The Propaganda Campaign
The cold war can be seen to have been a battle between the west and east. The United States and the Soviet Union were the two major players of the contest. The fact that the cold war did not involve direct combats and military involvement does not mean the impacts were ignorable. The spread of propaganda and rumors were the weapons used and the consequences were felt by the whole world. The mode of fighting was that one party would come up with propaganda against the other. The victim of the propaganda raised would decide to either respond or suffer from letting the claims go unanswered. The United States was in most cases at the receiving end. At instances where the claims were too heavy to bear with, the United States responded by issuing threats or sought diplomatic support to seek justice. The third party countries were not excluded by the impacts of the war of words. Each party fought to win the support of as many third world countries as possible to support their course. The use of jamming campaign by the Soviet Union, the United States’ willingness to spread civilization and the clarity of the Soviet Union’s claims were just, but a few points used to convince the third world countries.
The initial stages of the cold war witnessed a series of propagandistic attacks by the Soviet Union aimed towards the United States. However, the authenticity of the propaganda issues raised was questionable. [1]The Soviet State did not act as honesty whistleblowers but instead tried to use the abundant resources at that time to intimidate the United States. When the United States decided to use the press to respond to claims raised against them, the Soviet State chose to jam the media outlets that the United States was using. A question would arise then on the reason as to why exactly, the Soviet States would spread propaganda against a party they would not be willing to listen to. [2]The claim by the Soviet Union that the United States was taking advantage of the economic situation of the third-world countries for their benefit was baseless. The technological advancement by the United States like the successful landing on the moon was not received in good faith by the Soviet Union. The idea behind the United States’ interaction was only to spread the high-level civilization that the United States was enjoying. Also, the propagandistic claims by the Soviet Union were not backed with concrete evidence to prove their authenticity. [3]The claim by Stalin that the United States was the number one enemy, for example, was entirely for personal gain and not in the interest of the world.
The Soviet Union’s selfish propaganda should not mislead the third world into believing that the United States has hidden agendas in international relations. The propaganda would be considered authentic was it not for the Soviet’s attempt to use unfair means to win advantage over the United States. Using the jamming campaign to prevent the United States from defending their position only meant that the Soviet Union did not want the world to know the truth. The false information behind the propaganda was further made clear by the explicit admission that there existed hostility between the United States and the Soviet Union.
[1] Magnúsdóttir, Rósa. Enemy Number One: The United States of America in Soviet Ideology and Propaganda, 1945-1959. Oxford University Press, USA, 2018. (n.d.).
[2] Musgrave, Paul, and Daniel H. Nexon. “Defending hierarchy from the moon to the Indian Ocean: Symbolic capital and political dominance in Early Modern China and the Cold War.” International Organization 72, no. 3 (2018): 591-626. (n.d.).
[3] Şimşek-Özkan, Elif. “THE DOMESTIC DYNAMICS OF THE ORANGE REVOLUTION IN UKRAINE (1991-2004).” INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS POLITICS & LAW (2018): 39. (n.d.).