A frequent question that comes along with the Cold war was why did it happen and could we have avoided it. The Cold War was not actually a way and mainly created sharp boundaries between the Soviet Union and the U.S.One way that the Cold War could have been prevented was at the time of the split of Germany after WWII. West Germany was held by the Allied powers of UK, Britain and France. The Soviet Union contained East Germany, and they spread their ideas of Communism. Berlin was also located inside East Germany, but the berlin wall separated the East (Communist) and West (Capitalist). There were tons of violence and many attempts to enter into West Berlin by the East Berliners. This had lasted all the way up until the Wall was demolished into pieces by 1989 after the dissolution of East and West Germany. So this could have been prevented because the U.S and Soviet Union could have met at common ground when deciding on their government systems. Since a giant part of the Cold War had to do with the Soviet Union being a communist government while the U.S. had a capitalist government. In the Cold War there were many nuclear threats. We could have looked at the Nuclear bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki towards the end of WWII. Looking at these bombing would have showed us the true power of a nuclear bomb on a country and how inhumane dropping a nuclear bomb would be. From those 2 bombings above alone killed over 200,000 people.
The Cold War was a period of dark and melancholic times when the entire world lived in fear that the boiling pot may spill. The protectionist measures taken by Eisenhower kept the communists in check to suspend the progression of USSR’s radical ambitions and programs. From the suspenseful delirium from the Cold War, the United States often engaged in a dangerous policy of brinksmanship through the mid-1950s. Fortunately, these actions did not lead to a global nuclear disaster as both the US and USSR fully understood what the weapons of mass destruction were capable of.
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 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 United States were in favor of democracy and capitalism while the Soviet Union sought for the chances of influencing communism. 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 raised 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. Also, the Arms Race and forming alliances between the two main powers were important weapons for competition and rivalry in Cold War.
During the cold war, the United States engaged in many aggressive policies both at home and abroad, in which to fight communism and the spread of communist ideas. Faced with a new challenge and new global responsibilities the U.S. needed to retain what it had fought so strongly for in World War II. It needed to contain the communist ideas pouring from the Soviet Union while preventing communist influence at home, without triggering World War III. With the policies of containment, McCarthyism, and brinkmanship, the United States hoped to effectively stop the spread of communism and their newest threat, the Soviet Union.
The Cold War was the most important historic event in the 20th century after the Second World War, from 1945 till 1991 between two most powerful countries in that period – Soviet Union and USA. The Cold War invested a lot in world politics. What is the Cold War? This was a war for dominance in the world. In 1945 the USA was the only one country in the world that had the nuclear weapons. But in the 1949 USSR started to learn their nuclear weapons. In further developments forced the USSR was soon created by nuclear, and then thermonuclear weapons. (Isaacs J, 2008) Fight has become very dangerous for all.
The United States had bought Alaska from Russia partly so that the tsar would not be offended by a refusal. This kind of relation between the two became a rarity later on, especially in the twentieth century. The tense ambiance of this period gave no room for a civil affiliation between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic. After World War II, the two nations battled it out in a conceptual war known as the Cold War. It was characterized by a competition between the nations’ political philosophies- the USSR wanted communism to dominate the world, while the US wanted democracy to prevail. However, the war did not come about suddenly- it was congealed over a period of time by multiple factors. As World War II ended, the
The cold war was a period of tension world wide but it mainly focused between the U.S and USSR. And also played a big role in the assassination because there was potential for a nuclear war. The nuclear arms race that started right after the Korean War was over and it was influenced by both president John F. Kennedy and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev. There was no actual war fought between US and the USSR, but it did promote tension and massive weapon development. One of the reasons why the cold war lasted so long was because the Soviets never accepted the idea that the Western powers would have a totally free hand in Western Germany and they were furious when the Germans in the late 1950s have obtained their own nuclear weapons. President Eisenhower wanted Europe able to defend itself.
Fear and uncertainty surrounded the Cold War, however thanks to these technological advancements during the Cold War it helped to keep offensive weapons from being fired and destroying the world.
The Cold War presented the United States with a unique decision. The Soviet Union had created a space program and the United States needed to decide if a space program would be beneficial for them. The Soviets sent probes out to space, and soon American probes followed. There are many reasons that the U.S. could have made this decision, but two reasons are more prominent that the others. Firstly the United States found it necessary to compete with the Soviets, and they could not accept the fact that the U.S.S.R had something that they didn’t. Secondly, JFK and his administration thought that space was the final frontier, and it would provide valuable scientific research. Ultimately, John F Kennedy and the United States decided to create a space
Containment and the Cold War In February 1946, George F. Kennan, an American diplomat in Moscow, proposed a policy of containment. Containment is the blocking of another nation’s attempts to spread its influence. During the late 1940s and early 1950s the United States used this policy against the Soviets. The United States wanted to take measures to prevent any extension of communist rule to other countries.
The Cold War was the battle between the spread of communism and the spread of capitalism. The U.S. wanted to eliminate communism and they would do anything to stop it. “President Truman suggested that the U.S. should help all of the non-communist countries by providing food, weapons, and other things to help keep the countries strong”(Document 2). Truman suggested this in his speech to congress. This would help create new alliances. Most of the capitalist alliances were on the West side of the divided Europe. “Winston Churchill mentioned the ‘iron curtain’ that divided Europe into two seperste areas”(Document 1). The East side of the divided Europe were influenced or taken over by the Soviet Union. They were trying to continue spreading. The Capitalists made plans
War. Humans have thrived from war for as long as we can remember. The United States has been fighting wars ever since we found the new country in North America that we now call the United States. We fought against our selves for the freedom of others. We fought in several world wars. We have always fought. But in the late 1940's “war” changed forever. This was well known as the Cold War. Why was this so different? “ The world had never experienced anything like it. The Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States was a half century of military build-up, political maneuvering for international support (Hanes, Sharon M., and Richard C. Hanes).” This means that the world has always seen war as either hand to hand combat or gun to gun combat. With soldiers and foot patrols, but this was basically an arms race. Who was to blame for this struggle? I believe that the Cold War was caused by both nations.
The Cold War could have been prevented. Franklin Roosevelt gave Eastern Europe to the Russians at Yalta. When Roosevelt negotiated at Yalta, he was not feeling the pain and needs of the people in Nazi concentration camps and the fire bombings. However the rest of Europe wanted revenge for this. They wanted
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.
even though these were the only potential military threat to the US. It was always the "political" threat of so-called “Communism" that was the primary concern. Of course, both the US and USSR would have preferred that the other simply disappear. But since this would obviously have involved mutual annihilation, the Cold War was established.
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.