The dictionary defines war as, a state or period of armed hostility or active military operations. This definition does not hold true for the Cold War however. The phrase cold shoulder is used to express the act of disregarding someone or thing. This idea better sets the stage for the Cold War which was a period of tension, not armed hostility, between two world powers, The United States of America and The USSR, who both were wishing to disregard the others ideology, capitalism and communism. Many would argue that the Cold War was simply inevitable due to the opposing ideologies but, there are many things to look at when considering the cause. One must first start at the end of World War II and then look at some important documents that followed; Winston Churchill’s Iron Curtain Speech and Stalin’s response, The Truman Doctrine, and the Marshall Plan.
When World War II was ending the United States and the USSR were allies. However, they were not allies because they wanted to support each other out of respect. They were allies because they shared a common enemy and while allies, they were lying and spying on each other creating mistrust. After the war, the USSR, was war torn with a weak economy and weak infrastructures. In order to rebuild and stabilize communism he needed to secure bordering countries and spread his sphere of influence as far as possible. In contrast, the United States was essentially untouched by the war and was the strongest world power. So strong that it was over industrialized. The United States capitalistic system had grown larger than its economy could support and needed a world market to survive.
While mistrust started brewing between The United States and the USSR amidst The Yalta Convention, real tension ...
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...ed for the expansion of communism. One could blame Stalin for the Cold War and argue to defend Truman in saying that it was the US's responsibility to counteract the imperialist intentions. However, both world leaders Truman and Stalin, were eager to exert themselves as a world power and both had imperialist intentions for economic security. Because of the threat of nuclear power neither side wanted to physically go to war but simply wished to disregard the other. Churchill states that, “I do not believe that Soviet Russia desires war. What they desire is the fruits of war and the indefinite expansion of their power and doctrines” (Churchill, W. “Iron Curtain Speech.” Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri. 5 March 1946). In singling out the Soviet Union, Churchill is only half right in this statement. Both the United States and Russia are guilty of this accusation.
The alliance formed between the US and USSR during the second world war was not strong enough to overcome the decades of uneasiness which existed between the two ideologically polar opposite countries. With their German enemy defeated, the two emerging nuclear superpowers no longer had any common ground on which to base a political, economical, or any other type of relationship. Tensions ran high as the USSR sought to expand Soviet influence throughout Europe while the US and other Western European nations made their opposition to such actions well known. The Eastern countries already under Soviet rule yearned for their independence, while the Western countries were willing to go to great lengths to limit Soviet expansion. "Containment of 'world revolution' became the watchword of American foreign policy throughout the 1950s a...
The United States and The Soviet Union were originally joined together by the want to defeat The Nazi army, in 1941-1945. The alliance remained, and strengthened, among the two until the end of World War II. At the end of World War II, a rupture between the two occurred. The differences began earlier, but there was a straw that broke the camels back. The reason The United States and The Soviet Union’s alliance did not work out is because The Soviet Union and The United States were complete opposites, The Soviet Union proved to be faulty, and they were never truly allies.
A war does not necessarily require physical weapons to fight. From 1947 to 1991, military tension and ideological conflicts held place. Cold War is defined as a state of political hostility existing between countries, characterized by threats, violent propaganda, subversive activities, and other measures short of open warfare, in particular. The causes of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union were the mutual distrust that had taken place in World War II, intense rivalry between the two super powers, and conflicting ideologies. The two superpowers differed in views of political and economic principles and were eager to spread their ideologies to other countries.
The foreign and domestic policies during the Cold War lead to both the separation of world powers and the fear of political and social systems throughout the world. After World War 2 had ended, tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union heighted. The agreements made at the Yalta Conference between Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt , were not being followed by the Soviets. The Soviet Union kept the land they reconquered in Eastern Europe and did not enforce a democratic government in those countries, as they promised. Instead, the Soviet Union decided to continue spreading communism in their reconquered lands. The United States’ feared the spread of communism and attempted to do anything in its power to stop it. Before the United
The Cold War was a post-World War II struggle between the United States. and its allies and the group of nations led by the Soviet Union. Direct military conflict did not occur between the two superpowers, but intense economic and diplomatic struggles erupted in the country. Different interests led to mutual suspicion and hostility in a rising philosophy. The United States played a major role in the ending of the Cold War.
Communist influence - However, the Soviet Union is not completely seen as an enemy as Churchill acknowledges the fact that the USSR is not inclined to a war. Churchill also does not challenge the idea of collaboration between the Soviets and the Western powers. No concrete policy against the USSR yet. ...
