The Soviet Union and the United States served as Allies during World War II. At the end of the war however each side wanted to deal with the aftermath differently. The United States was in favor of a peaceful and cooperative relationship with Germany and their Allies. The Soviet Union wanted revenge on the crimes and atrocities that were committed against them. The United States wanted to push democracy in Eastern Europe yet the Soviets countered this by saying the United States was hypocritical, since at that time the United States supported the Latin countries that were governed by dictatorships. The Soviets were under the impression that this was an effort to boost the UNITED STATES economy. One of the main reasons the Soviets wanted their revenge is because they lost over twenty million citizens in the war. Even though the United States lost 405, 000, this was not as great as the loss suffered by the Soviet Union. Just like when one person gets mad they have to have it their way or no way at all and the Soviets felt this way. They wanted revenge on Germany and did not want to take no for an answer. As a result of World War II the United States came out the most powerful nation in the world, they had learned from their mistakes, as well as the knowledge of how the war could have been prevented. Therefore the United States believed they knew best and ignored the previous isolation policy. Their attitude toward the Soviets was very cocky because they believed they knew what was best. The United States needed to access raw materials, markets for their goods, and security for investments overseas that could only be met in countries with governments like their own. This is another reason the United States wanted to push for democracies overseas. President Truman wanted to have a cooperative relationship with the Soviet Union as long as they did what the United States wanted them to do. He wanted to restrain their expansionist impulses and allow the United States to rebuild Germany and their Allies. Truman knew that he could get away with this because American had a nuclear monopoly which attributed to the United State’s power. Josef Stalin the leader of the Soviet Union wanted to force communism on surrounding nations.
“The distinct differences in the political systems of the two countries often prevented them from reaching a mutual understanding on key policy issues and even, as in the case of the Cuban missile crisis, brought them to the brink of war” (Library of Congress). The Soviet Union and The United States were complete opposites, The United States was a democracy whereas The Soviet Union was a dictatorship. This only began their differences though, their economies, beliefs, goals, and even their fears, everything about them made them different except for their enemy. The
Russia, as a communist state, wanted to spread communism. This is seen through Document 6, where Stalin is portrayed asking the question- who should be freed from freedom next? In other words, who should the Russians free from democracy, or spread communism to? America felt a communist world is dangerous, and thus stood obstacle in the Soviet Union’s path to spread communism. 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. One way this force took form was through international organizations. The democracies of the world, fearful of communism’s spread, created the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Those who made up the organization were to aid each other if attacked. In this way, they could fight the spread of communism through force, in turn, influence the Soviets. The US, as a part of NATO, was now taking direct steps against the Soviet Union, and thus steps toward the Cold War. To counter NATO, the communists formed the Warsaw Pact. This had same purpose as NATO, and hence was also a step toward the Cold War. The different beliefs of the Soviet Union and the United States incited the Cold
...e fight against communism placed a great responsibility on United States and its European allies. In order to back their beliefs, they were responsible to help in the fight against communism. Each country believed strongly in their individual views concerning communism and they were willing to do anything to stop the advancement of this particular form of government. This eventually led to the deaths of thousands of U.S. troops in a war that was being fought for controversial reasons.
After World War 2, two opposing powers emerged, both holding viewpoints which dramatically opposed the other. The US was in favor of capitalism, while the USSR had been in favor of communism since the Russian Revolution. Capitalism provided its’ followers a sense of independence and freedom to compete with other businesses, while communism proposed equal pay for all citizens, regardless of their education or job occupation. This limited the capabilities of those who abided by communist governments, which is why the US decided to start a new policy of containment. The United States’ policy of containment was to stop the spread of communism because of the USSR’s beliefs, actions on impressionable countries, and the direct and indirect threats they posed upon the world.
For the time of WWII the United States and the Soviet fought side by side as allies. Although they were allies with the same cause their partnership was a tense and rocky one. “The United States was always very concerned about the tyranny of Soviet communism and most importantly the blood thirsty ways of its leader Joseph Stalin.” (Taylor 2001) On the Soviet side, the Soviets had always resented the fact that America never really recognized them as legitimate part of the international community and because America delayed its entry into WWII, it resulted in millions of Russians dead. When WWII was over these accusations turned into both sides having a mutual sense of distrust for one another.
