In the later half of the 20th century, the two biggest world powers, the United States and the Soviet Union, were locked in a state of high tension. An official war between the two could destroy the whole world due to the invention of nuclear arms. Instead, America and the Soviet Union fought through other fronts, such as proxy wars, technological races, and economic strength. The Cold War led to the creation of many policies, institutions, and ideals, which fundamentally transformed American foreign policy. However, the Cold War failed to fundamentally transform American life, although it did lead to new movements that changed American life.
During the Cold War, both sides negatively portrayed the other through propaganda. The Soviet Union
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The U.S then pushed their foreign policy further, by employing brinkmanship, which pushed both nations to the brink of war. Because of this, the federal government’s power, specifically the President, expanded. The CIA, which answers directly to the President, was created and nuclear bombs went under Presidential control, which increased executive power. With these new powers, the U.S could be better prepared for a possible war with the Soviets. However, the U.S needed to be more prepared, militarily and technologically. The Space race led to the creation of NASA, while the desire to build up militarily lead to the Military Industrial Complex, which is a partnership between the military and the weapons industry. This left the U.S at the top of economics, technology, and weaponry, which persists into the present. All this led to a fundamental change in American foreign policy because the U.S has the means to go to the brink of war and over for the sake of stopping communism and other conflicts, whereas prior to the Cold War, the U.S wasn’t as militarized and willing to go to
Although the Soviet Union and the United States fought together during World War II against the Axis Powers, the relationship between the two grew bitter going into the 1950’s Cold War. The Cold War left a dominant impact on the U.S. and American living throughout the 20th century. The fall out between the U.S. and the Soviet Union created various issues that United States dealt with (Suddath). The United States was a capitalistic country, while the Soviet Union, also known as the USSR, was lead by a strong communist influence. The expansion of Soviets into Eastern Europe fueled most of the fear the U.S. had of Russia, that they would attempt to influence many more countries.
After the events of World War II, there was growing tension between the United States and the Soviet Union in 1946. This growing tension developed into the Cold War, which would dominate American foreign policy. Foreign policy changed within the beginning years of the Cold War, as both the US and Soviet Union wanted to assert their power without creating international conflict and devastation.
There have been various ideologies, events, and origins of the Cold War that have dominated American foreign policy from 1946 to 1989. The Cold War was a time of conflict between between the U.S. and the USSR; the two Superpowers saw each other as a threat. Thus they continued to fight to preserve their positions. Each side became involved in events such as the Korean War. They each stood behind the other nations fighting. Together the rise in communism, a rise of the Soviet influence dominated American foreign policy, and the creation of the Warsaw Pact.
Throughout the Cold War, America grew into a state of frenzy, the US was in fear of communism taking hold across Europe and the USSR wanted to create a line of allies between themselves and Germany, Russia had just been attacked twice by m by Germany in 50 years and did not want it to happen again. With Russia trying to create more communist allies for protection and America's fear of the spread of communism adding in miscommunication and mistrust the two countries clash and a metaphorical iron curtain fell down between the democratic West and communist east. This affected US domestic policy and society in many ways including fear of the spread of communism, preparing for war activities, and competition with the Soviets. A great way to show how fear of the spread of communism or the red scare affected
The Cold War had a significant impact on American foreign policy, changing it substantially in both attitudes to social and economic factors. The heavy influence of a difference in political standing between the Soviet Union and the United States, in conjunction with the high tensions that followed in the post war period, set the foundations for American foreign policy to adapt and change to better suit the developing political agender of the time. Socially, the two sides were heavily split, with the Soviet Union seeking communist support and allies whilst the US sought to counter their progress in a similar manner. Economically these relations with foreign countries that either joined the eastern or western blocs helped to further the
The Cold War Era that followed the end of World War II was unlike any Americans had seen before. After defeating Germany and its allies in the war, the United States faced a change on the home front: young Americans rushed into marriage and parenthood in unprecedented numbers. In Homeward Bound: American Families in the Cold War Era, Elaine Tyler May describes these changes from the end of the war through the early 1960s. The author makes a compelling range of arguments about the changes that affected Americans during this period. Mainly, May argues that the “domestic containment” that arose after World War II promoted the new dynamic of a suburban lifestyle, in part because of the increasing fright of looming communism during the Cold War Era.
