Iron Curtain Cold War

1. Overview

The Cold War between USSR and US initially discussed about how the entire world being shaped after the World War 2 that occurred from 1939-1945. “For forty-years the Cold war was at the center of world politics. It dominated the foreign policies of two superpowers – United States and Soviet Union – and deeply affected the societies and their poitical, economic, and military institution”. (Painter & Leffler, 2005). In World War 2 we can see how the Axis alliances being defeated and the only super powers left is USSR and United States. Soviet Union before become the rival of US in Cold War used to be their allied in WW2 but due to some matters they split away and become a rival, both have same mission which to conquer the world.

This barrier divided Europe into two separate region until its ended in 1991. Soviet try to protect their satellite states from having a close connection with eastern bloc. Iron Curtain divides European countries to Soviet and US allies, the eastern European belong to Warsaw Pact while western belong or influenced by NATO members. To be clear, the right side of iron curtain is under Soviet influence while left side is under US control. Effect of iron curtain can be seen until today, Berlin Wall is one of the most obvious evidence that during the cold war, the European was divided two parts. Most of the countries which located western of iron curtain practiced market economy where all the decision based on the demand and supply. In short, the economic are depending on the world economic situation. This is different from soviet economic practice which fully control by their great leader. Means countries in west iron curtain aligned themselves with US except several countries which are Austria, Sweden, Finland, Malta, Republic of Ireland and

The Marshall Plan literally was an economic aid to European countries which affected by the World War 2. But in reality was created to balance the power in Europe and setup democratic system and prosperity economic system. Stalin realized that it was a strategy by US then he bar the Eastern Bloc countries from received the plan. Soviet Union in order to race with US created the same plan which called Molotov Plan. Molotov before that also receive invitation to join Marshall Plan but he resisted to show that they can stand alone without being aided by their rival. Countries that took part in Molotov Plan was the Eastern Bloc countries which were Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary Bulgaria and