Us Involvement In The Cold War

The Cold War was a period of diplomatic tension between the United States and the Soviet Union(USSR), that lasted from the end of WWII(1945) until the separation of the USSR in 1991.The main reasons for the conflict between the two sovereigns are the differences in government types, competition for global influence, and the development of nuclear weapons. The USSR and the US represented two different types of ideologies: Capitalism and Communism. This divide of principles led to deep suspicion between the two countries because they both viewed each other as a threat to their own power. The US perceived communism as a dangerous principle that looked to undermine democracy and the individual freedoms it contained. While conversely, the USSR saw
Both the USSR and the US strived to spread their influence and principles to other countries which led to proxy wars in many regions of the world such as Korea, Afghanistan, and most controversially, Vietnam. This competition of dominance created a strained atmosphere of suspicion and aggression between the two sovereigns. Furthermore, the nuclear weapons being developed during the Cold War added more complexity to the conflict. The USSR and the US took part in an arms race, where nuclear weapons were stored and military power was being built up in order to hinder each other from using the weapons. The fear of the use of these nuclear weapons annihilating each other impending over them, which in all heightened the tensions between the sovereigns. Anti-communism during the Cold War played a crucial role in molding the US foreign policy in that time period. The
Some of these campaigns were mainly based on Allegiance to Americanism, Rejection of communism, and Devotion to these sentiments based on fear of nuclear annihilation. A common theme in these campaigns was the presentation of communism as a threat to Americans way of life and values and contrasting it with the principles of democracy, freedom, and individual rights that America was based on. Educational materials like textbooks, pamphlets, and curriculum were instilled in education systems to invoke a sense of patriotism. Connecting to education, teachers were encouraged to incorporate anti-communism themes into their lesson plans and discussions which instilled national unity within the students. Presentations, guest speakers, and films were also implemented in classrooms to reinforce anti-communism ideology in order to get support from the growing American population. By integrating this type of education into schools and the community, advocacy of the war shaped public opinion by inspiring a sense of urgency about communism's threat to America and other countries which led to the support for foreign policy