Superpowers During The Cold War

The Cold War, a power struggle between the US and USSR, approximately lasted forty five years. Freshly coming out of World War II, the US and USSR both came out on top. Now considered “superpowers”, the US and USSR had no intentions of sharing the title of World’s leading country. Although named a war, there was no actual combat that occurred amongst the two states more so it was a competition to find out “who was bigger and badder?”. During this time, there so called competition led to advancements in technology such as the Sputnik 1 launch. There are multiple explanations as to what led to the beginning of the Cold War, for instance: the views of liberals and realists. Realists primary focus of the national interest is power or the material capabilities (Pinnell, Lecture, February 1 2017). This meaning that Realist main interest is to maintain power and ensure their own security. During the Cold War, as mentioned beforehand the US and USSR were

With that said, the idea of mutual gain and collective security was the biggest interest of Liberals. The USSR which was not a member of NATO, the institution established to ensure security amongst the nations and prevent any conflict from occurring, had threatened the security of multiple nations. This alone was enough to push the Unites States over the edge, ultimately leading to said rivalry. The purpose of Cold War was to once and for all name who was the World’s leading power, the United States and NATO or the USSR and those who involved in the Warsaw Pact which was essentially an alliance amongst the USSR and other European