Before the vietnam war many social and racial aspects of our country where left overlooked. The events that arose because of our involvement in Vietnam forced people to confront things previously disregarded. . The vietnam war was the catalyst leading to incredible and vast change in our country altering its course forever. Issues such as civil rights, and the public view of war were brought into question by Americans and these changes manifested themselves in the form of popular culture.
Following WWII, after the fall of American enemy superpowers: Japan, Italy, Germany and their allies, two global players remained; the U.S, and the U.S.S.R. Both countries were polar opposites in beliefs. The U.S. was concerned with rebuilding Europe and Asia via the Marshall Plan, and under Truman and Eisenhower they believed in combatting communism wherever it arose. The U.S.S.R beginning with Germany was destined to spread their communist ideals with every turn. This difference in ideology lead the U.S to combat communist threats and beliefs both home and abroad, however the two powers never came to blows, thus, the resulting conflict is known as the cold war.
The cold war changed american attitudes with regards to foreign threats and ideologies and would set the stage for the major cultural movement that occurred in the 60’s during vietnam. One of the major reasons the United States felt animosity towards communism was because of political ideologies such as the Truman Doctrine. The Truman Doctrine was a policy regarding international relations that Harry Truman introduced in a speech to congress on March 12, 1947. To make sure that unstable countries such as Turkey and Greece don’t become subject to communist ideologies and rule Har...
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...ll as by Simone de Beauvoir’s condemnation of marriage and critique of women's role in society, The Second Sex. According to Beauvoir, “Feminist ideas were slowly drifting into the movement.” (Kurlansky, 315) As these ideas slowly became part of the movement the female gender role came into question. Cora Weiss, leader of the Women’s Strike for Peace (WSP) shared her progressive view on the women gender role when she mentioned in a conference, “It’s okay to go out and demonstrate, it’s okay to write leaflets, and it’s okay to go see the president of the United States.” (Wells, 49) Without the anti-war committees, whom included women for protection from violence, but also allowed them to voice their opinions, the women's right movement would not have taken off.
African American’s civil rights took off during the apex of the Vietnam War. According to Richard Righ.
In Chapter 25 of the American Yawp, it talks about the Cold War. Relations were soured between the United States and the Soviet Union after World War II. The Truman administration still sought US-Soviet union cooperation. The Cold War was a global political and ideological struggle between capitalist and communist countries, particularly between the two surviving superpowers of the postwar world: the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). “Cold” because it was never a “hot,” direct shooting war between the United States and the Soviet Union, the generations-long, multifaceted rivalry nevertheless bent the world to its whims.
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 post-war world left the Soviets and the United States in an ideological power struggle. The origin of the cold war is hard to pinpoint. There were several issues and disagreements that led to it. The political differences between the 2 nations were absolute opposites. America was a democracy, a system that allows its citizens to choose the political party in which runs the government. The Communists were led by one of the most vicious dictators in human history, Joseph Stalin.
During the 1960s through the 1990s the United States was involved in a diplomatic standoff with the Soviet Union. Both nations were preparing nuclear weapons to immediate the other. Throughout the world communism was being spread by the power Soviet forces and the United States created the Truman Doctrine to stop the spread of communism in Turkey and Greece. They continued to combat the spread through wars and “rebellions”. Through the extent of the Cold War, the United States made it their mission to stop the spread of communism. This plan both worked and failed in diplomacy throughout Europe, Latin America, and Asia.
The Truman Doctrine was relatively significant in developing the Cold War, and came about because of the worry about Stalin taking over Eastern Europe. The Truman Doctrine was a rule made in 1947 in response to the recent communist takeover of Eastern Europe, to contain communism. This meant that the USA would support any nation who was in danger of being taken over by communism, with money, equipment and advice. The financial side of the Truman Doctrine was agreed in the Marshall Plan i...
After World War II ended, there was still conflict between the United Sates and the Soviet Union. Their alliance broke down between 1945 and 1950. Both were trying to spread two competing views, economically and politically. The next 40 years were a constant battle that we know at the Cold War. The Cold War created new alliances, and new enemies because of the spread and destruction of their economic and political systems.
Now that the idea of a global war has been established, it is important to establish the role of the United States (USA). One of the most important documents in establishing this was the ‘Truman Doctrine’. President Harry S. Truman (1945-53) outlined what would become the basis of US foreign policy for the duration of the Cold War. This was the policy of containment – trying to keep communism from spreading to the rest of the world. His speech to Congress in March 19...
On March 12, 1947, President Harry S. Truman defined United States foreign policy in the context of its new role as a world superpower. Many historians consider his speech to Congress as the words that officially started the Cold War. The Truman Doctrine was a major break from U.S. historical trends of isolationist foreign policy. His speech led to the Cold War policy of containment. Moreover, it served as a precedent for future U.S. policy of interventionism. According to Stephen Ambrose, an important quote from Truman’s speech, "I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures," stands as "all encompassing" and would "define American policy for the next generation and beyond."1 Faced with strong opposition, Truman was still able to achieve a consensus in Congress aimed at quelling the communist threat through active foreign policy and involvement. The Truman Doctrine not only demonstrated the new foreign policy of the U.S., but also helps to explain American foreign policy since the Doctrine’s inception.
In his book Cold War: The American Crusade against World Communism, James Warren discusses the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union, its causes, its consequences, and its future. Warren also analyzes why the United States was so afraid of communism and how this fear controlled both U.S. domestic and foreign policy. In George Washington’s Farewell Address, he warned future leaders to avoid foreign entanglements. However, the United States strayed away from this policy in 1941 after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. From then on, the United States realized that with its great power came great responsibility. The U.S. felt the responsibility to develop a strategy to combat the spread of world communism, which was viewed as the “Red menace.” The U.S. believed that communism would spread from the Soviet Union, across all of Europe; the U.S. understood that the spread of communism would not be very difficult because the destruction caused by World War II left many nations vulnerable to communism. Also, the Soviet Union had a highly-trained army, a ruthless leader, and a nation committed to Marxist-Leninism, which was a belief that human progress is the destruction of Western democracy and capitalism. The Cold War was a military, diplomatic, economic, and scientific struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States. The rivalry between these two nations also affected places such as Korea, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Malaya, and Vietnam. The Cold War controlled many of the crises that occurred the last half of the 20th century. The major conflict of course was the threat of nuclear weapons. Thomas Larson wrote that “the vulnerability to weapons that could destroy entire countries...heightened fears and antagonisms and made th...
The Cold War was a challenge between the USA and the Soviet Union. It prompted the presence of a large number of atomic weapons, two all inclusive belief systems in conflict, and two diverse views in terms of itself, the United States championing a world made safe for majority rules system. Its adversary, the Soviet Union upheld world Communism.
In 1947, the Truman Doctrine announced that the United States needs to take responsibility for defending people throughout the world from communist aggression. The battle between communism and capitalism affected Americans for decades. Known as the Cold War, this conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union, the two dominant world powers after World War II, never actually resulted in a battle. However, the tension itself led to a change in the social, political, and economic aspects of society in America.
The Cold War was an argument between the Soviet Union and the United States of America after WWII. During WWII the USA and the Soviet Union were allies fighting a common cause; Adolph Hitler who was attempting to overthrow the surrounding countries. Although the USA and the Soviet Union were allies, the relationship between the two countries was very tense (What Was). Neither country trusted the other.
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.
From when World War II ended in 1945, all the way up to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Cold War was the center of attention of international affairs. It was a struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union. From an American view the Cold War was a mostly a war on communism. The US caused and maintained the Cold War, the US is to blame for the Cold War for disparish of the communist Soviet Union in support of the political and economic systems.