The Cause Of The Cold War

1397 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: US policies during the cold war

To what extent were Stalin's pre-Cold War actions the reason for the cause of the Cold War? Between

1945 and 1991, military and political problems appeared between the powers of the Eastern and

Western Bloc. Stalin's insistence upon the Soviet Union taking control of Eastern Europe was not after

was not without justification. Stalin wanted Soviet control of the nations of Eastern Europe, which

American's viewed as Stalin wanting world domination.; all this commencing the start of the Cold War.

To determine the extent of the Stalin's effect on the Cold War, the investigation will compare the two

interpretations: that the fault of the start of the Cold War is because Stalin and the U.S.S.R. not keeping

the promises they had made at the Yalta conference, and enforcing Russian Regimes in these countries,

as well as the interpretation that the reason for the Cold War was the fault of president Truman because

the USA did not shared the the technology involving the atomic bomb with Russia at the end of World

War 2.

B. Summary of Evidence

Plokhy, Serhii. Yalta: The Price of Peace. New York: Viking, 2010. Print.

Harbutt, Fraser J. Yalta 1945: Europe and America at the Crossroads. New York: Cambridge UP, 2010. Print.

Rhodes, Richard. Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007. Print.

Yalta Conference (Plokhy 55)
On 2 February 1945 U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, British prime minister Winston S. Churchill, and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin met in the Crimean city of Yalta to discuss Allied war aims.

Stalin had three goals he wanted to acquire from the Yalta conference. His first goal was to gain a hug...

... middle of paper ...

... worsened between the superpowers since the conference.

The Beginning of the Race (Groueff 145-178) (Roberts 210-215)

The nuclear arms race was central to the Cold War. Many feared what direction the Cold War was going with the impression that the more nuclear weapons you had, the more successful and powerful you were. Both America and Russia massively increased their abundant amounts of nuclear weapons.

The nuclear arms race was a competition for supremacy in nuclear warfare.

Both American and Soviet experts aimed at using nuclear weapons to bring out concessions from the one another, or from powerful countries like China. However, the risk attached with using these nuclear weapons was very dangerous that they avoided what John Foster Dulles referred to as brinkmanship.

The Americans lacked confidence, and in the 1950s they hoped in a non- existing bomber gap.

Show More
Related

  • How The United States Contained Communism in the Cold War

    876 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...ills and built bomb shelters in preparation for possible nuclear warfare. The U.S. also built up its army and its air force, just to be prepared. Overseas, the U.S. enforced the Eisenhower Doctrine, which was a threat warning communist countries not to attack the Middle East, lest they wanted to begin and all out war. The United States also engaged in an Arms Race with the Soviet Union to see who could build the most powerful and destructive weapons and technologies. Brinkmanship was effective in preventing war because neither the United States or the Soviet Union was really prepared to fight yet another war.

    Read More

  • Was Truman Responsible for the Cold War?

    1312 Words  | 3 Pages

    However, evidence that is presented may indicate otherwise, as Joseph Stalin provides adequate counter claims for discrediting the “simplicity” of “yes”. Within this controversial topic, two authors provide their sides of the story to whom is to blame and/or responsible for the “Cold War.” Authors Arnold A. Offner and John Lewis Gaddis duck it out in this controversial situation as each individual leads the readers to believe a certain aspect by divulging certain persuading information. However, although both sides have given historical data as substance for their claim, it is nothing more than a single sided personal perception of that particular piece of information; thus, leaving much room for interpretations by the reader/s. Finding the truth to either claim is the obligation of the reader and outside research would accommodate the authors potential inadequacies and personal fallacies.... ...

    Read More

  • The Decisions of Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin in WWII

    634 Words  | 2 Pages

    "Teheran Conference." Europe Since 1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of War and Reconstruction. Ed. John Merriman and Jay Winter. Vol. 5. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2006. 2505-2507. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 26 Feb. 2014.

    Read More

  • Ronald Reagan and the End of the Cold War

    1884 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Cold War was a post-World War II struggle between the United States. and its allies and the group of nations led by the Soviet Union. Direct military conflict did not occur between the two superpowers, but intense economic and diplomatic struggles erupted in the country. Different interests led to mutual suspicion and hostility in a rising philosophy. The United States played a major role in the ending of the Cold War.

    Read More

  • Cold War Revisionism

    1546 Words  | 4 Pages

    Yalta Papers Bare Seeds of Cold War. (1955, December 30). Chicago Daily Tribune, pp. 1-2.

    Read More

  • Cold War

    1240 Words  | 3 Pages

    During the late 1940's and the 1950's, the Cold War became increasingly tense. Each side accused the other of wanting to rule the world (Walker 388). Each side believed its political and economic systems were better than the other's. Each strengthened its armed forces. Both sides viewed the Cold War as a dispute between right and wron...

    Read More

  • The Cold War

    1177 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe became the East nations, and the United States, centered on NATO formed the West nations, dividing the world in two. Belonging to neither the East nor the West, developing countries were called Third World nations and became a stand-in for wars between the East and West (Gaddis, The Strategies of Containment 70-78). The end of WWII and the beginning of the C... ... middle of paper ... ... a, from containment to rollback in Korea; welcoming European integration because it portended the creation of an economic unit that encouraged technological innovation; building a configuration of power in the international system, nurturing free markets while safeguarding American interests, a constant in Washington for more than 35 years; and, free political economy at home were just a few of the strategic methods used to change, influence, and shape American domestic policy (Leffler, The Specter of Communism,100-129).

