So when *was* the "height of the Cold War" anyway?

[Jennings]

Depending on what you read, the "height of the Cold War" could have been 1948 (Berlin blockade), 1950-'53 (Korea), 1954 (overflights of the USSR and eastern Europe), 1956 (Hungarian uprising), 1957 (Sputnik), 1960 (Powers shootdown), 1961 (Gagarin/Shepard/Glenn, Berlin Crisis), 1962 (Cuban Missile Crisis), 1966 (escalation of the air war in Vietnam), 1967 (Six Day War), 1968 (invasion of Czechoslovakia), 1969 (Apollo 11), 1972 (Nixon goes to China), 1973 (Yom Kippur War), 1975 (Apollo-Soyuz), 1976 (Belenko defection), 1979 (Soviet invasion of Afghanistan), 1980 (Moscow Olympics), 1981 (Osirak raid), 1982 (Falklands conflict), 1983 (KAL 007 shootdown), 1984 (Andropov dies, Chernenko {who was already dead} assumes power), 1986 (Gorbachev), 1987 ("Tear down this wall!"), 1989 (Soviets leave Afghanistan, Berlin Wall comes down), 1990 (Iraq invades Kuwait), 1992 (USSR dissolves).

So when exactly was the "height" of the Cold War? I've read things that say each and every one of these events occurred at it. Seems like it must have been pretty level all the way through :)

[GreyGhost]

I believe there were many as you pointed out ...

It sort of ebbed and flowed ...

Gregg

[Charlie Cheetah]

Id say during the Cuban Missile crisis.

[Raymond]

from between 1948 to 1992 :)

[martin_sam_2000]

from between 1948 to 1992 :)

I would say anything from 1945 to 1992. the cold war really started not long after the outbreak of WWII and in some ways we are still fighting the aftermath from those long dark decades.

and for thsos who want to know why i picked 1945, it was when Igor Gouzenko defected here in Ottawa and broke the whole soviet spy network.LINK

Sean

[Greenghost]

Depending on what you read, the "height of the Cold War" could have been 1948 (Berlin blockade), 1950-'53 (Korea), 1954 (overflights of the USSR and eastern Europe), 1956 (Hungarian uprising), 1957 (Sputnik), 1960 (Powers shootdown), 1961 (Gagarin/Shepard/Glenn, Berlin Crisis), 1962 (Cuban Missile Crisis), 1966 (escalation of the air war in Vietnam), 1967 (Six Day War), 1968 (invasion of Czechoslovakia), 1969 (Apollo 11), 1972 (Nixon goes to China), 1973 (Yom Kippur War), 1975 (Apollo-Soyuz), 1976 (Belenko defection), 1979 (Soviet invasion of Afghanistan), 1980 (Moscow Olympics), 1981 (Osirak raid), 1982 (Falklands conflict), 1983 (KAL 007 shootdown), 1984 (Andropov dies, Chernenko {who was already dead} assumes power), 1986 (Gorbachev), 1987 ("Tear down this wall!"), 1989 (Soviets leave Afghanistan, Berlin Wall comes down), 1990 (Iraq invades Kuwait), 1992 (USSR dissolves).

So when exactly was the "height" of the Cold War? I've read things that say each and every one of these events occurred at it. Seems like it must have been pretty level all the way through :)

Jennings, I believe you have been listening too much Billy Joel (We didn't start the fire")

[Jay Chladek]

It depends on how you define "height". In my definition, I would leave out the peaceful bits (Apollo Soyuz for one as that was more of a thaw and cooperation than a clashing of two sides).

I would say the two heights were the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Yom Kippur war. Cuba had the missiles 9 miles from US soil and the US played hardball until they got removed (in exchange for removing US missiles from Turkey as well). But, even if a shooting war had begun, the Soviets only had less than 10 R-7 based ICBMs (it made a better spacecraft and satellite launcher than a strategic weapon except for political purposes) at fixed sites capable of reaching US soil and the R-16s on Cuba would have needed four hours to prepare for launch compared to the Atlas and Titan 1 missiles and attack jets from Florida taking less than an hour to reach targets in Cuba. The wildcard in the fight would have been the Soviet submarines equipped with nuclear armed torpedoes and that probably would have started a nuclear shooting match. Likely the majority of the attacks in the event of WW3 would have taken place with nuclear armed bombers, which could have been intercepted by Air Defense Command and the RCAF. So I think any nuclear exchange would have been somewhat limited and in favor of the US (but with damage to it of course). Although if a nuclear bomb or missile had fallen on US soil, the USSR probably would have ended up a smoking hole and Nikita Khrushchev knew that.