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...
Nearly 70 years ago, when the Soviet Union reigned in Europe along with the US, they were still in relative peace with the other world power. In fact, the “Big Three,” American President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Soviet Premier Josef Stalin, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had frequent meetings to discuss strategy and happenings in Europe at the time. Allies they had been, but then something changed though, and growing tensions forced the powers to drift apart. Eventually, it led to the US and the Soviet Union becoming enemies, trapped in a global struggle between political, military, economic, and ideological structures. What caused this opposition, and how is it still going on today?
Both Truman’s and Eisenhower’s governments were engaged in the Cold War, and contributed to increased tensions with Russia. Truman was the initiator of the containment policy, which was implemented throughout the duration of the Cold War. This policy was put into effect in order to prevent the spread of communism.
During World War II, the U.S. and the Soviet Union were allies. However, by the end of the Second World War their relations greatly deteriorated due to two important factors. One of these factors is the Yalta Conference and greatly impacted American-Soviet relations in a negative way in the decade following the War. The second factor is the Korean War between South Korea and North Korea that placed the Soviet Union and the United States on opposite sides.
One of the main reasons for conflict and mistrust between the United States and, the Soviet Union was their conflicting political beliefs. The Soviet Union was a communist country and the United States is a democratic nation. Communism is a type of government in which the government controls the economy in its entirety while democracy is a form of government in which power is held by the people. Just based on that it is extremely apparent that there would be a conflict between these two powers. However, once you factor in World War II it becomes obvious that some sort of conflict was going to be produced from this relationship. When World War II ended, the Soviet Union and the United States were clearly going to be the two strongest countries
Following the ending of the second world war in 1945, another conflict arose between the united states and communist russia, where America and its allies struggled to keep the communist Soviet Union from expanding into Europe, Asia, and Africa. This war had many long-term causes which were the Western democracies became scared of communism, America refused to recognize the USSR after the bolshevik takeover for 16 years, WWII enraged stalin because America and the British had waited so long to open a front in France, which would have relieved pressure on the Soviet Union from the attacking Germans, and The United States terminated Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union before the war was complete. In order to protect his country from another
Tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union had risen fast since the end of World War II, were spurred on by the Space Race and the Arms Race, and peaked dangerously
The United States felt that Soviet Union was a threat and that the spread of communism threaten capitalism and democracy. The Soviet Union felt that capitalism threaten communism because it led to imperialism and greed, which eventually would lead to war. This tension between the two nations maintained the Cold War and provided the reasoning for all foreign policy maneuvers from President Harry Truman to President Ronald Reagan. “The stability of this relationship, however, depended upon a certain balance of forces which could not last for ever.” (Cox p.32) ” Concretely, the ability of the United States to sustain its chosen postwar strategy rested upon six key factors: Military superiority; domestic support for its international role; a reasonable degree of success in the implementation of its foreign policy abroad; loyal and dependent allies; an economy that could bear the costs of the Unit...
At the same time, the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics were involved in the Cold War. They were competing against one another, constantly trying to show that their country (and therefore their form of government and ideals) was the better choice. They were competing for influence over the rest of the world. Eventually the USSR and Communism lost, but far more important results came out of this competition instead.
During World War 2 (1939-1945), the Soviet Union and the USA were allies fighting towards the same enemy, Nazi Germany. At the end of World War 2, it could have been assumed that the two countries would have a firm relationship, however, soon after the war, enmity developed between the two, which resulted in the Cold War. Once Germany surrendered in 1945, the U.S openly formulated a policy of ‘Containment’, and at the beginning of 1948 the Cold War had escalated. Containment was the plan to diminish the rise of Soviet influence in the Western nations. The two countries had opposing economic and political beliefs and ideologies. The Soviet Union espoused Socialism and the USA feared this ideology spreading and Western Capitalist systems losing