During World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union fought together as allies against the Axis powers. The relationship between the two nations were tense. Americans had long been aware of Soviet communism and concerned about Russian leader Joseph Stalin’s rule of his own country. For their part, the Soviets resented the Americans for their delayed entry into World War II, which resulted in the deaths of millions of Russians. Neither one country was really to blame for the start of the Cold War. By the time World War II ended, most American officials agreed that the best defense against the soviets was called containment, containment was basically just a way to stop or slow the spread of communism. One of the ways to accomplish this …show more content…
Kennedy was informed of a spy planes’ discovery of Soviet nuclear-tipped missiles in Cuba. President Kennedy shared with the American people of this discovery and put a blockade around Cuba. The USSR saw putting the missiles on the island of Cuba as a leveling on the playing field, since the United States had missiles pointed at them from turkey and other locations around Western Europe. The tension was high for both countries, but on October 26, Khrushchev sent a message to Kennedy in which he offered to remove the missiles from Cuba in exchange for a promise by U.S. leaders not to invade Cuba, also the Soviet leader sent a letter proposing that Russia would dismantle its missiles in Cuba if the Americans removed their missile installations in Turkey. Kennedy agreed but never removed the missiles from …show more content…
America, once again fearing Russia domination, moved to re-arm and build up forces, including placing y new missiles in Europe. In the late 1980s under the new Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev. Gorbachev tried to democratize parts of the soviet government. When communist regimes in the countries of Eastern Europe collapsed in 1989 and 1990 the rise to power of democracies in East Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia was quickly followed by the unification of West and East Germany under NATO. The Soviet Union itself was the next to fall, in 1991 communist leaders attempted a coup against Gorbachev they were defeated, and Boris Yeltsin became leader. He dissolved the USSR, instead creating the Russian
On October 22, 1962, President John F. Kennedy reached out to America and the Cubans with his Cuban Missile Crisis Address to the Nation. During this time, the Cold War had occupied several countries of world. This war resulted from tensions, military and political, between Russia and its allies and America, its allies, and the Western Hemisphere. When President Kennedy gave his speech, Russia had occupied Cuba and began building military bases that contained nuclear warheads and other deadly missiles. People of America saw this as a threat to the freedom of the U.S. and the Western Hemisphere. In a time of great tension and fear, President Kennedy delivered his spectacular and reassuring speech that appealed to the citizens of American in several ways.
The United States were in favor of democracy and capitalism while the Soviet Union sought for the chances of influencing communism. The Cold War did not involve the use of physical arms, but was intensely fought. Propaganda, economic aids, Arms Race, and the creation of alliances were the main methods to fight the war. The use of propaganda played a crucial role in containment by criticizing the other power and raising the morale and spirit of their nation. The economic support for nations helped them recover from the desperate situation after World War II, which prevented the nations from falling under communism.
The United States, led by President Truman, wanted to form democracies in Europe and create a capitalistic society to build economically strong nations that would complement the American economy through trade. In contrast, the Soviet Union, led by Joseph Stalin, wanted to rebuild itself and spread communism through Europe and Asia. In a desperate attempt to rebuild, many countries devastated by war fell under Soviet influence and resorted to communism. The Soviet Union called these nations satellite nations and hoped that they would serve as?buffers? nations, preventing invasion from the West.
The type of policy known as containment was the foreign policy that the United States of America used between the times of 1947 (two years after World War Two) until 1989 (the fall of the Berlin Wall). The definition of containment in this case is strategies, whether diplomatically, militarily or economically, to contain the forming and progression of communism and to give America an influential advantage abroad. The policy of containment all started out with what was known as the Yalta conference, which consisted of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the president of the United States at the time, Winston Churchill, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, and Joseph Stain, leader of the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). It was during this conference that the three men came to an agreement that these three countries would separate the world into three different parts and have their influence on those three parts. This was known as the sphere of influence and it was divided like this: The United States would have control of influence over the western hemisphere, meaning all of the Americas, including Latin America and South America, England would have its influence over western Europe, and the Soviet Union would have its influence over central and eastern Europe.
1 The missiles were being brought to Cuba by Russian leader, Nikita Khrushchev, who guaranteed President Kennedy that the missiles would never be used as a weapon against the United States. This is a lie. Khrushchev fully intended to use the missiles as a mechanism of defense against the United States and as a way to further pursue a relationship with Fidel Castro, who was the President of Cuba at the time. The United States needed to find a way to stop the development of missile sites without causing a break out of violent warfare.
United States spy planes found Soviet missile hangers being constructed throughout Cuba with the missiles being capable of reaching various targets in the United States. Panic raced throughout the Kennedy administration. Kennedy’s defense advisors urged for increased force, with options ranging from invading the island to destroying the hangers with bombs. Kennedy, who feared the possibility of nuclear war, wanted a solution without escalation. The solution was to put a quarantine on Cuba.
The Soviet Union and the United States were very distant during three decades of a nuclear arms race. Even though the two nations never directly had a battle, the Cuban Missile Crisis, amongst other things, was a result of the tension. The missile crisis began in October of 1962, when an American spy plane secretly photographed nuclear missile sites being built by the Soviet Union in Cuba. JFK did not want the Soviet Union and Cuba to know that he had discovered the missiles, so he made his decisions very secretly. Eventually, Kennedy decided to place a ring of ships around Cuba and place missiles in Turkey. Eventually, both leaders superpowers realized the possibility of a nuclear war and agreed to a deal in which the Soviets would remove the missiles from Cuba if the US didn't invade Cuba. Even though the Soviets removed took their missiles out of Cuba and the US eventually taking their missiles out of Turkey, they (the Soviets) continued to build a more advanced military; the missile crisis was over, but the arms race was not.
