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American Role In The Cold War

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The Cold War was a period of continuous tension between the United States and the Soviet Union lasting from 1945 to 1989. As the two nations emerged from World War II as world superpowers, the race for supremacy commenced. While American democracies consisted hostility towards the idea of a communist state, the Soviet Union aimed to dominate the Eastern hemisphere with their communist ideals. Although the two superpowers never engaged in full scale combat, their rivalries produced a long period of mutual distrust and antipathy. American presidents Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan all played large, impactful roles during the Cold War, however, they each attempted to lead their country to peace in respective ways.
Harry Truman, …show more content…

Albeit Truman had used the atomic bomb to “chiefly end the war” (Gaddis, 26), Soviet leader Joseph Stalin saw the bomb as a means by which “the United States would seek to extract postwar concessions from the Soviet Union” (Gaddis, 26). It was on this day in history in which tensions visibly emerged between the United States and the U.S.S.R. due to president Harry Truman’s controversial decision to use the atomic bomb. In his book The Cold War, John Gaddis states “The Cold War’s roots in the world war, therefore, help to explain why this new conflict emerged so quickly after the old one had come to an end” (26). After the war ended in 1945, the United States and the Soviet Union emerged as the greatest two powers in the world. As Soviet power grew in the western hemisphere, their government became determined to establish a sphere of influence and expand their power under the rule of Joseph Stalin (Foner, 711). In response, president Harry Truman believed America must become involved in the containment of the Soviet Union and justified this newfound American foreign policy in his distinguished speech known as the “Truman

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