The 1973 war was a bit different and the Soviets and the US were both pumping arms into the region and both sides went on alert. During this period it was different as the Soviet regime was more hardline and both sides had plenty of very capable ICBMs pointed at each other that could be fired at a moments notice. So that is probably the time we got closest to the potential brink due to the Soviet commitments to aid the Arabs in case of invasion of Egypt and our commitment to support Israel. Of course, it turned out to be the US who told Israel to stop advancing further into Egypt after a couple SR-71 flights showed they were violating an agreement to help end hostilities and Israel backed off. So if one defines the "height" of the Cold War as being the closest both sides were to war, I would pick those two moments over most of the others. The fall of the Soviet Union might be another given it started with a coup by hardliners, but it flared out pretty quick.

Now a minor one I might throw in which isn't immediately recognized would be the seizing of the USS Pueblo by North Korea. Reason being is the Soviets apparently got North Korea to do that after John Walker gave them cypher machine instructions when he first went to the Soviet Embassy to say he wanted to spy for them. So North Korea shot at and captured the ship and crew, seizing the machines and giving them over to the Soviets. That started Walker's years long career of spying for the Soviets and giving them enough data that if a war had erupted in Europe, the Soviets would have known the locations of NATO forces and could have done some very serious damage.

Edited February 24, 2012 by Jay Chladek

[loftycomfort]

Easy. The height of Cold War was when Sean Connery was James Bond.

Terry

[-Neu-]

Depending on what you read, the "height of the Cold War" could have been 1948 (Berlin blockade), 1950-'53 (Korea), 1954 (overflights of the USSR and eastern Europe), 1956 (Hungarian uprising), 1957 (Sputnik), 1960 (Powers shootdown), 1961 (Gagarin/Shepard/Glenn, Berlin Crisis), 1962 (Cuban Missile Crisis), 1966 (escalation of the air war in Vietnam), 1967 (Six Day War), 1968 (invasion of Czechoslovakia), 1969 (Apollo 11), 1972 (Nixon goes to China), 1973 (Yom Kippur War), 1975 (Apollo-Soyuz), 1976 (Belenko defection), 1979 (Soviet invasion of Afghanistan), 1980 (Moscow Olympics), 1981 (Osirak raid), 1982 (Falklands conflict), 1983 (KAL 007 shootdown), 1984 (Andropov dies, Chernenko {who was already dead} assumes power), 1986 (Gorbachev), 1987 ("Tear down this wall!"), 1989 (Soviets leave Afghanistan, Berlin Wall comes down), 1990 (Iraq invades Kuwait), 1992 (USSR dissolves).

So when exactly was the "height" of the Cold War? I've read things that say each and every one of these events occurred at it. Seems like it must have been pretty level all the way through :)

As there others have said there are ebbs and flows, though I think there were different dynamics that gave each a unique flavour. I think three are important. The Berlin Crisis was a bit of a flashpoint, but even then Stalin had limited objectives and was not courting a wider war. Prior to 1957ish, I think it was very unlikely that the Soviets would go to war... Their leaders were acutely aware of their weakness vis-a-vis the United States. During the Berlin crisis, the russians did not want to go too far. Around 1957 they achieved nuclear parity at around 1,500 warhead, but the Soviets were very aware of their deficit in delivery system. Then came Sputnik. The Soviet military thinking at that point shifts rapidly. They become increasingly ambitious. Partly they were spurred on by Khrushchev, and the apparent weakness of the American political leadership, during later Eisenhower and Kennedy. Cuba was born on this miscalculation. The Soviet leadership assumed America would not do anything to stop the emplacement of nuclear warheads in Cuba, especially when presented fait accompli. They were wrong about the resolve of the US government, and also may have reassessed their alleged superiority. Was the USSR willing to go to war? Not over Cuba. Also the Russians had just completed major cutbacks to military power in order to modernize. They were not ready for a major strike, Cuba was more of an opportunistic play that largely backfired. And it didn't matter in the long run as the Soviets knew their strategic rocket forces would eliminate the need for basing IRBMs in Cuba.

