The Vietnam War: Origins Of The Cold War

THE COLD WAR
BY: Rosalia Salinas
History V04B Final
Fall 2014

Immediately in the aftermath of WWII, the world was split into two opposing camps, the Western Bloc which consists of the U.S., its NATO allies and some others and Eastern Bloc consist of the Soviet Union and their allies from the Warsaw Pact. Though they did not fight directly, there were major regional wars in Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan that both sides supported; they were actively engaged in the Cold War. This war did not end until the USSR broke apart in 1991. The Cold War was both created and prolonged by the interconnected economic and ideological tensions of the East and West Blocs. The ideological systems of the two powers were viewed as being complete opposites
The partition of Germany serves as a prime example of how the differing economic policies of the East and West led to the Cold War. As a capitalist system, the United States wanted to use American capitol to invest in Germany and create a stronger economy within the country. But on the other hand, the Soviet Union discovered the idea to rebuild their own country through the use of German resources. These two competing theories on the future of the German economy were the primary reason for the Berlin blockade and the eventual split of the country between Capitalist West Germany and Communist East Germany. With the capitalist economy of West Berlin being administered by the United States, France, and Great Britain, the Soviet Union enacted the blockade as a protection of their German economic policies. This blockade and subsequent division served as a literal example of the separation between the East and West that had taken place and became the Cold
To the West of the Iron Curtain, consumerism came to be the driving force of the economy. Over the years following WWII, the economy in the West began to flourish and grow much faster than in the Soviet Union. In fact, the prosperity of West Berlin was so enticing to East Berliners, that in 1961 the soviet government built the Berlin Wall to stem the extreme rate of immigration of their workers to West Berlin. This wall served to further cement the animosity between the East and West. In the USSR, consumerism was forsaken for the sustained growth of heavy industry. There was even an example of the emphasis placed on this economic plan in Khrushchev’s 1961 “Report to the Communist Party Congress.” In his address, Khrushchev expressed the wish that the economy of the USSR focus primarily on “power engineering, machine building, metallurgy, and fuel industry,” with the funding only coming from the consumer goods, “funds that accumulate as a result of over fulfillment of industrial output.” The post WWII recovery plans both powers established for Europe as a whole also served to reinforce the West as capitalist and the East as communist for the entire post-war period. The Marshall plan enacted by the U.S. was contingent upon the integration of the West European capitalist markets. This plan eventually led to the creation of the European Economic Community in