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After the end of the Second World War, the world was left with two superpowers with competing ideologies: The United States of America and the Soviet Union. The Americans had come out of the war with a surging economy and served as the flagship for the capitalist nations of the West. The Soviets on the other hand practiced Communism, an ideology that was seen as a great threat to the Western way of life. 1 Though they had been allied at the end of the war, both nations quickly moved to bolster their military and economic infrastructure to prepare for the era of pseudo-colonialism and competition between the two powers they both knew would follow. By 1949, the Soviets would become the world’s second nuclear power, launching most of the world into a full out cold war between the communist East and the capitalist West. Competition between these ideologies meant that each side would fight to protect their influence in foreign nations, to spread their ideologies to new nations, and to protect against the spread of their enemy’s ideology to new nations; a policy the West…
In this book writer, John Lewis Gaddis has talked about how Russia and eastern Europe are changing the way history specialists take a gander at the icy war. The primary contention that was made by the writer in this book was " How Soviet's perspective of one-sided security crashed into US's conviction that security is multilateral to create two ranges of prominence: one of compulsion and one of assent." The Partners Atlantic Contract, August 1941,Roosevelt, and Churchill announced 3 Wilsonian after war goals to guarantee global security through a multilateral approach: self-assurance, open market, and aggregate security. Stalin had firmly connected state security with his very own security and trusted security must be accomplished by denying every other person of it and picking up an area while the US thought of security as an aggregate decent inescapable clash.…
“As your Reading and Discussions point out, one of the biggest issues that citizens and politicians confronted during the 1960s was the Cold War, which might be defined as the geopolitical tensions and proxy wars fought between the United States and the Soviet Union. Indeed, for anyone who grew up during the 1950s, 60s, or 70s, the Cold War was a household topic everyone seemed to understand.” When I compare my interviews to the Overview of the Cold War provided I see that over time things have been forgotten and even twisted.…
The Cold War (1945-1991) conquered international relations within a structure of political, economic, and military tension between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Cold War facilitated global leadership by the United States, and provided Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and his successors with an enemy to validate their suppressive regime. The Cold War helped legitimize an unrepresentative government and uphold the Communist Party in the Soviet Union (Kennedy, 1989; Kissinger, 1994).…
The Cold War took off after the end of the Second World War when the United States and the Soviet Union emerged as the two global dominant superpowers each grasping ideologies that were dichotomous from each other. This adverse relationship continued for half a century and the clash of two distinct and differing political ideologies of communism and capitalism saw no clear conclusion or victory for either side. The tense atmosphere resonated not only in the United States and the Soviet Union, but also around the world and into space. For most of the fifty years of the cold war, the ideological struggle and the many indirect physical conflicts between the West and the Soviet Union were in a deadlock with no visible success of either side. However,…
There is a great disparity amongst historians when discussing the point at which the Cold War began. Many begin their analysis of the Cold War in 1945, when the Allied forces overcame Germany. This is a widely accepted catalyst for the start of the Cold War, and indeed, a very important moment for the Allies. It was not, however, where the tensions between the Soviets and the United States began. This essay will discuss how fundamental ideological differences between the two superpowers existed long before the conclusion of the Second World War.…
In the late 1940’s, the United States and Soviet Union had become locked in a Cold War. For about forty-three years, although no war between the superpowers of the United States and the Soviet Union was ever officially declared, the leaders of the democratic West and the Communist East faced off against each other. The war was a dreadful time for both sides, keeping all citizens on edge. Many major events in global history including the rise of the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis were related to the Cold War.…
The Cold War marked a period in history when the United States and the Soviet Union experienced tension. This tension was highlighted by various events that took place in different areas of the world. The Cold War was given that name because of the relationship that developed mainly between the United States and the Soviet Union, this all started in late 1945. During this time major crises occurred, two of those being the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Berlin Airlift. The Cuban Missile crisis was a thirteen-day confrontation between the United States and Cuba with the Soviet Union on their side. The Berlin Airlift was when Russia started to isolate the territories of Germany under their rule.…
