Ivan Novoa
Professor Calvo
AMH2042
23 July 2015
The United States and the Origins of the Cold War Essay
Thinking about the decisions, strategies and goals of Soviet Union and the United States views on world domination and the possible accomplishment of such. The first and main would be to think and observe critically concerning the worldwide political scenery in the years after World War II (1945). This moment in history; taking all the way through the Cold War, may be seen as a lapse of severe ideological polarization through the world. Noticeably there were followers of the two conflicting camps expressing confidence that their philosophy would emerge victorious over the other and become the pre-outstanding type of government around
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If you do not think about 'world domination ' in the Alexanderian or Napoleonic sense, but rather a global hegemonic sense; then yes the Soviet Union (and on the other side of the same coin, the U.S.) were aiming towards world domination during the arms races ' taking place from 1945 onwards.
The Soviet Union in pursuit of its objective of world hegemony during the last half of the twentieth century, not only accepted the premise that military warfare was inevitable and essential, but continued to orient each and every policy and action toward a constant increase of total Soviet military potential. There was no doubt that the advent of Soviet atomic capability would result in a sharp increase in Soviet total power. When talking about this power though, were are not saying that the Soviets possessing a sizable stockpile of atomic weapons would necessarily equal the Soviets attacking the United States and its Allies by direct military action. This was always certainly on the forefront of the political landscape of the time though. When thinking about the employment of military force by the Soviets though, one must take into consideration other Soviet strategic forces already engaged directly, as well as the status of Soviet-controlled areas and peoples. Therefore, at the time, any approximation of estimation of military action; or even guesses about probable Soviet concepts for achieving
The two superpowers in the world, the United States and Soviet Union, had begun to show their strengths immediately after war. Following the war, they got involved in events such as the Berlin Airlift and the Korean War in an attempt to prove who was stronger. After those events the two countries participated in an arms race, a contest in which they competed to see who was to build more powerful weapons. As this race turned into a more serious situation, and Americans started to realize that the United States wasn’t the only one with powerful weapons, fear united them once again. As shown in Document 3, the dominant problem throughout the years 1953-1962 was the threat of war.
Clare, J. (2002). Origins of the Cold War 1945-49. Johndclare.net. Retrieved 29 January 2016, from http://www.johndclare.net/cold_warA1.htm
The presence of plants, flowers and other forms of vegetation in Walt Whitman’s When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher act to enhance the message of each text in diverse and multifarious ways. However, in each of these texts, their presence has an entirely disparate set of meanings and implications. In Whitman’s poem, lilacs are engineered as symbols of vigour, abstract immortality, and vitality. On the other hand, Poe’s short story features plants of various forms as symbols of decay and oppression. In playing this role in each text, these disparate forms of symbolism advance the messages of each text, adding to the mystique and stigma of mental illness on the one hand, and altering the
The Truman administration was more influenced by balance of power considerations than any other considerations, including domestic politics. Because of the external threats to the United States between 1947-1953, it was inevitable that these policies would have been pursued. Most significantly, Stalin at this point was perceived by the Western powers as having expansionist tendencies. Truman saw the Soviets as highly motivated to dominate the world, and committed to aggressively exploiting all opportunities to enlarge their sphere of influence. Considering the context of Truman’s post-W.W.II
There have been many attempts to explain the origins of the Cold War that developed between the capitalist West and the communist East after the Second World War. Indeed, there is great disagreement in explaining the source for the Cold War; some explanations draw on events pre-1945; some draw only on issues of ideology; others look to economics; security concerns dominate some arguments; personalities are seen as the root cause for some historians. So wide is the range of the historiography of the origins of the Cold War that is has been said "the Cold War has also spawned a war among historians, a controversy over how the Cold War got started, whether or not it was inevitable, and
This train of thought and action (the continued stockpiling of bombs by the USSR and also the United States) created Soviet atomic capabilities which then in turn had obvious military implications for the security of the United States.
The historian’s belonging to this school see the Truman doctrine from 1947 as the point when the Cold War started. They put the responsibility for the Cold War on the Soviet Union and its expansionist policy. According to them, this is the reason, why Soviets broke promises from the negotiations during the World War II, especially the Yalta agreement. On the other hand, the U.S. politicians wanted to continue the cooperation between the Allies even after the defeat of the Axis. They put a lot of hope to the newly created organization – United Nations – and the principle of collective security. However, the U.S. needed to react to the Soviet aggression in Europe. They adopted the policy of containment. The orthodox scholars view this policy as necessity because without it “the Soviet Union would have become the master of all Europe, instead of only the eastern Europe” .
