Throughout the middle of the twenty-first century, a series of tension and disagreement erupted between the United States of America and the Soviet Union of Russia. Because it was not a violent time of any major skirmishes or death, it was given the name The Cold War. This period lasted for roughly fifty years, from the end of World War II until the end of the century. Though there is much debate regarding when the Cold War officially began, there is strong evidence for all the events that contributed to the build up towards the war Perhaps the earliest spark of disagreement between the US and Russia was during the Potsdam conference during World War II. At the time, Harry Truman had just taken over the US presidency after the death of President …show more content…
Their goals after the war was over were to rebuild after the devastations of war and redefine their borders to prepare for another attack just as that of Germany. From the Russian point of view, they were devastated that America did not open the second front of the war early enough, causing a great deal of Russian casualties. America also did not help the USSR financially after the war when they did help England, causing more anger to develop. Thirdly, Russia was eager for more land to act as a buffer zone to protect them from future invasions. To compensate for this, they went after the German land that was divided equally between the four main Allied powers. Russian forces blocked all roads that led to the American, British, and French sections of the capital, Berlin. This caused the Berlin Airlift, where these countries were forced to airdrop supplies into Berlin because of the Soviet …show more content…
The Soviet’s growing power was finally addressed in 1946 by former British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. His “Iron Curtain” speech warned Americans about the danger of Soviet expansion, causing all citizens to truly realize that Russia was a major threat. It was now clear that America had to assist any country that was threatened by Soviet Communism. In 1947, the Truman Doctrine was established to do just this. Substantial funds were used for the soul purpose of preventing the expansion of communism, which was further utilized in 1948 to assist Turkey and Greece in this fight. This has been said to be the beginning of the Cold War. However, the tension kept building between the United States and Soviet Union. Soon after the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan was created to aid England in rebuilding their war damages. In addition to this, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, was conceived. This organization consisted of twelve countries that allied together to vow that an attack on one of them would be an attack on all of them. In response to this, Russia developed their own organization under the Warsaw Pact. In 1949, the Cold War was in full swing when Russia exploded their own atomic bomb, no longer giving the US the upper
Throughout the Cold War, America’s foreign policy made a great difference and was very effective. Document A states that the policy towards the Soviet Union must be long-term, which America did just that. It says to keep the Soviets more of a rival than a partner, which they did very effectively. The Truman Doctrine stated that America would help other countries fight communism both politically and physically. This was very effective because it prevented the spread of communism. The Doctrine was clearly shown in Document B, where the U.S. assisted South Korea from communist North Korea.
After World War 2, everyone was happy, unfortunately this happiness didn’t last long. The Soviet Union and United States had many differences. One of those many being, the Soviets believing in Communism and the United States believing in Capitalism. This little disagreement sparked one of the deadliest wars in U.S. history. The U.S. put the Soviets under a policy known as containment. This meant the Soviets were going to be watched and kept under control. This was to insure Communism wouldn’t spread fast or anywhere else. The strongest example of containment is the Cuban missile crisis, while North Korea vs. South Korea is the weakest example.
The Cold War was a major event that occurred after WW2, mainly because of communism, and the USSR conflicts. The US and USSR conflicts were major impacts of the Cold War. “Image of the US and prevent the further spread of communism” (Page 5). “Soviets feared the Marshall Plan would spread to the US” (Page 5). The US was trying to prevent further spread of communism from the Soviet Union.
During the Cold War there are several events and foreign policy interactions that affected the us. The first subject is the way that the United States and USSR handled nuclear weapons and the fear that people had about them. The Space Race was a time of technological advances in which the US was afraid of what russia would do if they had control over space. Joseph McCarthy and the start of McCarthyism was the start of heavy anti communist views. The tension and fear of the Arms race struck fear into both sides leading to several events caused by each side. Tension and fear during The Cold War had a significant effect on the technology, political views, events, the way people lived, and foreign policy.