The atomic bomb is the subject of much controversy. Since its first detonation in 1945, the entire world has heard the aftershocks of that blast. Issues concerning Nuclear Weapons sparked the Cold War. We also have the atomic bomb to thank for our relative peace in this time due to the fear of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). The effects of the atomic bomb might not have been the exact effects that the United States was looking for when they dropped Little Boy and Fat Man on Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively (Grant, 1998). The original desire of the United States government when they dropped Little Boy and Fat Man on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not, in fact, the one more commonly known: that the two nuclear devices dropped upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki were detonated with the intention of bringing an end to the war with Japan, but instead to intimidate the Soviet Union. The fact of Japan's imminent defeat, the undeniable truth that relations with Russia were deteriorating, and competition for the division of Europe prove this without question.…
Following the end of World War II in 1945, the United States economy began to prosper. However, the end of the war brought on another kind of war, the Cold War. With suspicion and tension between the United States and the Soviet Union, the United States began to conduct research on alternate means to protect the national interest through an improved interrogation processes. One of these highly classified programs was known as “Project: MKULTRA.” According to Dr. Horowitz (2001), the basis for MKULTRA was the use of chemical and biological agents to affect and control or alter human behavior (Horowitz, 2001, p. 209). Dr. Horowitz (2001) states that the two main capacities in which the United States Army and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)…
The orthodox view of the Cold War elucidates its inevitability due to the great ideological differences that existed between the Soviet Union and United States. On the other hand, the revisionists argued that it happened due to the actions that Soviets took and the consequential responses made by the United States as a result of their inflexible, single-sided interpretations of Soviet action. Yet, even with the backdrop of the early Bolshevik conflict in 1918 as well as the great ideological gulf between the Soviet Union and United states, the cold war could have been avoided in its initial stages under President Roosevelt. However, what really determined it was the series of events that occurred after Roosevelt was succeeded by Truman. The inevitability of the Cold War, at its roots, was due to Soviet aggression and attitudes felt by the United States which was exacerbated from the post war climate of the time. To be precise, it was a combination of the subsequent events that followed Truman’s accession that sealed the unavoidability of the Cold War. American diplomatic policies were dictated by their fears of communism as well as opportunities that arise from modern warfare which aided in the evolution of American foreign policies. In the end, the Cold War was inevitable as a result of the conflict of interest between nations, whether it be the ideological gulf between communism and capitalism or the determining the political future of Eastern Europe, which was ultimately fuelled by the unstable post World War II environment.…
“Cold War.” UXL Encyclopedia of U.S. History. Sonia Benson, Daniel E. Brannen, Jr., and Rebecca Valentine. Vol. 2. Detroit: UXI., 2009. 344-349. Student Resources in Context. Web. 16 Jan. 2014.…
Robert describes “ideologies of race, gender, and maturity as mutually reinforcing “notions of modernity” that shaped U.S. and Soviet attitudes and policies, and portrays the Cold War as a struggle between “competing explication claims” emanating from Moscow as well as Washington.” However the main goal was state of survival, after the end of World War II the chance of facing another war was a major treat to the super power and thus wanted to avoid it.…
Cumings, Bruce. 1981 The Origins of the Cold War: Liberation and the Emergence of Separate Regimes.Princeton, N.J., pp 54-67…
The Cold War, from 1945 to 1991, is one of the most important periods of time that has greatly influenced and shaped the modern world. It was not just a battle between two super powers, the USA and the Soviet Union, but also a clash of two really popular ideologies during that time. There was the American claim of fighting for freedom and democracy and the Soviet claims of fighting for the interests of the workers and the common people. Now in theory, these ideologies seemed ethical, but throughout this period, both countries’ actions severely opposed the ideologies they represented on numerous occasions. Some say it all came down to a competition of achieving the most power and influence and just using what they’re supposed to represent as a disguise to hide the true intention of their actions. Now this is partly true and in this reflection I will explain the cynicism caused by both superpowers and decide which one actually represented a greater evil.…