European group headed by the Soviet Union in a political system and ideological confrontation that lasted for nearly half a century and dominated international politics in the second half of the 20th century.
During this period, the United States launched all containment actions against the Soviet Union except military actions, from trade control, economic sanctions, alliance confrontation, technical containment to the economic war around grain and oil, and the Soviet Union also took countermeasures one by one.
In the 1970s, the Soviet Union still had the upper hand in the contest between the two groups. But perhaps the relative prosperity during this period covered up the fundamental problems in the Soviet economy, including the fact that heavy industry surpassed agriculture, the unbalanced development of military industry, and excessive dependence on oil as a source of foreign exchange income.
Ignoring these problems, the Soviet Union continued to invest a lot of resources in the arms race and "Star Wars" with the United States, which eventually led to social unrest and disintegration, and the cold war that lasted for nearly half a century also came to an end.
Economic blockade: isolation and wooing
Economically, on the one hand, the United States isolated the Soviet Union from the trend of world economic development by means of trade control and economic sanctions, on the other hand, it provided economic assistance to Europe in the form of economic assistance, wooing western European countries to contain the Soviet bloc.
Trade control: 1947 17 On February 17, the National Security Council of the United States decided to impose trade control on the countries of the Soviet Union, and indefinitely stopped exporting materials that were in short supply in the United States and materials that helped to increase the military potential of the Soviet Union. In March of the following year, the US government began to implement a new trade control system, prohibiting the export of various materials on the US trade control list to the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries.
1949 On February 20th, the U.S. Congress passed the first export control bill after the war, and established the trade control strategy for Soviet countries in the form of legislation. The trade control list of the United States includes a comprehensive embargo and quantitative restrictions on exports. At that time, the Truman administration decided that the breadth and depth of trade control must be able to affect the entire production system of the Soviet Union.
Under the influence of trade control, American exports to the Soviet Union declined rapidly, from more than $27 million in 1952 to 15000.
In the confrontation between the two sides for more than 40 years, the trade situation between the United States and the Soviet Union also fluctuated with the changes in bilateral relations. During the period of intensified contradictions, the United States implemented strict policies towards the Soviet Union, such as prohibiting trade, export quotas, suspending investment, and even requiring third-party countries to obtain permission from the United States for exporting to related fields in the Soviet Union.
Trade control seriously hindered the development of Soviet foreign trade, cut off its close ties with the world economy, and directly led to the Soviet Union being almost isolated from the capitalist world in the fourth scientific and technological revolution. The development of high technology and the transformation of Soviet economic model from extensive to intensive encountered constraints.
The Soviet Union's foreign trade accounted for 2.6%-4.2% of the world's total foreign trade, and it was still below 5% until 1988. In the 1980s, the world's average trade export accounted for 2 1.8% of GNP, while that of the Soviet Union was only 7.7%. The gap between the Soviet Union and the United States in the field of trade has been quite significant, and the average export volume of the Soviet Union is only 1/3 of that of the United States.
Economic sanctions: America's favorite economic sanctions stick will naturally not be absent during the Cold War. According to the statistics of the Institute for International Economics, since 1945, about two-thirds of the sanctions have involved the United States. During the period of 1960-1975, the United States threatened or imposed economic sanctions 26 times.
19811On February 29th, the Reagan administration announced that it would impose economic sanctions on the Soviet Union on the grounds that the Soviet Union supported the military control of the Polish government.
Specific economic sanctions include: interrupting all flights of Soviet airlines to the United States; Ordered the closure of the Soviet Procurement Committee; Stop issuing and extending licenses for exporting electronic equipment, computers and other advanced technical equipment to the Soviet Union; Postpone the negotiation of a new long-term food agreement; Suspend the negotiation of signing a new US-Soviet maritime agreement; Expanding the export of oil and gas equipment to the Soviet Union requires approval; Ordered to stop issuing licenses for exporting these equipment (including pipe-laying machines) to the Soviet Union; The exchange agreements between the United States and the Soviet Union that should be renewed in the near future, including energy and science and technology agreements, will not be extended, and all other exchange agreements between the United States and the Soviet Union will be comprehensively reviewed.