I disagree with Yom Kippur being a major event. Neither the Americans or the Russians were ready or in the mindset to undertake major operations. Furthermore there were high level negotiations ongoing. The Americans weren't spoiling for a fight, neither were the Russians. Both sides had their proxies, but they also wanted to keep the war limited in its scope. This was also during a period of detente... you have the Salt treaties and the Helsinki accords. Its a crisis, but not near that of Berlin or Cuba.

Where I think the Cold War becomes unstable is after 1973 with the gradual end of detente. There are a number of shifts that occur during the Brezhnev and subsequent Carter-Reagan buildups. One was the deployment of very accurate IRBMs by the Soviets like the SS-20... the so-called Euro missile crisis or decoupling. Recent research has suggested that the Soviets did not intend to destabilize the overall balance by deploying this weapon, but they exploited it after the fact. As a broader point there was much more flexibility in actually undertaking war. Nuclear arsenals were at their largest, with significant options to carry out strikes. There was a lot of thought given about limited exchanges. The West retaliates with the Pershing II and Ground Launch Cruise missiles. These systems were seen to be highly destabilizing by the Russians, just as the SS-20 was for the West.

Along these lines he conventional buildup in Europe by both sides made it possible that war could occur without the use of nuclear weapons. This was a real fear in the west after 1977... the Carter buildup had not reached full stride and there was a window of vulnerability. The view was that the Warsaw pact could actually take over Germany before NATO would decide to employ nuclear weapons. They were also benefiting from the early war in Afghanistan, which was helping to give useful battle experience to the Red Army. However the russians also thought that the growing capability of Western weapons might mean they would be able to fight a war with only conventional systems and win. The Carter buildup really was based on the lessons of Vietnam. You had the mass employment of precision guided munitions, new, very effective fighter designs, a new class of super carriers, attack submarines, a large conventional army buildup and the threat of an aircraft that could evade all known radar detection systems. The Strategic Defense Initiative also played into this growing fear. The Russians were fearful that SDI would be successful and be able to successfully knock down a significant portion of their ICBMs. Obviously that was never going to be the case because of the insurmountable technical challenges, but the russians didn't see that. There was a "use it or lose it" fear emerging among the Soviet Union.

I think if there was a defined point where the Cold war was the hottest, it was 1983. Soviet fears were heightened by KAL Shoot down, the deployment of Pershing II and GLCMs, which culminated in the Able Archer Exercise. With the Soviet leadership in disarray with Andropov's health in severe decline... so the likelihood of a major, uncontrolled escalation was there. Cooler heads prevailed, and after Andropov's death Chernyenko moderated some policies, until his death opened the way for Gorbachev and Perestroika.

So 1983 really to me is the hottest period. Both sides had very effective arsenals primed and ready to go and with a weak Soviet leadership, there was a likelihood of a major confrontation.

Edited February 24, 2012 by -Neu-

[Sebastijan]

So 1983 really to me is the hottest period. Both sides had very effective arsenals primed and ready to go and with a weak Soviet leadership, there was a likelihood of a major confrontation.

I agree with you on the year.

Here's an interesting 8 part documentary on Able Archer if you haven't already seen it

[Raymond]

Easy. The height of Cold War was when Sean Connery was James Bond.

Terry

quoted for WIN

[11bee]

I agree with you on the year.

Here's an interesting 8 part documentary on Able Archer if you haven't already seen it

Agreed. Able Archer 83 is probably as close as we have ever come to nuclear war (Cuban Missile Crisis being a close second).

[Sebastijan]

quoted for WIN

But then again Sean Connery defected and became a captain of Russian Typhoon submarine... :D

[Jennings]

Sorry, I guess my subtlety was too subtle. This was a rhetorical question to which there is no one answer. Everyone you ask has a different opinion.

[CorsairMan]

What's a "cold war"?

Sorry... I am spending far too much time with the facebook generation

[Lancer512]

What's a "cold war"?