    Read More

  • Was President Truman Responsible for the Cold War?

    1090 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Soviet Union began to view the United States as a threat to communism, and the United States began to view the Soviet Union as a threat to democracy. On March 12, 1947, Truman gave a speech in which he argued that the United States should support nations trying to resist Soviet imperialism. Truman and his advisors created a foreign policy that consisted of giving reconstruction aid to Europe, and preventing Russian expansionism. These foreign policy decisions, as well as his involvement in the usage of the atomic bomb, raise the question of whether or not the Cold War can be blamed on Truman. Supporting the view that Truman was responsible for the Cold War, Arnold Offner argues that Truman’s parochialism and nationalism caused him to make contrary foreign policy decisions without regard to other nations, which caused the intense standoff between the Soviet Union and America that became the Cold War (Offner 291)....

    Read More

  • The Historiography of the Origins of the Cold War

    2675 Words  | 6 Pages

    There have been many attempts to explain the origins of the Cold War that developed between the capitalist West and the communist East after the Second World War. Indeed, there is great disagreement in explaining the source for the Cold War; some explanations draw on events pre-1945; some draw only on issues of ideology; others look to economics; security concerns dominate some arguments; personalities are seen as the root cause for some historians. So wide is the range of the historiography of the origins of the Cold War that is has been said "the Cold War has also spawned a war among historians, a controversy over how the Cold War got started, whether or not it was inevitable, and (above all) who bears the main responsibility for starting it" (Hammond 4). There are three main schools of thought in the historiography: the traditional view, known alternatively as the orthodox or liberal view, which finds fault lying mostly with the Russians and deems security concerns to be the root cause of the Cold War; the revisionist view, which argues that it is, in fact, the United States and the West to blame for the Cold War and not the Russians, and cites economic open-door interests for spawning the Cold War; finally, the post-revisionist view which finds fault with both sides in the conflict and points to issues raised both by the traditionalists as well as the revisionists for combining to cause the Cold War. While strong arguments are made by historians writing from the traditionalist school, as well as those writing from the revisionist school, I claim that the viewpoint of the post-revisionists is the most accurate in describing the origins of the Cold War.

    Read More

  • COLD War and the Arms Race

    1673 Words  | 4 Pages

    When President Truman authorized the use of two nuclear weapons in 1945 against the Japanese in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II, the nature of international security was changed irreversibly. At that time, the United States had what was said to have a monopoly of atomic bombs. Soon thereafter, the Soviet Union began working on atomic weaponry. In 1949, it had already detonated it first atomic bomb and tensions began to heat up between the two countries. With the information that the Soviets had tested their first bomb, the United States began work on more powerful weapons1, and a fight for nuclear superiority had begun.

    Read More

  • The Truman Doctrine Essay

    1798 Words  | 4 Pages

    War is an idea that has existed since the dawn of humanity, and with every war there are goals and motives, the Cold War is no different. The turmoil of the first World War in set the global stage for the future of relations between the United States, Russia, Britain and other countries. As the Russian civil war grew fiercer, allied forces, including U.S. forces, laid foot on Russian soil, at which point things took a turn for the worst. The Cold War was a war of competition, in every sense of the word; and although both the United States and the Soviet Union were teetering-tottering on the brink of war for many years after the first World War, ultimately the United States is to blame for initiation of the Cold War, as the United States adjusted

    Read More

  • Outline of Essay About the Origins of the Cold War

    455 Words  | 1 Pages

    Outline of Essay About the Origins of the Cold War OUTLINE: Introduction- 1. Definition of ‘Cold War’ and the Powers involved 2. Perceived definition of ‘start of Cold War’ 3. Iron Curtain Speech, Truman Doctrine and Berlin Blockade as significant events that caused strife between both powers, but which triggering off the start of the Cold War Body- 1. Iron Curtain Speech (1946) - A warning of Soviet influence beyond the acknowledged Eastern Europe - Churchill’s belief that the idea of a balance in power does not appeal to the Soviets - Wants Western democracies to stand together in prevention of further

    Read More

  • Causes Of The Cold War

    601 Words  | 2 Pages

    characterized international relations and dominated the foreign policies of Europe. It affected all of Europe and determined lasting alliances. The Cold War was caused by the social climate and tension in Europe at the end of World War II and by the increasing power struggles between the Soviet Union. Economic separation between the Soviets and the west also heightened tensions, along with the threat of nuclear war.

    Read More

  • The Causes of the Cold War - Post-Revisionist

    3007 Words  | 7 Pages

    "When a power vacuum separates great powers, as one did the United States and the Soviet Union at the end of World War II, they are unlikely to fill it without bumping up against and bruising each other" (Gaddis). This 'bumping' and 'bruising' caused the tensions and hostilities that surfaced in the years following WWII.

    Read More

  • who if any one won the cold war?

    680 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

More about The Cause Of The Cold War

Open Document