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the role of america in causing the cold war
cold war and it's consequences
cold war and it's consequences
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What was the Effect of Limiting Nuclear Weapons during The Cold War?
A. Plan of Investigation
The investigation assesses the effect of limiting nuclear weapons during the Cold War. In order to evaluate its significance, the investigation evaluates the role of Détente and the Strategic Arms Limitation Talk during the Cold War. These causes are investigated by the SALT process, Strategic Defense Initiative, the role of Détente policy and it’s demolition, and the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. Articles are mostly used to evaluate the Détente Policy’s significance. Two sources used in the essay, The Cold War and The Cold War, A New History complied by Robert McMahon and John Lewis Gaddis are then evaluated for their origin, purpose, values and limitations.
B. Summary of Evidence
Prior to the demolition of the détente policy, it was used to lessen the danger of nuclear war through negotiation of verifiable arms control agreements, a hallmark of détente; the centerpiece was the Soviet-America effort to limit the nuclear arms race. Détente did not mean to replace the Cold War with a structure of peace, but to manage the Cold War in a safer and more controlled manner so as to minimize the possibility of accidental war or a destabilizing arms movement. Détente later turned into a “new correlation of forces in the world arena” as countries started accepting détente as a sign of power instead of out of weakness. Although at first, the process of European détente won popular approvals in Europe’s Cold War divide, leading to a significant increase in trade between Eastern and western Europe, greater individual freedom of movement across the Iron Curtain, claming tensions across central Europe, and the growth of the ...
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...is view can be justified by the fact that nuclear weapons played a major role in the Cold War, as the countries were trying to balance the deployments of them, but as the time went by they slowly were starting to disappear due to the treaties made by Gorbachev and Nixon which ended up to the collapse and changes of the Soviet Union.
F. Sources
Beichman, Arnold. “By Refusing to Accept Second Place, Reagan Ended (and won) Cold War.” Washington Times. July 1997.
Cannon, Lon. President Reagan, The Role of a Lifetime. New York: Public Affairs. 1991.
Gaddis, John Lewis. The Cold War, A New History. New York: Penguin Books. 2005.
McCauley, Martin. Russia, America, and the Cold War. London: Pearson Education Limited. 2004.
McMahon, Robert. The Cold War. New York: Oxford. 2005.
“Russia, Eastern Europe Ended Cold War.” Arabia 2000. November 2000.
The Cold War was a period of dark and melancholic times when the entire world lived in fear that the boiling pot may spill. The protectionist measures taken by Eisenhower kept the communists in check to suspend the progression of USSR’s radical ambitions and programs. From the suspenseful delirium from the Cold War, the United States often engaged in a dangerous policy of brinksmanship through the mid-1950s. Fortunately, these actions did not lead to a global nuclear disaster as both the US and USSR fully understood what the weapons of mass destruction were capable of.
The major factor that led to the true end of the Cold War was the ongoing personal and diplomatic relationship between Presidents George H. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev. This resulted in the reduction of the Russian military and favorable arms agreements. Key indicators of the substance behind this relationship were the Soviet troop withdrawals from Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan, and Hungary (lifting the Hungarian/Austrian “Iron Curtain” along the border). Subsequently the opening of the Berl...
...thin the global community by reducing the threat of nuclear war through the reduction of arms and helping each superpower to share a newfound respect and understanding of the other, both welcoming the long awaited period of stability. The détente that Kissinger so actively campaigned for created a new method of cooperation between the superpowers, effectively decreasing the intensity of the conflict felt during the Cold War Era.
Discussions of the causes of the Cold War are often divisive, creating disparate ideological camps that focus the blame in different directions depending on the academic’s political disposition. One popular argument places the blame largely on the American people, whose emphasis of “strength over compromise” and their deployment of the atomic bomb in the Second World War’s Pacific theatre apparently functioned as two key catalysts to the conflict between US and Soviet powers. This revisionist approach minimizes Stalin’s forceful approach and history of violent leadership throughout World War 2, and focusing instead on President Harry Truman’s apparent insensitivity to “reasonable Soviet security anxieties” in his quest to impose “American interests on the world.” Revisionist historians depict President Truman as a “Cold War monger,” whose unjustified political use of the atomic bomb and ornery diplomatic style forced Russia into the Cold War to oppose the spread of a looming capitalist democratic monopoly. In reality, Truman’s responsibility for the Cold War and the atomic bomb drop should be minimized. Criticisms of Truman’s actions fail to consider that he entered a leadership position set on an ideological collision course, being forced to further an established plan for an atomic monopoly, and deal with a legacy of US-Russian tensions mobilized by Roosevelt prior to his death, all while being influenced by an alarmist and aggressive cabinet. Upon reviewing criticisms of Truman’s negotiations with Soviet diplomat Vyacheslav Molotov and his involvement in the atomic bomb drop, the influence of Roosevelt’s legacy and Truman’s cabinet will be discussed in order to minimize his blame for starting the Cold War.
The long lasting Cold war has come to an end. As a result, new risks were taken to build and influence a new world, whether it would be new perceptions, leaders or ideas. In “President Ronald Reagan’s Successful Strategy of Negotiating from Strength,” John Lewis Gaddis argues President Ronald Reagan’s leadership skills brought the Cold War to an end, but he fails to realize that the end of the Cold War is forced by the economic issues of the time, domestic politics and the rise of nationalism.
The Cold War, which started sometime in the 1940’s, was a large quarrel between the United States and the Soviet Union. This dispute involved a lot of propaganda and threats of nuclear warfare. Despite all of the trouble though, after over forty years of fighting, the two leaders of these countries (Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev) would finally work out a solution. However, although they did reach an agreement, there were many differences between these two men.
