Cold War Effects

After World War II many more wars were started and negatively impacted many countries for a multitude of years. The Cold War began after World War II and although no actual fighting occurred the tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union lasted for over 40 years. In the beginning the Cold War was focused on all of Germany. After World War II Germany was divided into 4 zones, each region was controlled by a different Allied power. This was done to rid Germany of Nazis and to bring stability to the country. Eventually the four regions combine and it becomes East Germany, controlled by the Soviet Union, and West Germany controlled by France, Britain, and America. Conflict occurred when the Soviet Union wanted East Germany to
be communist while France, Britain and America all agreed on a western style government with capitalism (“Germany Divided.”). These disagreements set up further problems between the US and USSR, years later an arms race between these two nations would begin. As soon as America made a bomb that had a force of 20 million tons compared to the 20,000 tons used on Hiroshima, the Soviet Union's top scientists began developing their own atomic bombs (Lyons 324). Both countries knew they could not use the atomic bombs on each other because it would cause mass destruction, yet they continued to built up their nuclear stockpile and continued the arms race ("Cold War.").
Bombers, missiles and submarines were developed to launch deadly nuclear weapons during the arms race. Although a major physical war never broke out, resources of both the US and USSR were depleted and fear of global destruction increased because of the arms race and increase in nuclear weapons (Beers 813). Besides the Cold War, war in Korea began after World War II. After World War II the Japanese rule in Korea had ended and northern Korean nationalists wanted an independent Korea however, the United States did not believe that Korea was ready to be self governed so they took control of South Korea (Lyons 327). North Korea was under the influence of the communist Soviet Union and South Korea was under the influence of the United States with the division being the 38th parallel (Khanacademy). The Korean War had many casualties, over 2 million Korean civilians died in the war, and 33,000 Americans died ("Korean War."). In 1953 North and South Korea signed an armistice however, even today they are still in a state of war there is just no physical fighting and the 38th parallel still separates the two nations. This event that started because of World War II is still negatively impacting and causing tensions between
these two nations.