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.
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.
The Cold War was unlike any war in the world’s history. It was a war based on fear and tension instead of blood and rage like the world had already grown accustomed to. It was a battle that took place on no frontier and left no blood soaked land. Instead, it was a battle that took place in the minds of the United States of America’s citizens and the citizens of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. It was a battle of wits that many feared would lead up to the third World War. On the contrary, it led to almost nothing. It just ended without any real battle. The only battles fought in this war were battles of psychological warfare which included propaganda against communism and in support of the Cold War, McCarthyism or what resembled witch hunts which contributed to the Red Scare in the United States of America, the Space Race, the Berlin Airlift, and then the creation of the Hydrogen Bomb. The creation of the bomb created tension between the two world super powers, but there was not any usage of the bomb. The bomb just remained a terrorizing thought in the back of many scared citizen’s minds.
The Cold War, which is said to have lasted from the end of World War II to the dismantling of the Soviet Union in 1991. Intrinsically, this Cold War was a tense political period between the Democratic and Communist blocs, the East and the West, and most importantly, the United States and the Soviet Union. Although this period has now come to an end, many disputes have been raised concerning the initial conference at Yalta near the end of the Second World War, and the actual causes of the Cold War tensions involving Communist and American aggression.
The “Cold War” was a unique time period were paranoia ran high and the world was at a stalemate as it watch the competition between the two world superpowers,(U.S. and the U.S.S.R.).
The Cold War historiography, specifically the issue of nuclear deterrence has provided historians the classic dialectic of an original thesis that is challenged by an antithesis. Both then emerge in the resolution of a new synthesis. Unfortunately, each evolution of a new synthesis is quickly demolished with each political crisis and technological advance during the Cold War narrative. The traditional/orthodox views were often challenged by the conventional wisdom with the creation of synthesis or post revisionism. There appears to be a multiple historiographical trends on nuclear deterrence over the Cold War; each were dependent and shaped upon international events and technological developments. I have identified four major trends: the orthodox, the revisionist, the post revisionist, st and the New Left. Each of these different historical approaches had its proponents and opponents, both in the military as well as the political and
The Cold War was an interesting time period for the world, seeing that it was after one of the biggest and most memorable wars ever. Yet, it was a different type of war. One that no one had ever seen before, it was a war without fighting (kind of). It was a war fought in between the USSR and the United States. Each side also included their allies: the US had NATO and the USSR had the Warsaw pact. The timeframe of this war was from 1947 to 1991. Despite the fact that this war is one of the longest in our history, I have chosen three main points that I think are vital for understanding the Cold War.
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 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.
1989 the two countries and their allies were involved in a conflict known as the Cold War. The United States and the USSR never used weapons directly against each other. So how was the Cold War fought? The Cold War was fought through Proxy Wars, the Nuclear Arms Race, spying, strong words and threats, prestige, and the Space Race.
The Cold War was one of the most important political confrontations of the twentieth century, with the potential to wreak enormous damage to the world and its inhabitants. It began during the last stages of World War II when the alliances were crumbling and ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Cold War was the 20th century's version of great power rivalry (except they were superpowers with the ability to annihilate each other with nuclear weapons at a moments notice.)
The Cold War is the rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United States that followed World War II and shaped world politics between 1945 and 1989. There are many things that could have set off the start of the Cold War. Some historians believe that it was one thing and other people may believe that it was something else that had set it off. There are many origins or causes of the Cold War.