... rule came to an end in a number of Eastern European countries, including Poland, Hungary, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia (Kennedy 1034). In addition, East Germany began to allow its people to pass freely to West Berlin through the Berlin Wall, and the East Germans soon began to tear the wall down. Germany was reunified in 1990, when East Germany united with West Germany (Walker 388). In 1991, the Soviet Communist Party lost control of the Soviet government. Later that year, the Soviet Union was dissolved, and the republics that made up the nation became independent states. Russia was by far the largest of these states. In 1992, Russian President Boris Yeltsin and U.S. President George Bush formally declared that their countries did not regard each other as potential enemies (Walker). These events marked the end of the Cold War and of communist threat as we know it.
The Cold War began in 1946, shortly after WWII, and ended more than four decades later in 1991. It began with the shifting struggle for power and prestige between the Western hemisphere and the Soviet Union. The U.S. and President Harry Truman fear of communist attack and the Soviet Union need for a secure western border led to America’s effort in providing economic stability and security to nations of the Western hemisphere. In addition, President Truman began his “Get Tough” policy that encouraged the development of nuclear weapons for America to be securely defensive and well armed. The document, “Secretary of Commerce Henry A. Wallace Questions the “Get Tough” Policy” written by Secretary Wallace described America’s actions, “the effort to secure air base spread over half the globe from which the other half of the globe can be bombed,” which he felt America during the Cold War went “far beyond the requirements of defense.”Although, President Truman was determined to resist aggression, moreover, stop the spread of communism and Soviet power, the document was written to make the public and particularly President Truman realize that he himself used aggressive diplomacy that failed to notice the Soviet Union purpose and policy, which if he did understood, might have made better approaches in achieving his goals.
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
On October 22nd, 1962, President John F. Kennedy delivered the famous "Cuban Missile Crisis Address to the Nation" speech in response to Nikita Khrushchev’s act of placing nuclear and flying missiles on the island directly south of the United States: Cuba. The purpose of the speech was to alert the nation of the situation and inform them on how it would be handled. This speech successfully won the attention and respect of the American and Russian people through the use of multiple rhetorical devices.
The Cold War is the closest the world has ever come to complete destruction. In this period of time, two world super powers were in a stalemate economically and militarily and were constantly competing to be the superior. The Cold War started as result of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union had some differences on their perspectives of the world. United States being the richest country in the world promoted democracy and capitalism in the world. The newly formed Soviet Union thought that communism was a better political system because it transformed their economy and status in the world from nothing but a declining empire to a super power once again. The Cold War was a long series of events in which the communist tried to spread their ideas of government and socialist economy, known as expansionism, and the United States and some of the other Western powers such as Great Britain tried to contain it. Containment, a term introduced by George F. Kennan, was the foreign policy the United States practiced from 1946 to 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed. The United States saw the Soviet Union to be a direct threat to the free world. During president Truman and Eisenhower’s administration the policy of containment evolved so drastically that American presidents would put anything on the line, including world peace.
America’s Policy of Containment was introduced by George Kennan in 1947. This policy had a few good points but many more bad points.Kennan's depiction of communism as a "malignant parasite" that had to be contained by all possible measures became the basis of the Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, and National Security Act in 1947. In his Inaugural Address of January 20, 1949, Truman made four points about his "program for peace and freedom": to support the UN, the European Recovery Program, the collective defence of the North Atlantic, and a “bold new program” for technical aid to poor nations. Because of his programs, "the future of mankind will be assured in a world of justice, harmony and peace." Containment was not just a policy. It was a way of life.
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. The soviet unions president Gorbachev’s reforms: glasnost (openness) and perestroika (political reconstructering) ultimately caused the collapse of the Soviet Empire. Gorbachev’s basics for glasnost were the promotion of principles of freedom to criticize; the loosening of controls on media and publishing; and the freedom of worship. His essentials of perestroika were, a new legislature; creation of an executive presidency; ending of the ‘leading role’ of the communist party; allowing state enterprises to sell part of their product on the open market; lastly, allowing foreign companies to own Soviet enterprises (Baylis & Smith, 2001.) Gorbachev believed his reforms would benefit his country, but the Soviet Union was ultimately held together by the soviet tradition he was trying to change. The Soviet Union was none the less held together by “…powerful central institutions, pressure for ideological conformity, and the threat of force.
In the film Robert Kennedy exaggerated the range of the Soviet missiles on Cuba having said that the missiles “could level every American city except Seattle” (“Counter Punch Thirteen Days Is Accurate Where It Counts”). Donaldson mainly focused on the United States reaction towards the Cuban Missile Crisis. Additionally, Donaldson does not take into consideration how much background knowledge his audience have regarding the Cuban Missile Crisis for both the United States and the Soviet Union. In the first scenes Donaldson immediately dives into the moment where President Kennedy is told by his administration the there are Soviet Missiles in Cuba. President Kennedy is notified of the missiles placed in Cuba by the Soviet Union he immediately consults his administration team. Robert “Bobby” Kennedy who is a member of the Kennedy’s administration in the film is portrayed as the individual who was immediately able to “create a peaceful solution” (“Thirteen Days Film Review”) that ended the Cuban Missile Crisis. Yet, the film does not highlight the long process it took for the United States and the Soviet Union to come to a compromise. The United States and Soviets actually came to a consensus when the United States said it would remove its missiles from Turkey after the Soviet Union removed their