Cold War In Asia

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The conclusion of World War II culminated in more than just a victory for both the United States and the Soviet Union. It also put them in a position of influence on the world stage. Due to the large territory that Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan had conquered during the war, the allies were forced to liberate more territory to defeat them. In doing so, troops from both victorious sides were scattered across broken Europe and Asia (Lecture 1, 3/28/16). While the USSR was promoting its Communist ideology and forming a buffer zone in Eastern Europe (Leffler 39-40), the US was rebuilding its half of Europe, as well as “civilizing” rural nations (Lecture 1, 3/28/16). During the war, both rival nations learned different lessons which affected their …show more content…

Their idea was that by rebuilding a country and taking it out of a situation that fosters radical and communist governments, the country would be in a much better situation for popular sovereignty (Lecture 1 3/26/16). However, several years passed and America feared that the USSR would overtake the US in international affairs and atomic capabilities. The fall of China and the USSR’s development of its first atomic bomb prompted the creation of NSC-68. (Lecture 5:The Cold War in Asia Part II- 4/8/16). Written by the National Security Council, this document not only provides a background on the current Cold War situation, but follows up by offering several methods on how to deal with this new enemy (Leffler 93-94). NSC-68 advises that the US expand upon its previous foreign policy towards Communism, because at the current level that American aid is functioning at, the US would not be able to “frustrate the Kremlin design and hasten the decay of the Soviet system” (NSC-68, …show more content…

The end of this hot war brought upon a Cold War that so too would be waged over the fate of the world. In order to win this new style of warfare, the US enacted new foreign policies in the immediate post-war era. This was revolutionary for a nation that previously dwelled in isolation for a predominant portion of its history. The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan put the US at the center of the free world trying to combat the slave society that the USSR promoted (NSC-68, 8). However, these two policies were not sufficient enough to complete the task that the US demanded: “frustrating the Kremlin design” (NSC-68, 12). NSC-68 called for a larger approach to tackling the Kremlin in the form of escalation of key elements, like political, economic, and military, both domestically and internationally (NSC-68, 2-a). By continuing its Cold War logic and expanding upon it, the US hopes to hasten the inevitable downfall of a regime that once stood alongside them in the war that created the Cold

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