At this time, the cold war between the two groups has lasted for more than 30 years, the trade between the Soviet Union and the United States has been minimal, and the Soviet Union has no longer relied on western technology and capital to a considerable extent. However, such sanctions made matters worse for the Soviet Union, which was already in turmoil at that time and on the eve of "disintegration".
For example, in 1982, by cutting off the new natural gas pipeline built by the Soviet Union in Siberia and most of the technologies needed for developing energy plans in cooperation with Japan, the Soviet Union's foreign exchange income dropped sharply, thus losing15-20 billion US dollars in income.
Aid to Allies: In American strategy, the containment policy towards Soviet countries and the support and wooing policy towards western European countries are twin brothers.
George Kennan, who put forward the "containment strategy" in the 8,000-word telegram, expounded the viewpoint of reviving Europe in the memorandum drafted in May 1945. He believes that the economic difficulties in Europe will give the Soviet Union an opportunity, and it is the trend of economic imbalance in Europe that makes all totalitarian movements prevail. The revival plan of the United States is to overcome this trend, so assisting Europe is a necessary measure for the United States to contain the Soviet Union and safeguard its own security interests.
1On June 5th, 947, george marshall, then US Secretary of State, formally put forward the Marshall Plan, that is, the European Recovery Plan, in his speech at Harvard University. 1948 On April 2, the US Congress passed the 1948 Foreign Aid Act, and the Marshall Plan was officially launched, which lasted until June, 1952.
During this period, European countries obtained various forms of assistance from the United States through their participation in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), totaling $65,438+0.3/kloc-0.50 billion.
According to the statistics of USAID, the Marshall Plan mainly involves Britain (24.7%), France (2 1%), Italy (1 1.7%) and Germany (10.8%). From the form of assistance, it mainly includes US dollar assistance, technical assistance, guarantee and equivalent funds.
But there is no such thing as a free lunch. As a condition of providing aid, the United States put forward the requirement of European economic integration, that is, breaking the trade and tariff barriers between countries before the war, narrowing the differences between countries and creating a new structure of European economy.
1948 foreign aid law stipulates that western European countries must sign multilateral and bilateral agreements with the United States in order to obtain assistance; The major commodities and economic plans exported by the recipient countries must be approved by the General Administration of Economic Cooperation (ECA), an organization established by the United States to implement the Marshall Plan. It is necessary to use part of the funds borrowed from the United States to produce strategic materials that the United States needs; It is necessary to abolish tariff barriers or reduce tariff rates in order to facilitate the dumping of American goods; Cancel or relax foreign exchange restrictions; And reserve strategic raw materials needed by the military industry for the United States; Accept the supervision of the United States economically and so on.
Some analysts believe that Europe's attachment to the United States after "economic integration" will, on the one hand, help the United States "double contain" the Soviet Union and Germany, so that the United States can effectively assume the leadership responsibility and position in the Atlantic Alliance; On the other hand, it helps to reduce the economic burden of the United States in Europe, especially the abolition of tariff barriers between European countries has brought great economic benefits to the United States.
In the face of western economic containment, the Soviet Union also launched "Molotov Plan" to resist and counterattack "Marshall Plan" to assist the economic development of Eastern Europe, and signed a series of trade agreements with Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and other Eastern European countries.
However, although the Molotov Plan greatly promoted the revival of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe after the war and strengthened the economic exchanges between the Soviet Union and the socialist countries in Eastern Europe, it restricted the trade relations between the eastern European countries and the western countries, which was also one of the factors that caused the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe to deviate seriously from the world economic and trade system and the economic development of Eastern Europe to lag behind Western Europe.
Technical containment: the core field of the game between the United States and the Soviet Union
In the shadow of the cold war, science and technology is the core field of the game between the United States and the Soviet Union.
