Cultural Consequences of the Cold War

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The Cold War became a principal influence on many features of American society for much of the second half of the 20th century. It rose owing to antagonist values amid the United States, demonstrating democracy and capitalism, and the Soviet Union, signifying communism and totalitarianism. Being the two principal world powers after WWII, controversy amid the Americans and Soviets became a worldwide conflict. The Cold War varied from most wars because it was as a great deal of a propaganda war than a war with military involvements. The Korean and Vietnam conflicts are significant instances of military intrusion by the Americans for the sake of impeding communist expansionism. Conversely, these wars did not have the decades-long influence on American domestic and foreign policy that the cultural, political, and economic battles of the Cold War had.

Cultural battles amid the then two superpowers had as a good deal, or more, of an influence on the daily lives of many American nationals than any other feature of the Cold War. As a propaganda instrument, national security bureaus supported Hollywood to create anticommunist movies and recommended that movie scripts be distorted to eliminate references to less-than-praiseworthy features of American history (Foner 851). This directed to a litany of movies that assisted in sparking patriotism, that nevertheless they as well raised suspicion of communist activity in America. These anticommunist attitudes became unmanageable and ended up functioning against Hollywood for the period of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) trials against alleged communists in Hollywood. Whereas some communists were eradicated, many more lives were destroyed rooted in weak proof, unconfirmed alle...

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... equipped the Afghan guerrillas to battle the Soviet troops. This War was a prime factor in bankrupting the Soviet Union.

In the ‘80s the US President, Ronald Reagan hailed the Soviet Union as an "evil empire" and foresaw that it would be consigned to the ash heap of history. He publicised a major weapons expansion and the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI )also nicknamed as "Star Wars". The Soviet Union was too economically constrained to reply in kind. In the year 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev was made the leader of the Soviet Union. He adopted an appeasing attitude towards the Americans and many arms reduction pacts were signed. In 1989, the soviet withdrew from Afghanistan and in 1990, the Soviets decided to the reunify Germany. Movements alongside communist governments in Eastern Europe followed suit. The Soviet Union ended in 1991 marking the end of the Cold War.

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