The Cold War stretched out from 1945 to 1990 and commenced during the time when Truman was the leader of the USA and Stalin the leader of the USSR. The USSR and the USA never went to war on their own soil but fought ‘proxy wars’ through allied countries. The first of these was in Korea. After the end of World War II both countries were keen to establish their strength in Europe and Asia. Both were interested in maintaining their markets and controlling the military might of the other side. Both were also committed to winning the battle of ideas: communism vs. capitalism. In an attempt to prevent communism taking hold in Korea general McArthur quadrupled his forces there. The USSR responded by sending over 1 million soldiers. Today Korea is still divided into the communist north and capitalist south. . Further proxy wars were fought in Angola, Nicaragua and Afghanistan. This was particularly shown during the USSR’s occupation of Afghanistan. This occurred in 1979. In response the USA supported the Mujahedeen or Afghani ‘freedom fighters’ dragging out the war. What would have been a fairly easy takeover for the USSR became a long and protracted war due to the USA involvement. The USSR was finally defeated by the Afghanis ten years later.
The Cold War was an argument between the Soviet Union and the United States of America after WWII. During WWII the USA and the Soviet Union were allies fighting a common cause: Adolph Hitler who was attempting to overthrow the surrounding countries. Although the USA and the Soviet Union were allies, the relationship between the two countries was very tense (What Was). Neither country trusted the other. After WWII their relationship became even more tense due to the building of new weapons capable of destroying entire countries.
The United States and the Allied Powers faced many challenges at the end of WWII. America's policy was one that contained the spread of communism in Eastern Europe. Russia, under Lenin's rule called for a world revolution and brought the United States into it. It was not until after WWII, that the cold war really began, when the political power of the world shifted from the center of Europe to Moscow and Washington. The Cold War began after the collapse of Germany in May 1945(http://www.coldwar.org/indexrus.html). The creation of the cold war came from the disagreements for postwar Europe and the Far East. Each superpower, the United States, Britain, France and Russia had their own idea of how postwar Europe should look, and many of their ideas clashed. The Cold War arose not from one isolated event, but from the different ideologies and interests between the Soviet Union and the west. Also the Russian government was seeking revenge on the United States because the United States did not enter the war effort soon enough and that caused for more Russian casualties.
In Chapter 25 of the American Yawp, it talks about the Cold War. Relations were soured between the United States and the Soviet Union after World War II. The Truman administration still sought US-Soviet union cooperation. The Cold War was a global political and ideological struggle between capitalist and communist countries, particularly between the two surviving superpowers of the postwar world: the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). “Cold” because it was never a “hot,” direct shooting war between the United States and the Soviet Union, the generations-long, multifaceted rivalry nevertheless bent the world to its whims.
According to the conventional Western view, the Cold War was a conflict between two superpowers, caused by Soviet aggression, in which the U.S. tried to contain the Soviet Union and protect the world from it.
At the same time, the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics were involved in the Cold War. They were competing against one another, constantly trying to show that their country (and therefore their form of government and ideals) was the better choice. They were competing for influence over the rest of the world. Eventually the USSR and Communism lost, but far more important results came out of this competition instead.
While, on the other hand, the United States just wanted to stop the spread of communism, which they felt, would spread rapidly throughout the world if they did not put an end to it soon. Both the United States and the Soviet Union wanted to avoid WWIII in the process of trying to achieve their goals. The Cold War was failed by the Soviet Union for many reasons, including the sudden collapse of communism (Baylis & Smith, 2001.) This sudden collapse of communism was brought on ultimately by internal factors. Soviet Union president Gorbachev’s reforms: glasnost (openness) and perestroika (political reconstruction) ultimately caused the collapse of the Soviet Empire.
...cut and the things that had to be repaired were focused on. After the Cold War and fall of the Soviet Union, the United States became economically prosperous but the National debt had increased because of the war. The national debt the country had incurred from years earlier increased from an astonishing $994 billion to a value beyond $2.9 trillion. The good cultural aspect of Americans changed; the sale and distribution of illegal drugs went up, crime rate went up and the social class gap opened. On the side of the Soviet Union, Russia had become a country once more and they did not threaten the security of Americans for a while. Currently, Ukraine and Russia are on the verge of war because of a portion of Ukraine Russia wants. The imperialistic motives of the core of the Soviet Union are still evident because of the things that are going on around individuals.
By another account, the Cold War began in 1917 with the Bolshevik Revolution, and ended in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union, having been a conflict between Bolshevism and Democracy. The Cold War got its name because both sides were afraid of fighting each other in such a “hot war”, nuclear weapons might destroy everything. So, instead, they fought each other indirectly. They played havoc with conflicts in different parts of the world. They used words as weapons.