Cold War Historiography Essay

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... ... middle of paper ... ...he reader to put concepts like war spending into perspective. Warren convinces the reader of his argument that the Cold War was not only a nuclear arms race, but a military, diplomatic, economic, and scientific struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States that had effects on the home front and international affairs.

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

As a result of the atomic bomb, the Soviets engaged themselves in a nuclear arms race with the Americans, thereby contributing to the cause of the Cold War. With both the Soviets and the Americans in fear, the sides attempted to create stronger, more powerful bombs that they could use to shock one another. All in all, as the Cold War raged on and tensions boiled, the nuclear arms race intensified and the fear of a thermonuclear war was at a peak high. Fortuitously, the tensions between the Soviets and Americans cooled and the Cold War froze, becoming a part of history rather than exploding into a hot war that may have ended life on planet Earth itself.

Origins of the Cold War Revisionist historians tend to regard the outbreak of the "Cold War" as a result of American hostility or, at least , diplomatic incompetence, while the more traditional view lays the responsibility squarely at the feet of the Soviet Union. Assess the validity of each view. The Cold War,said to have lasted from the end of World War II to the dismantling of the Soviet Union in 1991, was one of the most significant political events of the 20th century. For nearly 40 years the world was under the constant threat of total devastation, caught between the nuclear arsenals of the United States, Great Britain, and France on one side and the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China on the other. Any crisis precipitated by the struggle between the forces of democracy and communism could trigger a nuclear exchange of such stupendous proportions and overwhelming horror and suffering that would render life on earth utterly impossible.

Ever since the outbreak of the Cold War after WWII, American historians have depicted it as a battle pitting good versus evil, American democracy, capitalism, and desire for world peace, against Soviet communism, totalitarianism, and desire to take over the world. However, this categorization of the Cold War has been proven false by many documents made public since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990’s. Over the course of this essay, I will attempt to explain the true causes of the Cold War, and some of the reasons it progressed the way it did. My analysis will begin with a general discussion of how nuclear proliferation impacted the decision making of both American and Soviet leaders. It is, I believe, important to understand this before delving any deeper, as nuclear proliferation’s affect on decision making was arguably the key dynamic operating throughout the entire Cold War.

The Cold War was instead contested through proxy wars, trade embargoes, espionage, propaganda and a prolific arms race, which constituted an immense build-up of nuclear weapons. The Orthodox Explanation is a theory on the origin of the Cold War, which places the causes of the war on Soviet Union foreign policy and the inability of their respective ideologies to co-exist. After World War II, the Soviet Union greatly expanded its sphere of political influence in Eastern Europe by imposing communist governments in all but one of the country’s bordering its western frontier. Vojtech Mastny stated it was this imperialistic drive, which instigated the Cold War -“…the first shot fired of the Cold War was the Soviet Unions drive to impose friendly governments in locations of geopolitical importance….” The USSR was building an empire... ... middle of paper ... ...oviet Union gained possession of the atomic bomb in 1949, the universally recognized notion of mutual assured destruction meant that the Soviet’s and the US had to rely on economic competition, hence the atomic bomb is seen as a major cause of the Cold War in the Post-Revisionist explanation. It is clear there that each theory to the origins of the Cold War-the orthodox, revisionist and post-revisionist- are very different and in fact conflicting explanations to the causes and development of the Cold War.

Each side was armed with nuclear deterrents to counterattacks launched by either side based on the assumption that one attack would destroy the enemy. The doctrine employed was that of mutually guaranteed obliteration otherwise known as MAD . On top of the two sides developing nuclear arsenals and positioning conventional military forces, they expressed struggle for supremacy through global surrogate wars, technological competition envisaged in the Space Race, espionage and propaganda including psychological and cyber warfare. The Soviet Union and Germany had agreed on non-aggression, but it was still invaded by the German Army, and Josef Stalin bel... ... middle of paper ... ... War. Back then, the world was in tension, but there were defined lanes of power and authority.

If Iran opts to oppose American diplomatic engagement, then they become a destabilizing power in the Persian Gulf and Middle East. Either way, Iran’s stand on nuclear programs presents a direct threat for the American interests. International Relation Theories According to Realism school of thought, national issues and security concerns overrides ideological, moral and social issues. This theory argues that humans are by nature self centered (Walt 31). The realists argue that states are by nature aggressive and always occupied with security issues.

Terrorists that are in possession of nuclear weapons will present a horrific outlook on nuclear proliferation as they are more li... ... middle of paper ... ...uclear weapons is something that must continue until all warring parties are disarmed. The NPT was a major success as an advocate of arms control and it set a precedent between states to prevent proliferation, something that needs to be taken care of still to this day. Works Cited Cooper, H. M. "Nuclear Proliferation and Terrorism." CQ Researcher by CQ Press. CQ RESEARCHER, 2 Apr.

After the end of WW2, two major governmental institutions, the USA and the USSR, with conflicting political ideologies and agendas, set forth to dominate each other in international politics. This period of time, also known as the Cold War, initiated an era of crazed hysteria in the United States as these two governments frequently clashed and bitterly fought. As a result, the frightened public grew delirious as the world grew dangerously close to a calamitous nuclear war, which ultimately prompted the Eisenhower administration to hinder the spread of communism and encourage the U.S. population to rapidly pursue higher education for the future welfare of this nation. One of the biggest fears of the American people is that the concept of communism contrasts drastically from the concept of capitalism, which the United States was essentially founded upon. The United States, as the public believed, was not a land of perfect communal equality, but rather a land of equal opportunity.