In order to contain the Soviet Union technically, at the proposal of the United States, the Export Control Coordination Committee, also known as the Paris Coordination Committee (CoCom), was formally established in 1949 and began its activities in 1950+0.
As an informal international organization that is closed to the outside world and has no formal treaty, Batumi has assembled 17 member countries, including the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Portugal, Spain, Canada, Greece, Turkey, Japan and Australia.
Its purpose is to restrict member countries from exporting strategic materials and high technology to socialist countries. The embargo list includes three categories of tens of thousands of products: military weapons and equipment, cutting-edge technology products and rare materials.
In addition, in order to prevent the allies from resisting the embargo policy, the US Congress passed the Common Defense Assistance Control Act of 195 1, with the aim of forcing Western Europe and Japan into the track of common defense by reducing aid.
After the 1970s, in order to increase trade income, the American government began to use Batumi's "exceptional procedure" to expand the export of embargoed materials, but restricting the transfer of high and new technology remained an insurmountable obstacle in the "detente era".
1In February, 1976, the research group of the National Defense Science and Technology Bureau of the Ministry of National Defense submitted a report entitled "Analysis of Export Control of Advanced Technologies" to the Minister of National Defense, which systematically demonstrated the necessity of shifting the focus of East-West trade control policy from the embargo on strategic materials to restricting the transfer of high-tech and a series of policy issues involved.
1979, the U.S. export control law formally took the restriction of high-tech transfer as the special focus of export control, and took the list of important military technologies as an integral part of the U.S. commodity control list, and put computer network technology, large-scale computer system technology, software technology, automatic control technology for instantaneous information processing, processing and manufacturing technology of comprehensive materials and defense materials, energy exploitation technology, large-scale integration and other technologies 15, Ultra-large-scale integrated design, manufacturing technology, military instrument technology, electronic communication technology, induction and control technology, ultrashort wave composition technology, military vehicle engine technology, advanced optics (including optical fiber) technology, sensing technology, submarine system technology, etc. , was included in the embargo, and later integrated circuit manufacturing equipment, machine tools, electronic composite silicon, laser devices, etc. were added to the embargo list against the Soviet Union.
1982165438+1October, the United States proposed to add more than 100 species to Batumi's control list, and finally Batumi member countries agreed to include 58 species in the control list, including floating docks, spacecraft, space landing equipment, superconducting materials, robots, robot control systems, and so on. Since then, although the scope of high-tech opening and embargo has been fine-tuned, the general trend of preventing high-tech from flowing to socialist countries has not changed, and even strengthened.
The Soviet Union pays attention to the development and absorption of heavy industry technology, which is very important for the development of military industry. Its technology in military manufacturing fields such as aerospace and submarines is at the top level in the world.
The Soviet Union, which unilaterally developed military heavy industry, neglected the development of light industry, resulting in a deformed economic structure. 1940 The Soviet Union's heavy industry accounted for 6 1.2% of the total industrial output value, which rose to 70% in 1955 and reached 72.5% in 1960. By Brezhnev's time, more than 60% of the products of the national machinery manufacturing industry were military products, and durable consumer goods only accounted for 5%-6%, and 75% of the state's scientific development funds were used for military scientific research.
At that time, the light industry technology of the Soviet Union was backward, and it could not even meet the needs of national life, and it relied heavily on imports. With the technology input blocked and cut off, the light industry related to people's livelihood has undoubtedly become a weak link in the contest with the United States and the Soviet Union.
In the face of strict technology blockade, the Soviet Union turned to industrial countries in Eastern Europe to purchase in large quantities, or spent more money to import technologies and equipment prohibited by the West from exporting to the Soviet Union through neutral countries, and even obtained advanced technologies through underground channels and commercial spies.
In the 1970s, due to the relaxation of the situation, the Soviet Union increased its efforts to purchase machinery and equipment from the West, and chemicals, automobiles, energy mining equipment and computers were all imported from the Soviet Union. However, limited technology introduction can't help the Soviet Union become a real technological power in a short time. On the contrary, it is like drinking poison to quench thirst, which weakens the motivation of the Soviet Union to increase independent research and development.
