The Cold War and The United States Foreign Policy

The United States cannot be blamed without also blaming the USSR and Vice Versa. Both of the countries were aggressive with their foreign policy. Both of these countries were trying to attempt to 'one up' the other side in an attempt to push either communism or Capitalism until Europe. Therefore, both countries as well as Stalin are the main cause of the Cold War. Each country had their own responsibility in the outbreak of the war.

Just as the Soviets wanted to spread communism, the United States wanted to contain communism. Document 4 effectively portrays this policy. The Document is the speech where President Truman is explaining the Truman Doctrine in which the US is to protect any nation battling communist pressures. The speech splits the world into communist and democratic camps, intensifying the nations’ thirsts for more power and stifling the other’s power. Within Document 3, Kennan states that the only way to influence the Soviet Union is through force.

Perceptions and Misperceptions Between the United States of America and the USSR During the early Cold War. When two people are arguing, it is because both parties believe that they are right while the other is wrong. Similarly, when two people are in disagreement, each side tries to convince the other that their points of view, their values are the right ones. The United States of America, as well as the Soviet Union, believed that they were the most powerful and the rightful country to take control. They both believed that they had to take control of the world or else the other would.

The Cold War was an era in which the Soviet Union and America clashed with one another in order to spread what they believed was the ideal method of regime. Through out the 50’s and 70’s, the Soviet Union, believed that communism was the truly the best approach of governing people in a nation. However, from events such as the Manifest Destiny, it was easily fathomed that America considered democracy the key to a successful country. So, both nations created a type of colony in various countries across the world in order to prevent the spread of the other method of government. Zaire was one of the many countries that America had their palms on.

America soon became suspicious of his communist influence.The United States government decided to intervene by indirectly overthrowing the premier. With help from Britain’s Intelligence Agency, the American CIA worked with conservative Iranian leaders to push Shah Reza Pahlavi on the Iranian public. ( History.com) With the threat of Communist expansion, the CIA used their influence to plan a Coup against Mosaddeq. On August 19, 1953,(Brinkley) protests financed by the American government officially brought the Shah into power. He essentially became the absolute ruler of Iran in little time.

He also contrasted the Soviet Union as a state where control was “enforced upon the common people by… police governments,” while the U.S. and Great Britain embodied “the great principles of freedom and the rights of man” (Churchill 303). This belief did not abate as the Cold War dragged on, and caused even more animosity between the two blocs. Even as late as 1961, Khrushchev’s address to the Communist Party Congress still proclaimed the main driving force of the Soviet Union to be the “competition of the two world social systems, the socialist and the capitalist” (Khrushchev 307). This perceived ideological incompatibility also contributed to the formation of alliances in the East and West blocs. These alliances in turn prolonged the Cold War.

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.

However, following the close of the Second World War (WWII) the term ‘Hegemony’ could only be used accurately in reference to the United States of America (USA), and the United Soviet Socialist Republic of Russia (USSR). The ensuing ‘Cold War’ was a period of high risk and deep suspicion between the USSR and the USA during which both entities fought for supremacy and domination over the European empires devastated by WWII (Cold War and the periphery, online). The main clash during the Cold War was an ideological conflict of interest regarding politics and economy. The USA embodied the democratic, capitalist system that believed and preached the concept that trade, industry and means of production should be controlled by private owners with the ultimate goal of profit in a market economy. The belief in the right to universal suffrage and free trade are core princ... ... middle of paper ... ...SSR as a dominant international force, but additionally ensured the survival of the nation as a more domestic, economically secure country.

As stronger nations exercise their control over weaker ones, the United States try to prove their authority, power and control over weaker nations seeing them as unable to handle their own issues thereby, imposing their ideology on them. And if any of these weaker nations try to resist, then the wrath of the United States will come upon them. In overthrow the author Stephen Kinzer tells how Americans used different means to overthrow foreign government. He explains that the campaign & ideology of anti- communism made Americans believe that it was their right and historical obligation to lead forces of good against those of iniquity. They also overthrew foreign government, when economic interest coincided with their ideological ones (kinzer.215).

This is because the Cold War was a consistent battle to be the top military and economic power between the United States and Soviet Union. This was seen through many different events in the Cold War, like the 1947 Berlin Blockade, containment policies, and the stockpiling of nuclear weapons (The Origins of the Cold War). All of these major events were fundamental aspects that motivated the Cold War, and kept the war cold. Hegemonic stability theory is the theory that a central state must establish rules of the game that everyone follows to support the system to have international order (Datta 2016). This means that one country must have both hard and soft power, meaning economic and military power, as well as cultural power, in order to have international order (Datta 2016).