Should The United States Anticipate In The Cold War?

Chinese philosopher Sun Tzo once said, “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” The method of combat during Cold War is true example of Tzo’s quote. A war usually involves two opposing sides with in person battle. During the years 1945 to 1991, two superpower countries were engaging in an international power struggle without actually fighting each other. After WWII, the Soviet Union had a large army and the United States had the powerful Atomic bomb, leading to both of the countries distrusting each other. The United States did not want the Soviet Union to expand its communist views to other countries and believed that other countries should have democracy like the U.S. On the other hand, the USSR wanted to expand
were vulnerable to being occupied by the stronger countries or worse, in danger of deathly nuclear warfare. Being that Denmark is in between the United States and Russia, it became a major factor to consider for the two countries in the Cold War. Denmark is directly connected to the continent of Europe and is also a gate to the Atlantic and Baltic Sea. This puts Denmark in a significant geographic location between the two superpowers. The other Scandinavian countries, Norway and Sweden, also had a decision to make regarding which side of the war they would join. Sweden, who had previously claimed neutrality in WWII, insisted that the three countries formed a Scandinavian Defense Union. Sweden was strongly persistent that Norway joined the Scandinavian Defense Union, because Sweden wanted unified strength and believed that Denmark should join so the three countries could be unified. “The Swedish Government therefore felt that it was in the general interest for all three Scandinavian countries to stand together and for Norwegian and Danish military strength to be built up in a joint system…” (Mr. Bevin to Mr. Farquhar Stockholm 3 February 1949) Though strong in theory, Norway and Denmark refused to join the union because both of their countries had been occupied in the Second World War and could not pick neutrality like Sweden. Denmark had history of
This territory was important to both the United States and the USSR because of its strategic location between the United States and Europe in the Atlantic Sea. The United States feared that the Soviet Union would occupy Greenland and use its prime location to enhance USSR power and was adamant about having control over Greenland. The United States knows that the location of Greenland is crucial in order to stop Soviet Union control. When Denmark was occupied by Germany during WWII, the United states had scientific bases in Greenland. The interest in Greenland starts before the end of WWII. Before the Cold War began, the Danish Foreign Ministry visited the United States, where the U.S. offered a substantial amount of money to buy Greenland, but Denmark denied the offer. After WWII ended, Denmark regained sovereignty over Greenland, but the United States kept the stations because of ideal location. Denmark used Greenland to work on meteorology through 1940’s to the 1950’s, but struggled to keep up with the abundance of work and lack of man power. The United States stepped in to help to continue the research for meterology in Greenland. “The formation of NATO in 1949 turned USA and Denmark into closely allied nations leading the way to the defense agreement about Greenland of 1951”( Heymann, Knudsen Without the consent of the Danish Foreign Policy which had stated that nuclear weapons would be