With the disintegration of the Soviet Union 199 1 years ago, Batumi was officially dissolved on 1 April, 9941day. However, the technology export control in western countries has not disappeared. 1996, 33 countries, mainly western countries, signed the Wassenaar agreement to replace Batumi in implementing the new control list and information exchange rules.
Hit seven inches: oil and food
The Soviet Union is rich in oil resources, which is the main source of its hard currency. In the 1960s, the income from exporting oil to the West accounted for 40% of the total foreign exchange income of the Soviet Union every year. By the 1970s and 1980s, the Soviet economy was heavily dependent on oil exports.
But success is also oil, and failure is also oil.
1973, due to the fourth middle east war, the "first oil crisis" broke out, and the oil price rose from less than $3 per barrel to more than 13; 1979, due to the "Islamic Revolution" in Iran and the subsequent "Iran-Iraq War" and "the second oil crisis", the oil price soared from 14 USD to 35 USD per barrel again.
The soaring oil price triggered the economic recession of western industrial countries, but it brought huge foreign exchange income to the Soviet Union, providing an economic basis for the arms race with the United States.
But in the 1980s, with the continuous recession of the world economy, the national oil price began to weaken. From August 65438 to August 0985, Saudi Arabia's oil exports soared from less than 2 million barrels per day to about 6 million barrels per day, reaching 9 million barrels per day by the end of the year. 165438+ 10 this year, the international oil price dropped all the way from $30/barrel, and fell to 12 $/barrel in less than five months. This caused the Soviet Union to lose more than $654.38+000 billion in hard currency overnight, almost half of its hard currency income.
According to the official statistics of the Ministry of Energy of the Soviet Union, the world oil price fell in 1985- 1988, from 2 12.6 USD/ton in 1988 to 93 USD/ton in1988, with a decrease of1ton.
At the same time, the depreciation of the dollar reduced the income of the Soviet Union by about $2 billion a year. This made the already serious Soviet economy worse and became the last straw to crush the Soviet Union.
The force behind the sharp drop in oil prices caused by Saudi Arabia's increased production has always been considered to come from the United States.
In the early 1980s, william casey, director of the Central Intelligence Agency of the Reagan administration, put forward a covert economic war against the Soviet Union, the core of which was to find out the economic fragility of a country, find the lifeline of its throat, and combat this fragility and weaken its national strength through economic means.
The research results of the Central Intelligence Agency found that the Soviet national economic system was highly dependent on oil and gas exports. "In some years, the hard currency earned by oil and natural gas accounted for 60%-80% of all the hard currency in the Soviet Union, and these incomes became a pillar of the Soviet economic system. Although the Soviet Union earned hard currency from the West, it needed to use the money to buy food and technology from the West to maintain the behemoth of the economic system. "
So the Reagan administration decided to start with international crude oil. On the one hand, export control was strengthened, and by imposing an embargo on steel pipes and pipeline equipment, Western Europe was forced to abandon the export agreement of large-diameter pipelines already signed with the Soviet Union, and its allies were required to reduce their dependence on the oil trade of the Soviet Group. On the other hand, by providing security for the Saudi government, providing the most advanced early warning aircraft and stinger missiles, it formed an anti-Soviet alliance with Saudi Arabia.
(Source: China Economic Net)
The United States also destroyed the Soviet economy by limiting the export of Soviet natural gas and transferring the wrong technology to the Soviet Union. The United States encourages western European countries to use various alternative energy sources to reduce their dependence on Soviet gas supply.
In addition, in 1983, the United States imposed an agreement on the International Energy Agency to limit the proportion of natural gas imported by Europe from the Soviet Union, stipulating that the natural gas imported by Western Europe from the Soviet Union should not exceed 30% of its energy demand. This agreement was formally signed at the G-7 Summit in May 1983, which cut off the channels for the Soviet Union to obtain hard currency from Western Europe.
In addition to the energy field, the United States is also eyeing another weakness of the Soviet Union-food imports.
