Apush Chapter 25 Summary

In his book Cold War: The American Crusade against World Communism, James Warren discusses the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union, its causes, its consequences, and its future. Warren also analyzes why the United States was so afraid of communism and how this fear controlled both U.S. domestic and foreign policy. In George Washington’s Farewell Address, he warned future leaders to avoid foreign entanglements. However, the United States strayed away from this policy in 1941 after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. From then on, the United States realized that with its great power came great responsibility. The U.S. felt the responsibility to develop a strategy to combat the spread of world communism, which was viewed as the “Red menace.” The U.S. believed that communism would spread from the Soviet Union, across all of Europe; the U.S. understood that the spread of communism would not be very difficult because the destruction caused by World War II left many nations vulnerable to communism. Also, the Soviet Union had a highly-trained army, a ruthless leader, and a nation committed to Marxist-Leninism, which was a belief that human progress is the destruction of Western democracy and capitalism. The Cold War was a military, diplomatic, economic, and scientific struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States. The rivalry between these two nations also affected places such as Korea, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Malaya, and Vietnam. The Cold War controlled many of the crises that occurred the last half of the 20th century. The major conflict of course was the threat of nuclear weapons. Thomas Larson wrote that “the vulnerability to weapons that could destroy entire countries...heightened fears and antagonisms and made th...

A cold war is defined as "a conflict between nations for national advantage conducted by political, economic, and psychological means instead of direct military action." The Cold War defined by the same source was determined to be "the contest for power between the communist nations headed by the Soviet Union and the nations of the West headed by the United States that began after World War II"(Barnhart & Thorndike, 198).

The Cold War is the term used to describe the intense rivalry between the United States and its allies and the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics and its allies. The Soviet Union and its allies were refereed to as the Eastern Bloc and the United States and its allies were referred to as the Western Bloc. The Cold War period lasted from the mid-1940’s until the late 1980’s. During this period international politics were shaped by this intense rivalry between this two great blocs of power and the political ideologies they represented. The United States and its allies represented democracy and capitalism while the Soviet Union and its allies represented communism. The Cold War was truly a global conflict more so than either of the century’s two world wars. (1) The cold war was also the first total war between economic and social systems, an industrial test to destruction. Even though the Cold War Began just after World War II, some of its roots reach back as far as the nineteenth century. Its neighbors have long feared Russia; the giant among the countries in Europe, even when they were allied Russia against a common enemy. This fear Cropped up immediately after Russia, Britain, and other European nations defeated the French Emperor Napoleon in 1812. (2) In 1853 Britain, France and several other European nations went to war with Russia from keeping Russia from expanding into the Middle East. Britain, in fact, took a great deal of its energy during the nineteenth century trying to limit Russian power. (3) By the early twentieth century the United States was also concerned with Russia’s power. Although the United States tried to keep out of European disputes, American leaders were concerned about Russia becoming to powerful. They worried that if any nation became powerful enough to dominate the European continent, it would be a threat to the well being of the United States. (4) In the midst of World War I a new element was added to the European and American fear of Russia. In November of 1917 a radical Marxist called the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia overthrowing a democratic government. The United States strongly opposed the Bolshevik regime. The United States was angry that the Bolsheviks pulled Russia out of the War against Germany (WW I), and that it intended to spread its revolution to other countries. (5) During World Wa...

The Cold War refers was an unrelenting state of military and political apprehension that existed between the Western and Eastern Power Blocs. The Western bloc encompassed the United States, NATO and allies while the Eastern Bloc was made up of the Soviet Union and its partners formulated in the Warsaw Pact . The dates have not been fully agreed upon by Historians, but commonly mentioned periods range from 1947 to 1991. The reason for the war christened as cold was the nonexistence of direct large-scale fighting between the two sides apart from the major regional conflicts in Vietnam and Korea. The Cold War resulted in momentary crevice in the wartime alliance directed against the Nazi Germany that left the United States and the USSR as the two conflicting superpowers. This drift had profound political and economic implications over democracy and capitalism.

