“A Special Form of Making Foreign Policy by the Threat of War to Imperialists”. A Case Study of Military-Political Activity of Central Committee Presidium under N.S. Khrushchev, 1953–1964. Part 2

Abstract

The results of Khrushchev's foreign policy can be considered, albeit not in everything and even more modest than planned, on the whole quite successful. To resolve the 2nd Berlin crisis (1958–1963), Khrushchev in 1960 reduced the Soviet ground forces by a third, thereby trying to encourage the United States to reduce its military presence in Europe. However, at the Paris Summit of the heads of the 4 powers (1960), due to the active opposition of France and Germany, he failed to push through an agreement on West Berlin on Soviet terms. Mao Zedong, who himself dreamed of leadership among socialist countries after Stalin's death, took advantage of the convenient situation to start a conflict with Moscow. In such an environment, Khrushchev escalated the Berlin crisis by threatening to conclude a peace treaty with the GDR and block Western powers' access to West Berlin (at the same time he conducts command and staff exercises “Storm”, 5–15.10.1961, together with the armies of the ATS countries). He hoped that the United States would not dare to start a war because of West Berlin, and this, in turn, would help to break off Western European states from NATO, showing them that the United States is not a reliable defender for them. His plan partially succeeded: in 1966, France will withdraw from NATO. In order to divert the attention and forces of the United States from West Berlin, the USSR has been actively creating distracting situations around the world since 1961. One of these situations was the Caribbean crisis, which almost led to a nuclear war (1962) and was a heavy defeat for the USSR, which had to fulfill all the conditions of the United States, but in return received Kennedy's promise to remove missile bases from Turkey. It will be possible to remove them only in 1963 in exchange for Turkey's support in its war with Greece over Cyprus. From Iran, due to the harsh Anglo-American pressure on the Shah, the USSR was able to achieve only an obligation not to deploy foreign missiles on its territory, but not to withdraw from the Baghdad Pact, nevertheless, the latter's activities were paralyzed. Under Brezhnev, despite the rejection of Khrushchev's tactics of nuclear bluff, the main directions and strategic goals of foreign policy remained the same as under Khrushchev: ensuring security on the western and southern borders of the USSR by splitting the opposing military blocs and establishing ties with Western European countries, especially France, improving relations with Turkey, Iran and Pakistan, linking them economically. The program of naval construction and the permanent presence of the Soviet Navy in all oceans, begun in 1959, continued.