Due to the unilateral development of heavy industry, the Soviet Union invested little in agriculture, and the agricultural output could not meet the public consumption demand. After 1970s, the Soviet Union became the world's largest grain importer, while the United States was the world's largest grain exporter.
On the grounds that the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, US President Jimmy Carter announced in June that he would impose a grain embargo on the Soviet Union 1.980+0. 1.5 million tons of grain exports to the Soviet Union, and coordinated the traditional American allies such as Canada, Australia and the European Union to participate in the grain embargo to ensure that their grain exports to the Soviet Union did not exceed the "normal and traditional" level.
As a response to the "food embargo", the Soviet Union reduced its excessive dependence on the United States by giving priority to imports from many countries. 1980- 198 1 year, the Soviet Union imported more grain from Argentina than the United States and became the first grain importer of the Soviet Union. At the same time, the Soviet Union also expanded food imports from Canada, Australia and Western Europe.
198 1 Reagan partially lifted the grain embargo on the Soviet union for 15 months on March 24, and resumed selling a large amount of grain to the Soviet union three months later. Although the United States re-exported food to the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union's policy of importing food from many countries continued. The American embargo hit the Soviet Union and the United States to some extent.
The end of the cold war
The drastic changes in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the reunification of Germany, the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the Mutual Economic Assistance Committee, and the disintegration of the Soviet Union were regarded as the signs of the end of the Cold War era.
In the process of the United States slowly strangling the Soviet Union, the economy used trade control, economic sanctions and ways of wooing allies to hinder the development of Soviet trade and sever ties with the world economy. In the field of technology, we will join hands with western countries to implement control policies to limit the transfer of high and new technologies; In addition, according to the characteristics that the Soviet Union is a big grain importer and highly dependent on oil export, the United States has made a breakthrough in the pain points and soft spots of Soviet economy and trade.
Although the Soviet Union also took some countermeasures, such as refusing to ratify the Bretton Woods Agreement, preventing eastern European countries from joining the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and launching the Molotov plan to carry out international economic cooperation, the effect was not remarkable. The imbalance of economic structure and the rigidity of planned economy system limit its ability and space to counter the United States.
In fact, in the 1970s, the Soviet Union still had the upper hand in the contest between the two groups. At that time, the economic aggregate of the Soviet Union grew slowly but steadily compared with that of the United States, and the output of special products such as steel surpassed that of the United States. The prices of energy and gold, which account for a large share of Soviet exports, have risen sharply.
At the same time, the western world was in turmoil, 1975 experienced the worst economic recession since the 1930s, and the Bretton Woods system was in chaos. Stagflation has caused serious policy dilemmas in most market economy countries.
But perhaps the relative prosperity during this period covered up the fundamental problems in the Soviet economy, including the fact that heavy industry surpassed agriculture, the unbalanced development of military industry, and excessive dependence on oil as a source of foreign exchange income.
Ignoring these problems, the Soviet Union continued to invest a lot of resources in the arms race and "Star Wars" with the United States, and the people's living standards deteriorated, which eventually led to social unrest, loose political power and disintegration.
References:
Cui Pi, 2002, The Formation and Influence of American Defense Aid Control Act (195 1).
Wang Jingjie, 20 15, Analysis of the Function and Influence of Marshall Plan
Liu, Nie, 2003, On the Strategic Vision of Marshall Plan.
Ouyang Xiangying, 20 18, How did the United States contain the Soviet Union during the Cold War?
Shen Xinfeng, Northeast Securities, 20 18, Looking back at Sino-US trade friction from the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union-from an economic perspective.
Huatai macro Li Chao, 20 18, has the United States won all previous trade frictions? -A series of studies on Sino-US trade frictions (II)
_ Wang Zhiku,1Is it a conspiracy of the United States that the collapse of oil prices in the 1980s dragged down the Soviet Union?
Liang Xiao, American economic war, the disintegration of the Soviet Union and its warning to China
The Influence of HanDong Education and Molotov Plan on the Economic Policies of Eastern European Countries
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