With the division of Germany between the allied forces, came the commencement of the divided sectors. America now occupied their sector of Germany to the South West enveloping all of Bavaria and some of the smaller surrounding areas. After the halt of forces after the surrender of Germany to the Allied Nations, Russia still had the intention of proceeding forward, but with the United States dropping the two nuclear warheads on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Russia decided to halt their push into Europe further, in the fear that they too would undergo an attack to prevent a further threat. They began research on ways to counter the new threat of nuclear weaponry, and soon armed themselves with their own nuclear weapons. Thus began The Cold War, and the rivalry between Russia, and America would
The USSR agreed to allow free elections in the eastern countries after the war, but they quickly set up communist governments, creating tension between the United States and the USSR (The Yalta Conference). On March 5, 1946, Winston Churchill delivered his famous “Iron Curtain” speech. In the speech, he stated that there was an iron curtain dividing Western and Eastern Europe, and that the western countries did not know what was happening on the other side of the curtain (The Iron Curtain Speech). This further influenced the United States to become involved in containing Soviet expansion. The Soviets, however, felt that the United States wielded too much power, and did not want their influence expanding into their communist countries. As the USSR began expanding, the United States worked to push them back, and as the United States began expanding economically, the USSR also worked to push their influence back. This created an inevitable situation of the two strongest nations competing for power, leading to hostile relations between the two
The period of tension between the world's two superpowers following the Second World War is known as the Cold War. This period was full of tension and fear that the United States and the USSR would destroy each other and the world with their arsenals of atomic weapons. The seeds of this rivalry were planted nearly a quarter of a century before its actual commencement with the Revolution of 1918 in Russia. The Cold War Rivalry would manifest itself in everything from sports in Olympic competition to science and the Space Race. The Cold War did not only take place in the political, athletic and science realms but also heated up in wars and deputes all over the world from Europe, East Asia and the Middle East to South America and off the
The U.S and the Soviet Union had mistrusted each other from the beginning, which started the Cold War. when the U.S was attacked on December 1941, The Soviet Union had made an alliance with them along with Britain, which soon followed with the U.S supplying their allies with military supplies. During their alliance against the fascist powers, Stalin was suspicious which made “The Soviets believed that the Western Allies had
The Cold War was the name given to the time period from 1945 to 1991. After World War II, tensions began between the United States and the Soviet Union. Fighting between the United States and Soviet Union did not happen directly against each other. Instead they fought with arms races, space races, and spying. Both superpowers set aside their differences to defeat Adolf Hitler, even before the war the United States distrusted the Soviet Union. The United States disliked the way the Soviet Union ran government. They believed that the Soviet Union wanted to overthrow the non-communist governments.
Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union forced the United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union into wartime cooperation despite their past tensions. However, from the start, the alliance between the world's leading economic power, the world's largest colonial empire and the world's first Communist state was marked by mutual distrust and ideological tension. The Cold War began shortly after the end of World War II over disagreements on how postwar Europe should be rebuilt. While
From 1947-1991 what is known as the Cold War happened. The Cold War was between two world powers, the USA and the Union of Soviet Republics (USSR). However, the war before the Cold War, World War II (WWII), was what led to the Cold War. The USA was not involved in WWII however, until the Japanese decided to make an attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Since they were attacked, they could no longer ignore what was happening in the world and joined forces with the USSR to stop the war. The USA decided to drop an atomic bomb on the Japanese making WWII “the deadliest war in history”(Boyer, PG. 828). This bomb also ended the war. Once the two forces were victorious they then began their own quarrel.
The fertile farming land of the Ukraine could be used as another additional source of agricultural products and the rich oil fields of the the Caucus could be used to supplement what was already being produced in Germany (Ribbentorp.) When the Soviet Union was defeated the population of the USSR would be a solution to the labor shortages that were happening across Germany (Ribbentorp). And with both the Soviet Union defeated and the possibility to move troops to the western front after the defeat, the allied powers would be more isolated and make the second assault on Great Britain more viable than the first
After World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union emerged as the two new superpowers and as archrivals. The United States wanted to keep the Soviet Union from spreading communism by force so the United States came up with a plan of containment, which was to block the Soviet Union wherever possible to contain the spread of communism therefore beginning the Cold War. (Davidson et al., 2005)
They first sought to recover from the stockpiling and threat of mutual destruction caused by the Cold War. America then looked to make Russia decent again through improvements in their government, their social institutions, and their economy (Talbott 156).
The Cold War took place between the years of 1945 and 1989 ending with the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is considered to be a “cold” war because although no physical confrontation took place, the tensions between nations during those four decades was heightened. Many instances occurred which escalated the Cold War such as the formation of NATO, the Bay of Pigs and the launching of Sputnik. As demonstrated in previous world events, alliances can be both a blessing and a curse as one country becomes obligated to support another should an invasion take place. Similar to the complexity of alliances, failed invasion attempts or military strikes also create frustration and embarrassment for the nations involved. It is also safe to say that countries become competitive with one another when they have similar goals in place. The Cold War changed the way the world operates and its affects are still visible today.