Third Side of the Cold War DOCUMENTARY
in the minds of most cold war discourse is dominated by the struggle between the two superpowers and defined by such things as nuclear proliferation espionage and the space race a titanic global confrontation that affected everyone and forced nations to choose sides between east and west either militarily economically or at least ideologically except that isn't true from the broad process of decolonization that had begun in the 1940s and accelerated through the 1950s and 1960s dozens of new sovereign nations emerged on the world scene many opposed to the bipolar world system the cold war tried to impose what came from this was the emergence of a third block of nations who didn't want to side with either the americans or the soviets i'm your host david and this week we are going to look at the creation of the non-aligned movement and the 1955 bendung conference this is the cold war if traveling is your hobby and you like to make fun videos the sponsor of today's video philmorico is a 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downloading this awesome app from the link in the description consider leaving a review for the app if you like it okay so we're going to start like we have so often with the end of the second world war the alliance that the western allies and the soviet union had forged to fight the fascists quickly began to show itself an alliance of convenience as the cordial relations they had enjoyed began to evaporate spheres of influence and control quickly began to form and eventually formalize the sovietization of east and central europe resulted in the creation of the warsaw act and soviet support was freely given to socialist and leftist forces in other parts of the world many of whom were beginning the struggle to gain independence from imperial control whether it was british french dutch belgian or portuguese the united states meanwhile gathered its european allies into nato and lent support to anti-leftist forces and governments around the world we should note that the sides that the us chose to support did not necessarily mean they were liberal or democratic just as long as they were anti-leftists but not everybody wanted to participate in the emerging cold war with two prominent countries leading this movement india in 1947 was newly independent and with a population of 300 million people had the ability to exert considerable influence on the world stage as you can imagine however there was no intention to join into a western alliance with their now former imperial subjugators in europe yugoslavia was establishing itself as a socialist nation but one which refused to be under the thumb of stalin's soviet union now i'm mentioning these two nations as they were to become the locomotives that would drive the formation of a formalized non-aligned movement jawaharlal nehru the first prime minister of india spoke extensively of the role of non-aligned india thoughts which captured the sentiments of many as early as september 7 1946 he said we propose as far as possible to keep away from the power politics of groups aligned against one another which have led in the past to world wars and which may again lead to disasters on an even vaster scale nehru was also supportive of the role of a single global structure dedicated to the maintenance of peace in the world i am of course referring to the united nations which despite its shortcomings nehru believed to be a beneficial organization and that the formation of blocks outside of it was a threat to world peace he said the beginning of this world structure has been laid in the united nations organization it is still feeble it has many defects nevertheless it is the beginning of the world structure and india has pledged herself to the cooperation in its work now if we think of that structure and our cooperation with other countries in achieving it where does that question come of our being tied up with this group of nations or that group indeed the more groups and blocks are formed the weaker will that great structure become okay so all is to say that from the outset of the cold war there were major countries who did not want to align themselves to either of the two blocks but were also actively looking to assert their positions on the international stage now there are several factors that help propel and fuel this movement the first was the dramatic increase in the number of newly independent nations largely in asia and africa as decolonization sped up in the years after the second world war many emerging nations wanted to join the international community but were not interested in aligning themselves to either east or west this is understandable as many of those new nations had expended a great deal of effort to remove their alignment to imperial powers instead they sought a third way of course postcolonialism doesn't explain everything some of the most active nations within the non-aligned movement that was to emerge like yugoslavia and ethiopia had no history of colonialism no five years of italian occupation doesn't really count as colonialism so what drove these nations to seek a third way well economics many of these nations were experiencing significant economic challenges and wanted and needed trading and investment partners the fear for many however was that by forming trade agreements with the east or west blocks that it would eventually lead to political dependencies which they were eager to avoid so naturally forming closer economic ties to other non-aligned nations became an attractive option and one of the best places for these new ties to be forged was not surprisingly the united nations it provided a platform for not only the establishment of relationships but a forum that allowed for the strengthening of cooperation between future members of the non-aligned movement