The origins of the cold war There are many wars that happened in the United States history, however this war was not like any other war. In 1945,there was a war between the United States and the Soviet Union, which was called the “Cold War”. It was called the cold war, because there was no direct fighting between the two countries. In this war there was a controversy over the global influence after World War II ended. The ideological differences between the United State and the Soviet Union led to their different ideas on how to rebuild Europe. The United States was capitalist, while the Soviet Union was communist and the economic and political differences between them created a problem because each country wanted to use its ideas to influence the world. The disagreements between the two countries led to Yalta and Potsdam meetings which discussed the issue of rebuilding the world after WWII ended, the United States also created the policy of containment because it was against communism, and the ideological and political differences led to the Korean war.

After World War II, the relationship that developed primarily between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was called the Cold War. The Cold War took place during the period from 1947 to 1991. The goal of the Cold war was to dominate international affairs for decades and many major crises. Examples for these major crises could be the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam, Korean War, and the Berlin Wall. For many the growth in weapons of mass destruction was the most worrying issue. The Cold War is also said to be the conflict between the Communist nations led by the Soviet Union and the democratic nations led by the United States. This war was fought by all means of propaganda, economic war, and occasional military clashes.

The Cold War was a conflict that dominated the people of Earth for half a decade. The two clashing titans never fought directly with each other on the military level, but both were drawn into conflicts that split the world in to. All of the conflicts of the world, with the exception of those in Africa, from the time period of 1946 through 1989, were in some war effected by, or a product of the clash of opposite ideologies that we call the Cold War. The key to understanding the role that the two ideologies played throughout the Cold War lies in the conflicts that occurred both before and after World War Two. Such events as the World War One, Russian Civil War, and the Munich Agreement helped fuel the rival ideologies’ anger that would lead to the Cold War. The role of the ideologies can also be found in the paths that the leaders of Great Britain, Russia, and the United States took. Winston Churchill’s Iron Curtain Speech, Harry Truman’s Doctrine, and Stalin’s policy towards Eastern Europe after the Second War all created turbulence that shook up the worlds diplomacy enough to split the world in two. The Cold War was all about ideologies, and the roles they played were extremely significant. For half a decade, the fate of the world hung at a balance between these two superpowers, and a couple times, the balance came very close to tipping.

The Cold War began after World War II. The United States and the Soviet Union had growing tension during World War II. By the end of the war, they had become mortal enemies. The powers between the two were not equal though, as the United States had a flourishing economy and the Soviet Union economy was crashing. It was clear that the United States and the Soviet Union were in a power struggle, which became known as the Cold War. The ideology of the Cold War period can perhaps best be described in May’s words, as an “ ideology of consensus”. ( McDonald )

The Cold War began as two prevailing world powers, the disputation between the Americans and Soviets in Europe (Brands, Breen, Williams, Gross, 2009). It escalated due to the representation of capitalism and democracy in the United States and the communism and dictatorship of the Soviet Union. The Cold War brought many changes to the United States. The War became a central influence on many aspects of American society socially, politically, and economically (Brands et al., 2009).

The alliance that had formed between two super powers, U.S and USSR during World War II was not strong enough to overcome the past decades of suspicion and unease between the two nations. Unwilling to compromise because of paranoia about their postwar national security created high tension atmosphere in U.S- Soviet Union’s relationship. This unstable partnership finally cracked due to the defeat of Nazi German: An unnatural alliance that was bound to fall apart after the defeat of the common enemy can be considered the origin of the Cold War.The Cold War had an enormous impact on the United States politically, socially, and economically including Red hunts, unconditionally fear of Communism and McCarthyism in the period 1940s-1950s, also shaped U.S.’s political agendas. This war ended as the reform programs introduced by Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, which unexpectedly led to the collapse of Soviet Union. The...

The Cold War is the long time war that was taken among the former USSR and the United States of America, and the war started immediately after the end of World War II. This war was essentially a clash, or a war, of two different ideologies; the Capitalism and the Communism. The Collapse of the former Soviet Union and its transition toward the free market economy proved that capitalism and its principles as the proper way of life.

While reading through the content of Chapter Three, a time period in history of the late 20th century was seen in my eyes as a great metaphor for the topics covered. The Cold War Era is a great conversation point when talking about the decision to go to war or not. On page 112 of “FLS” the idea of preemptive war was discussed. Preemptive war is defined by the “anticipation that an attack by the other side is eminent” (FLS 113). For almost all of the latter half of the twentieth century, Americans had this mind set, thinking war with the USSR was going to happen sooner or later. One question that arose in my mind is why did neither the US or USSR never make that first strike?