Cold War: Conflict Between The US And Soviet Union

Freddie Lin and Lucy Chang
Mrs. Dollenberg
10-B Mainstream
14 January 2015
Cold War Duck and Cover Cold War is a conflict between USA and Soviet Union after World War two. Suspicion and mistrust had defined the US and the Soviet Union relations for decades. Although Cold War was called a “war”, it didn’t really use weapons to fight with each other. Both superpowers threatened each other with nuclear annihilation and participated frequently in supporting allied nations, which had violent wars, like Korea, Vietnam, and Angola. The most important underlying causes were the ideology and economic. The USA and the Soviet Union represented two opposing systems of government, capitalism and communism. In the USA, the president of the government is
When WWII ended, Korea had been divided into a Communist, northern and southern half divided at the 38th parallel. It seemed like the Korean War might be an inflection point in the Cold War, but the USA announced that they had no interest in Korea because it had no geopolitical significance. However, the Soviet Union supported North Korea to invade South Korea. The Korean War began when the North Korean Communist army crossed the 38th Parallel and invaded non-Communist South Korea in 1950. The North Korean and Soviet army overran South Korea. The US provided the majority of the United Nations forces. At first the United Nations was only trying to defend South Korea, however, after the first fight, Truman decided to attack. He said the war was now about liberating North Korea from communism. General George MacArthur led the UN forces on an attack at the Battle of Inchon. The Battle was successful; MacArthur was able to attack North Korean army and let South Korea be back to the 38th parallel. However, China wasn’t happy with MacArthur and they sent troops to North Korea with the South. On July 17, the Korea War ended under a treaty. As a result, both countries would remain independent and the border would stay at the 38th parallel. However, between the two countries, there’s a 2 mile demilitarized zone, which was placed to act as a buffer in hopes to prevent future
When he came to power, political and economic problems were serious, so he came up with a two-tiered policy of reform. On the one hand, Gorbachev gave people freedom to speak in public; on the other hand, he started a program to reform the economy of the nation called “perestroika”, which means “rebuilding”. After Gorbachev gave people freedom to speak in public, the people were extremely angry because their feelings have been inhibited for such a long time. Also, Gorbachev's economic reform didn't show an immediate result, so people all over the country blamed him. The Soviet Union started to collapse on the outside, which was the non-Russians. There were people whom had that have different ideas in the Baltic region. Then, more and more similar dissent came up. Finally, everything came to an end. Gorbachev was kidnapped by the communists, and they announced that Gorbachev was ill and unable to govern. After this, massive protests started in large cities. The organizers told the soldiers to kill them, but they refused. Three days later, the coup organizers surrendered because they didn’t have the support of the army. Finally, the Soviet Union collapsed, people wanted democracy, but not centralized power. The Cold War