but wait there's more the yugoslav school also identified two other factors that boosted the establishment of the nam the first related to the western bloc and their shared judeo-christian roots many of the newly independent former colonies were automatically outsiders to this philosophical tradition meaning no strong tie existed to keep former colony and former colonizer linked to each other the other factor outlined by the yugoslav school related more to the east lock in socialist policies while many nations looked to a socialist path for their future development they did not want to give up their autonomy to moscow this was a two-way street as well moscow especially in the stalinist years was not overly tolerant of descent among its allies and satellites as such their membership in the soviet bloc would have been rather problematic so we can conclude that there was broad and growing interest from many countries to becoming involved on the international stage without becoming entangled in the cold war framework that we often think of as being omnipresent one of the earliest meetings demonstrating this interest was the asian relations conference held in new delhi in march and april of 1947. this meeting was organized and led by of course nehru and was intended to bring together the leading men and women of asia on a common platform to study the problems of common concern to the people of the continent to focus attention on social economic and cultural problems of the different countries of asia and to foster mutual contact and understanding the conference historic if only for being the first major conference organized specifically for asian nations was attended by delegates and observers from 28 different countries india indonesia burma and ceylon were heavily represented but there were representatives from several soviet republics as well including armenia azerbaijan georgia kazakhstan kyrgyzstan turkmenistan tajikistan and uzbekistan well you will recall that the soviet republics were technically allowed to conduct their own foreign policy their participation clearly shows the interest that the soviet union as a whole had in forging alliances with these new and emerging nations a second asian relations conference was held in january of 1949 largely with the purpose of discussing the worsening situation in indonesia's fight for independence from the netherlands the second conference was attended by representatives of 19 countries and a call was made in support of indonesian independence along with this call came the adoption of a resolution to quote explore ways and means of establishing suitable machinery having regard to the areas concerned for promoting consultation and cooperation within the framework of the united nations end quote effectively this was an agreement that these meetings should continue but be built into the united nations as a method of creating dialogue and discussion five years later starting in april of 1954 the prime ministers of india ceylon burma pakistan and indonesia met in colombo at the colombo powers conference where no specific agenda topics were pre-arranged but rather served as an opportunity for the five nations to discuss the various challenges each faced notably kashmir but importantly for our story today was an indonesian proposal to organize a conference of both asian and african countries what was to become the 1955 bandung conference the bandung conference held in april 1955 in the indonesian city which conveniently shared the same name was a meeting of representatives from 29 different asian and african countries or soon-to-be countries and was co-sponsored by the governments of burma india indonesia pakistan and ceylon the primary aim of the conference was to discuss peace the role of the third world or developing nations in the cold war and issues of decolonization as well as the potential for economic and political cooperation between the participating nations speeches given during the conference touched on a number of global issues of concern including the global arms race and nuclear proliferation they also talked to methods of improved economic development better governmental services and agricultural production in developing nations the bandung conference was a seemingly raggle toggle group of nations with different agendas different political systems and with a wide range of economic and societal development but despite this it didn't stop them from agreeing on what has become known as the 10 principles of bendum they are respect of fundamental human rights and the objectives and principles of the charter of the united nations respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations recognition of the equality among all races and of the equality among nations both large and small non-intervention or non-interference into the internal affairs of another country respect of the right of every nation to defend itself either individually or collectively in conformity with the charter of the united nations non-use of collective defense packs to benefit the specific interests of any of the great powers and non-use of pressures by any country against other countries refraining from carrying out or threatening to carry out aggression or from the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any country peaceful solution of all international conflicts in conformity with the charter of the united nations promotion of mutual interests and of cooperation respect of justice and of international obligations you can see clearly from these principles the value the declarance placed on not only autonomy and non-violence but also on the use of existing international bodies specifically the united nations to achieve mediated solutions to international conflicts from the perspective of cold war politics these 10 principles would have looked like