D'Souza, Dinesh. "How Reagan Won the Cold War." National Review Nov 24 1997: 36-41. ProQuest. Web. 19 Nov. 2013.
The purpose of this investigation is to determine the role Ronald Reagan had in ending the Cold War. This topic is important because now that it is becoming accepted that Reagan had a goal in mind of ending communism when he became president, it is time to determine the way he accomplished the task of ending the Cold War. The research will focus primarily on deciding whether or not it was through exploiting Soviet vulnerabilities, negotiations, or a military build-up. In answering the inquiry question, the main sources that will be used will be a book and National Security Decision Directive 75 (NSDD 75). The book, a biography of Reagan written by Paul Kengor, titled The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism, views Reagan’s technique in ending the Cold War as exploiting the vulnerabilities of the USSR and an arms race. The other main source, NSDD 75, was released by Reagan’s Administration to set forth new national security policies. NSDD 75 discusses the policies the United States will use towards the USSR to help them win the Cold War. Besides these two sources of information, research will also be completed using various reliable websites and books.
The possibility of a nuclear war laid on the hearts and minds of American officials every day during the period known as the Cold War. With the slightest miscalculation of Soviet intentions or erred judgement in communist maneuvers America could have been thrust into a war with the Soviet Union an equally dangerous nuclear nation. In some ways the knowledge that both sides possessed enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world helped contain the situation but in other ways it only added more strain to the enormous pressure. There are a few theories which help thoroughly analyze the rise of the Cold War and determine the reason it started. Through grasping ideas behind the origins of the cold war you can begin to see that the cold war was not
With this book, a major element of American history was analyzed. The Cold War is rampant with American foreign policy and influential in shaping the modern world. Strategies of Containment outlines American policy from the end of World War II until present day. Gaddis outlines the policies of presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, including policies influenced by others such as George Kennan, John Dulles, and Henry Kissinger. The author, John Lewis Gaddis has written many books on the Cold War and is an avid researcher in the field. Some of his other works include: The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941-1947, The Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the Cold War, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History, The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past, Surprise, Security, and the American Experience, and The Cold War: A New History. Dr. Gaddis received his PhD from the University of Texas in 1968; he currently is on a leave of absence, but he is a professor at Yale . At the University, his focus is Cold War history. Gaddis is one of the few men who have actually done a complete biography of George Kennan, and Gaddis even won a Pulitzer Prize in 2012.
Glynn, Patrick. Closing Pandora's Box "Arms Races, Arms Control, and the History of the Cold War". New York: HarperCollinsPublishers, Inc. 1992.
The end of the Cold War was one of the most unexpected and important events in geopolitics in the 20th century. The end of the Cold War can be defined as the end of the bipolar power struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union, which had existed since the end of the World War II. The conclusion of the Cold War can be attributed to Gorbachev’s series of liberalizations in the 1980s, which exposed the underlying economic problems in the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc states that had developed in the 1960s and 70s and prevented the USSR from being able to compete with the US as a superpower. Nevertheless, Reagan’s policies of a renewed offensive against communism, Gorbachev’s rejection of the Brezhnev doctrine and the many nationalities
His stance was that “ détente's been a one-way street that the Soviet Union has used to pursue its own aims. Their goal must be the promotion of world revolution and a one world communist or socialist state." According to President Reagan, the Soviets considered détente a sign of American weakness and vulnerability ( WeThe People.org). Reagan believe that the United States needed to improve and secure its economic and military power. He felt that by doing so the United States would send the message that it would not sit idly by and accept the oppression of the Soviet Union on other nations. The Soviet Union was attempting to spread Communism as far as possible and Reagan felt that if America stood up to the Soviet Union than Communism could be halted. One of the major points of Reagan’s theory was that the Soviet Union was not as strong as it appeared to be and if America challenged it economically then it could cause the collapse of the Soviet Union. Reagan surmised that the government controlled economy of the Soviet Union would not be able to stand against the free market economy of the U.S. Another tactic that Reagan used was that of the “arms race”. The U.S. began to build up its military and it challenged the Soviet Union to do the same. Reagan’s belief was that the economy of the Soviet Union would not be able to compete with the
Nuclear weapons are the safest defense mechanism in the world. Although nuclear weapons can lead to mass destruction and the loss of thousands of lives when detonated, they are the optimal solution to the conflicts between countries in the future. The actual use of the nuclear weapon is not the deterrent, but rather just the mere fact that a country could use it against another country which avoids the large scale conflict. Thus, nuclear deterrence presents itself as a preferred security option. Firstly, based on deterrence theory, nuclear weapons will lead to Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). This means that if nuclear weapons are used in warfare, either side will not be able to succeed in winning, as the destruction caused by the weapons will be too much for either side to recuperate from. Since the detonation of “Fat Man” and “Little Boy” over Nagasaki and Hiroshima, nuclear weapons have never been used in warfare again. The world saw the destruction which a nuclear bomb could have. Ever since, this has driven fear to never use nuclear weapons. Although many countries possess nuclear weapons today, they have yet to engage in a nuclear war. This has so far maintained “a tense but global peace” (Mutual Assured Destruction, 2014). As the use of nuclear weapons would lead to the ultimate destruction of humankind, nuclear deterrence is a viable security option as shown by the MAD principles, the application of the MAD doctrine throughout history and the current global stability.
The Cold War was a time of great tension all over the world. From 1945 to 1989, the United States was the leader and nuclear power and was competing with the Soviet Union to create huge stockpiles of nuclear weapons. However, even though the Cold War ended, nuclear weapons are still a threat. Countries around the world strive to create nuclear power, and they do not promise to use it for peaceful purposes. Some examples of the struggles caused by nuclear weapons include the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Iran’s recent nuclear weapon program. Surely, nuclear weapons have created conflict all over the world since the Cold War era.