The United States had a continued presence in Southeast Asia throughout World War II, and during the Cold War. Post WWII America was thriving with industry, and the economy flourishing. This marked the start of the baby boomer era, and people were happy because the depression was over. America had political interest in both Vietnam and the Philippines because of they wanted to spread democracy and defend people against communism. They also wanted to give Vietnam to France as they once had it, but Ho Chi Minh declared independence for Vietnam and himself president without the acknowledgment of the U.S.. The Philippines had gained their independence from the U.S. in 1946, and then became an ally to them going into the Cold War. The United States drastically influenced the political development in Vietnam and the Philippines by forcing democracy and the American culture on these societies.
1941-1991 is a time span commonly agreed upon. The term was first coined by the
When one U.S. historian wrote, “the Cold War was undoubtedly the most significant factor shaping the American experience during the second half of the twentieth century”, they were likely referring to the Cold War’s colossal influence on American economics, military buildup, and social climate. The Cold War’s effect on these three topics resulted in a back and forth between the United States and its citizens, leaving the nation completely different than it had been at the midpoint of the century. In addition, the Cold War’s widespread effects were heightened by the fact that it also happened to span decades, officially ending in nineteen ninety-one.
what was known as the Cold War. The start of Cold War can be simply
Firstly, by the Potsdam conference beginning July 1945 – near the end of WWII, the USSR arrested non-communist leaders and spread communism to Eastern Europe despite formerly agreeing to free elections in the region, angering US President Truman (BBC, 2014). A highly reliable, government-funded educational source, this suggested that the incompatibility of communism and democracy created the US-USSR political tension and disputes. It corroborated with President Truman (1947), an extremely credible representative of the US, who, in his Truman Doctrine, outlaid support for “free people who are resisting attempted subjugation” (as cited in Pieper, 2012). This comparison of Soviet communism to a “subjugation” demonstrated the outright US hostility towards USSR’s expansion, signifying that a war originating from this political tension – the Cold War – was already solidified. During 1949 – the first years of the Cold War, the USSR built its first atomic bomb, prompting the US to develop a thermo-nuclear bomb (Condon, 1987). This suggested that the competitive
When there is different ideological, political and economic interest, true coalitions between powers do not subsist, in the cessation, one endeavors to impose itself on the other regardless of the arguments and strategies that they utilize and the time that they involve them. This was a conflict between the United States of America, and the Soviet Union Socialist Republicans, and the countries that allied themselves to one side or the other. Although for most the cold war commences after the terminus of World War II, it is liable to have its inchoation’s long afore the First World War. In general, a cold war is a state of perpetual conflict where there is no direct military intervention, but actions are taken strategically, politically and economically (plus sabotage and other indirect denotes); From this perspective there have been historically different cold wars, but in verbalizing of this I’m referring to the conflict that I will relate in this essay. After World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union were the world’s most vigorous nations. They were called superpowers. They had different conceptions about economics and regime. They fought a war of conceptions called the Cold War. The Soviet Union was a communist country. In communism, the regime controls production and resources. It decides where people live and work. The United States is a capitalist country. In capitalism, people and businesses control the production of goods, people decide where they reside
Even before the Cold Wars official start in 1945, there was a heated political and economical tension between the United States of America and the Soviet Union. The Cold War was a complex war on ideologies, and there are many factors that contributed to the political and ethical conflict between the two superpowers.
The Cold War In 1945, the United States and Soviet Union were allies, triumphant in World War II, which ended with total victory for Soviet and American forces over Adolf Hitler's Nazi empire in Europe. Within a few years, yet, wartime allies became mortal enemies, locked in a global struggle—military, political, economic, ideological—to prevail in a new "Cold War. Was it the Soviets, who reneged on their agreements to allow the people of Eastern Europe to determine their own fates by imposing totalitarian rule on territories unlucky enough to fall behind the "Iron Curtain?" Or was it the Americans, who ignored the Soviets' legitimate security concerns, sought to intimidate the world with the atomic bomb, and pushed to expand their own international influence and market dominance? The tensions that would later grow into Cold War became evident as early as 1943, when the "Big Three" allied leaders—American President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Josef Stalin—met in Tehran to coordinate strategy. Poland, which sits in an unfortunate position on the map, squeezed between frequent enemies Russia and Germany, became a topic for heated debate. The Poles, then under German occupation, had not one but two governments-in-exile—one Communist, one anticommunist—hoping to take over the country upon its liberation from the Nazis. The Big Three disagreed over which Polish faction should b allowed to take control after the war, with