Tensions during the Cold War sparked many changes in American legislation, altering the way many lived their lives. One of the most obvious areas of change is in education, with the fear of Soviet dominance causing transformations across the nation. The severe adjustment of government education changed the way students learned, the information taught in the classroom, and the overall view of education in the eyes of the public in a positive way.
Following World War II disputes between soviet and the Western democracies kicked up, particularly dealing with the fate of Eastern European states and the Soviets influential takeover. The communist takeover of Eastern Europe clashed with the democratic rebuilding of Western Europe forming what Winston Churchill described as a “Iron Curtain” a political, military and ideological barrier set by the Soviet Union served to set a metaphorical boundary between the Soviet expansion and the Western democracies. With the fall of the “Iron Curtain” “The Cold War was a period of East-West competition, tension, and conflict short of full-scale war, characterized by mutual perceptions of hostile intention between military-political alliances or blocs.”
After World War II, the United Nation was established; however, there were many different perspectives among its permanent members: China, Russian, US, Britain, and France. Each country had different ways to maintain their influences over the world. During the cold war, many countries were established by using the violence to gain the power. During the Vietnam War, the Vietcong organization under support of Soviets Union and North Vietnam continued use terror as the tool to attack South Vietnam government and fear the people lived within. To gain more power and more influences to other half of the world, Soviet Union and its allies such as Syria, Libya secretly supported the terror group and used them as a political tool to break down the Western countries. The terror groups such as PFLP and the PLO usually targeted to citizen of Israel, and US allies. The attack during the Olympic 1972 became most effective for terrorists when Israel had to free fifty prisoners to exchange hostages. Although the ending of tension and completion between the Soviet Union and the United States led to the termination of the Soviet Union, and many of the terrorist of groups based in the United States and Western Europe began wither after Communism fell, terrorism did still survive. In order to maintain and stay alive, terrorism needs to have a sponsor. The state sponsors of terrorism are between Iran, Syria, and their sponsorship group Hezbollah. The states and organizations of the United
During the era of the Cold War, starting in 1947 and definitively ending in 1991, the United States and the Soviet Union faced off in conflicts with each other through smaller states.
The U.S. needed Soviet information so they decided that the best way on gaining information was using a Utility Plane from great heights. On May 1, 1960 Soviets shot down an American U-2 spy plane that ended the rumors of the U.S. and Soviet Union allying to conquer the space race. This attack caused many disagreements and fights which led up to the Cold War. The U-2 spy plane incident which sparked great anger was the climax of the Cold War.
In the years spanning the Cold War, government types affected their societies by instilling new foreign policies, influenced the opposing population’s outlook towards communism and democracy through propaganda, and encouraged the establishment of new industries and trade agreements to support the war effort.
The Cold War was a state of economic, diplomatic, and ideological discord among nations without armed conflict. The Cold War was between the United States and the USSR because these were the two major powers after WWII. Basically, the Cold War was a series of proxy wars that had taken place back in time involving surrounding countries. One of the main causes for Cold War was that the Soviet Union was spreading communism and the United States didn’t like that so they were trying to contain communism. However, in the end they failed. Many events took place in other countries. In Korea, Vietnam, Latin America, and China, communism took over; however, before it did, major wars had taken place. The cold war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union worsened the condition of countries involved. The Cold War broke countries into two parts that turned against each other, the United States and the Soviet Union used these countries to fight their war and caused a big disturbance to daily life, and the Communist States fought the Non-Communist States; however, the end results of these wars only caused more damage in these countries.
After World War II, the United States had effectively become the most powerful and influential country in the world both militarily and politically. During America’s rise to power, however, hostilities mounted between America and the Soviet Union, resulting in a fierce rivalry. The Cold War, which never involved direct military confrontations between the two nations, involved of the struggle to contain the spread of communism, extreme anti-communist attitudes in America, and a reemergence of the civil rights issue.
The US had a supreme military that was creating new, unheard of weapons, such as the atomic bombs that flattened entire Japanese cities. These new weapons , in addition to the increased naval and air force the US was building both in and outside of its borders , added to the USSR opinion that the US was trying to become a “world supremacy” who believed they had the right to rule . The establishment of military bases throughout