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The cold war

analytical Essay
2042 words
2042 words
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In 1945, most of the countries around the world are devastated further to World War II which had stroke the globe for six years. Only the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic, also called USSR, seem to be in a stable economic situation despite weighty losses. Both states are considered to be the great winners of the war and this is the beginning of a confrontation between two superpowers but also the confrontation between two distinct ideologies: communism and capitalism.
With the shock of two destructive world wars and then the creation of the United Nations, whose aim is to preserve peace, it is unconceivable for these two nations to fight directly in order to promote their own ideology. But the US and the USSR end up to be in competition in numerous ways, particularly in technological and industrial fields. In the same time they start to spread their influence over their former allies. This phenomenon have led to the creation of a bipolar world, divided in two powerful blocs surrounded by buffer zones, and to the beginning of what we call the Cold War because of the absence of direct conflicts between the two nations.
In order to spread their influence and promote their ideologies, the United States and the Soviet Bloc have mainly used two strategies: expansionism, which aim to get the stranglehold on as many places possible and containment, which is used so as to restrict the territorial growth of the opposite camp. But these strategies have led to murderous conflicts and endless wars in some territories, especially in Asia. Finally, it appears that these strategies were at the origin of a significant competition and a rise of palpable tensions all over the world.

From the outset of the p...

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In this essay, the author

  • Analyzes how the berlin wall symbolized the cold war's endurance and the ultimate unanswerable indictment of communism.
  • Analyzes how calvocoressi establishes a parallel between cuba in 1962 and berlin in 1946.
  • Explains that the cold war period was marked by direct conflicts, which were directly related to the hostilities between the two superpowers.
  • Summarizes best, a., hanhimäki, j.m, maiolo and schulze, k.e.
  • Analyzes how the us and ussr are in a bipolar world, divided in two powerful blocs surrounded by buffer zones.
  • Argues that the cold war can be explained mainly by american actions.
  • Explains that hobsbawm, kent, and young, j.w. (2013), international relations since 1945: a global history.
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