a shining city on a hill to any nation wishing to avoid superpower entanglements recent events in places like east germany guatemala iran and korea would have loomed large in the minds of many now the bandung conference is widely seen as the immediate precursor to the foundation of the not aligned movement but those of you who already know this story are aware that one major player in the non-line movement was not present at bandung in 1955 that's yugoslavia yugoslavia as we've covered in several episodes already was a socialist nation but had somewhat messily divorced itself from moscow in 1948. in the wake of that breakup it became clear that on the international stage tito's yugoslavia most often sided with countries like india and indonesia in its voting record in bodies like the united nations in 1956 tito invited nehru and the egyptian president gamal abdel nasser to his summer state residence on the brioni islands where the brione declaration was made stating their opposition to the politics of the cold war and the desire to form closer relations between countries not aligned to either of the blocks dominated by the superpowers keep in mind this declaration didn't prevent the participants from engaging and trading with the blocks especially regarding arms deals just declared in opposition to taking formal sides the brione declaration was followed in 1960 by a meeting at the u.n general assembly between the leaders of india egypt yugoslavia indonesia and newly independent ghana which ensured cooperation between their states in order to achieve the adoption of the declaration on decolonization by the un general assembly so all of this finally culminated in belgrade in september of 1961 with the first summit conference officially called the conference of the heads of state or government of non-aligned countries sponsored by india indonesia egypt syria and yugoslavia there were 25 participant nations sudan tunisia united arab republic yemen yugoslavia afghanistan algeria burma cambodia salon cuba cyprus ethiopia ghana guinea india indonesia iraq lebanon mali morocco nepal saudi arabia and somalia in addition there were observer nations in attendance including brazil bolivia and ecuador as well as representatives from trade unions from countries like japan the result of the summit was the declaration of the non-aligned movement although it is interesting to note that the specific name which we're now also familiar with wasn't actually formally used until 1976 the choice of the word movement should also be taken into consideration it was favored over the word organization as people involved were keen to avoid the bureaucratic implications associated with an organization now all of this that i've been talking about has been the events and perspectives of those inside the nim but how was it all being viewed by the two nations whose power blocks had spurred the creation of the third block who wanted to remain apart from both of them well let's start with the united states initially washington dc viewed both the bandung conference and the nim with a great deal of caution the generally left-leaning ideologies held by most participating nations was obviously somewhat at odds with america's distrust of the left and their intentions additionally the united states needed to tread carefully around the topic of decolonization well they generally supported decolonization efforts even actively supporting some given that two significant colonizers britain and france were primary allies in the united states they wanted to tread carefully as for the soviet union they too struggled to come to terms with the nam while they shared the language and rhetoric of anti-imperialism and decolonization which one could think would bring them closer together that the name was formed primarily to avoid becoming entwined in the power blocks of the superpowers automatically prevented that additionally soviet actions in places like czechoslovakia in 1968 was to demonstrate that moscow's words regarding anti-imperialism were hollow at best okay so with the creation of this third way what impact did this have on the conduct of the cold war itself well despite the fact that the nam has survived to this day certainly outliving the soviet union its impact on global affairs during the cold war was negligible definitely the major cold war issues that developed since 1961 were handled by the east west blocks and not the nam well it was a forum for discussion and a meeting place for cooperation for those who wanted as well as a platform to criticize both east and west ultimately the non-aligned movement lacked a positive cohesion that would allow it to act as a united bloc to affect change member nations were united not by a common ideology or a set of policies but rather a desire to remain uninvolved from the larger global struggle the russian writer evgeny matanin summed this up with his remark near communists resided those who enjoyed killing and torturing near kings and sheiks resided actual cannibals some of the members of the movement endured almost a physical disgust towards the other we hope you enjoyed today's episode and to make sure you don't miss all of our future episodes please make sure you subscribe to our channel and have created a separate block of bell buttons that can openly criticize and critique the original bell button without actually getting involved in the pressing of that bell button we can be reached via email at the cold war channel gmail.com and we're also active on facebook and instagram at the cold war tv if you enjoy our work your financial support would be greatly appreciated via patreon at www.patreon.com the cold war or through youtube membership this is the cold war channel and don't forget the trouble with the cold war is that it doesn't take too long before it becomes heated
2021-10-20 05:27