Sorry... I am spending far too much time with the facebook generation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War

[CorsairMan]

I was kidding around.

But on the serious side - my social media centered work mates don't think there was much of any important history prior to 1998 or whenever someone called 'snooki' was born.

[kg4kpg]

I think as long as there are nukes pointed at us the cold war is still going on. Now just hidden behind the vail of the war on terrorism. The height to me was when I was in Germany and got an alert that involved us being sent to received our W48 nuke round. I loved being on nuke-artillery but that was a scary day. Luckily the alert was indexed and we never met the ammunition company. Fulda Gap would have been glowing for a while if we went so far as to use them.

[Scott R Wilson]

So 1983 really to me is the hottest period. Both sides had very effective arsenals primed and ready to go and with a weak Soviet leadership, there was a likelihood of a major confrontation.

Very interesting. Funny thing though, I don't believe the US military really thought there was much imminent danger of a war breaking out despite the political rhetoric of the time. I was assigned to the 526 AMU/TFS at Ramstein in April 1983. When I arrived at Ramstein I was flabbergasted to find that we flew day-to-day training sorties with the nose gun in our F-4Es pinned and safed; in a bolt from the blue attack by the Soviets any airborne Phantoms would've been useless except for Kamikaze attacks. Also we had a very limited weekend duty shift from 5 AM to 5 PM; during the night hours on weekends we had absolutely no one except the two air crews and four crew chiefs assigned to QRA on duty in our squadron. At least the maintenance organization had 24 hour coverage Monday morning through Saturday morning. But in early 1985 an edict from above came down that said third shifts were a waste of time and manpower, and only encouraged 2nd shift to be slackers, and so our 3rd shift was eliminated. So after that, aside from QRA, we had no one on duty in the squadron from 11 PM to 7 AM during the week, and no one from 5 PM to 5 AM on weekends. I don't know what the aircrews did as they operated out of a different building from us, but I suspect at the end of the day's flying they all went home until the next morning. I highly doubt any aircrews aside from QRA were on duty during the night. The locals were quite noise sensitive so we only did night flying until either 8 or 9 PM, I can't remember exactly, and then only for a very few days a month. Most of the time our flight operations were done by 5 PM and didn't start again until 8 AM the next morning.

Edited February 24, 2012 by Scott R Wilson

[Wolfgun33]

Agreed. Able Archer 83 is probably as close as we have ever come to nuclear war (Cuban Missile Crisis being a close second).

Wow! I never realized how close we were to nuclear war. That's just scary.

[Lancer512]

Yes, I agree with 1983. What's even more scary is that nobody realized that at the time.

If I recall correctly, the first B-52 I saw flying at low level was in 1983. It passed overhead our school heading east, with just 60 miles to go until you reach the Iron Curtain.

Edited February 24, 2012 by Lancer512

[Alvis 3.1]

A close call for us all. I can recall the paranoia and fear of those days, but we had no idea how close it really was. It only goes to show that not knowing what the other guy is up to can only foster a sense of fear, and once your mind is made up the worst is going to happen, everything you see is proof.

I wonder how many accidental attacks were averted? I'm sure we still don't have a remote clue how many times one person decided that he wasn't going to push the button.

Alvis 3.1

[-Neu-]

Very interesting. Funny thing though, I don't believe the US military really thought there was much imminent danger of a war breaking out despite the political rhetoric of the time.

Oh for sure not... but that kinda reflected the danger of the late 70s and early 80s. Both sides were more heavily armed than at any other point of the Cold War. They had more options to carry out war too; unlike the 1950s, nuclear weapons were not considered an integral part of a war doctrine; conventional options were even seen as more effective than nuclear ones in many scenarios. There were more nuclear weapon options as well. It was just a more touchier time in terms of risks and potential for war. So that if there was any risk, it could very quickly spiral into war... as Able Archer made clear.

[fulcrum1]

Cuban Missile crisis.

[ixgr1]

To many true quotes to choose from.

But having lived on RAF Bomber bases at these times, this would the closest to my experiance.

Able Archer 83 is probably as close as we have ever come to nuclear war (Cuban Missile Crisis being a VERY close second).

....and Sean Connery

Edited February 25, 2012 by ixgr1