Anne Applebaum Cold War Summary

After World War II, only two world superpowers remained: the United States of America and the Soviet Union. The contradictory political regimes of the democratic United States and the communist Soviet Union were believed to be mutually exclusive which increased bitterness between them. Inevitably, the apparent tension between the two superpowers led to the Cold War which lasted about 45 years. It was war without bloodshed or battle, instead it was a metaphorical war where the U.S and the Soviet Union increased their weapons and fought for political influence, one always wanting to excel or maintain within the range of the other. The United States’ desperate need to contain the communist political ideology from spreading any further and meet the Soviet Union’s increased development of nuclear weapons led to the their involvement in the Cold War. The impact the Cold War had on life during the 1950’s and 1960’s can be measured through the creation of the House Un-American

The Cold War, a period of sustained political and military tension between the USA and the USSR, resulted in various viewpoints concerning the cause of the tension emerging. Until today the question remains unresolved, even after the 1991 release of Soviet archives. The main point of disagreement relates to the roles that ideology played in the events between 1945 and 1949. Was it the strongly opposing ideologies, capitalism and communism, or power and material interest that drove both superpowers to the decades of struggle for global supremacy.

Brands' purpose for writing this book was to inform the reader of actions taken before, during, and after the Cold War. After World War II, the United States and Russia were the only two remaining world powers. Each had a conflicting method of government, which ultimately led to the Cold War. The two superpowers were at the center of attention for the better part of

Conflicts of national interest caused the United States and the Soviet Union to continue tension from World War II onto the Cold War, that lasted from 1947 to 1991. Although there was no direct military conflicts, there were constant nuclear threats. Over the past thirty years historians have divided themselves into different categories including: traditionalists, revisionists, and post-revisionists, and share their perspective on who caused the Cold War, the USSR or the US. Based off of three historians: Michael H Hart believes the USSR is at fault for aggressively wanting Communism to be spreaded, William Appleman Williams stated that the US is to blame for being too focused on their “open door” policy with foreign trade , and John Lewis Gaddis believes that their are at fault due to miscommunication and efforts to remain peaceful at the end of the war.

Even though the United States emerged as a clear victor of World War I, many Americans after the war felt that their involvement in the conflict had been a mistake (Markus Schoof, “The American Experience During World War II,” slide 3). This belief, however, did not deter the country from engaging in many other international affairs in the future, most importantly the WWII and the Cold War. Right from the Manifest Destiny, which led to expand its empire at home and abroad, to the World War I, the country had come a long way from being somewhat a lonely-land to a global superpower of the 20th century. Its influence in the international arena grew unprecedently after its commitment to the World War II, and like they say, the rest is history. If the WWII was a resounding success to the American legacy, what followed, the Cold War, put many implications on the American diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and to the world. Although the rising Fascism in Europe and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor drove the U.S. to enter the WWII, historians over the years have laid equal blames on both nations for starting the Cold War. These two events helped in shaping up many domestic and foreign policies for the U.S.

Between 1945 and 1960, the United States was confronted with a colossal predicament. A Cold War had emerged between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. This war did not involve any direct attacks between the two, instead indirect confrontations. Subsequently, the war took a massive toll on the U.S. An era of high tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union posed a communist threat to America.

The Cold War holds a special place in the study of international relations and its paradigms and perspectives. In this part of the course, three readings work together to provide a basis of arguments and positions on the origins of the Cold War as they relate to international relations. As George Kennan describes in the article written under the pseudonym ‘Mr. X’ in the early years of the Cold War, the Soviets were widely recognized in the western world as being fundamentally expansionist by nature, and this fundamental attribute would lead to the ultimate quest to spread communist ideology across the globe, eventually leading right up to the United States’ doorstep. Similarly, Douglas J. MacDonald lays out the viewpoints held by policymakers

In this paper I will discuss what actions and thoughts added up to cause the cold war. The cold war lasted from September 1, 1945 to about December 25, 1991. That is about forty-five years, which is an extremely long time. The cold war was a global competition basically between two sides, the Free World, which was led by the United States of America, and the Communist World led by the Soviet Union. The struggle took place through indirect military conflict, and direct competition in the areas of economics, diplomacy, culture, space exploration, and political theory. It also involved nuclear stand offs, espionage, and global competition for other nations. The cold war has established the framework for most

The orthodox view of the Cold War elucidates its inevitability due to the great ideological differences that existed between the Soviet Union and United States. On the other hand, the revisionists argued that it happened due to the actions that Soviets took and the consequential responses made by the United States as a result of their inflexible, single-sided interpretations of Soviet action. Yet, even with the backdrop of the early Bolshevik conflict in 1918 as well

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

“The Cold War became a dominant influence on many aspects of American society for much of the second half of the twentieth century. It escalated due to antagonist values between the United States, representing capitalism and democracy, and the Soviet Union, representing communism and authoritarianism” (Tradshad, par. 1). This long lasting war had a lot of negative effects on the American people, but also helped many in a positive way of becoming free citizens. Although most people had feelings of hatred toward the Soviet Union, a sense of fear swept over the United States and many actions had to be taken to keep the enemy and their influences out. 4 done.

Orthodox views came from America and the West, there is a clear bias to ensure there is innocence of America. Bias possibly comes from propaganda that the USSR was barbaric and American hatred of communism before the Cold War, seen by the First Red Scare, 1918-1920. Orthodox historians take the view the Cold War was caused by Soviet aggression or expansionism dictating American policy (Young, J., Kent, J 2013, pp.2 - 4). Stalin’s idea was to increase the USSR’s sphere of influence and dominate politics with the majority of Europe struggling financially. Orthodox historians look to COMECON 1949 and Cominform 1947, ways to control foreign states and to overthrowing of governments, such as Hungary, where around 350,000 Hungarian government officials were purged. Herbert Feis suggested that:

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.

To have a balanced argument, it must be examined the influence that the Soviet Union had in this period. It can best be described in two parts – firstly the solidification of the communist states in Eastern Europe for example Czechoslovakia. In 1948, Josef Stalin approved a plan by the Czechoslovakian communists to seize power in the only democratic state left in Eastern Europe . This was shown as making a point that the Eastern European states will remain communist and he would make sure that they did. An example from the 1950’s is the October 1956 Revolution against communism in Hungary. Russian tanks had stormed into Budapest and with the support of the AVN (Soviet backed Hungarian Secret Police) brought Communism back into Hungary . To make a comparison, Stalin and the Soviet Union had in essence, a policy of expansion – to spread communism throughout the world. The USA on the other hand, wanted to try to contain

The term “Cold War” refers to the second half of the 20th century, usually from the end of the World War II until 1990, when the Soviet Union collapsed. Since the 1940s and 1950s the scholars have disagreed on the topic of the origins of the Cold War. There are several groups of historians and their interpretations are very different, sometimes even contradictory. The three main schools are the orthodox, the revisionist and the realist. The classification is not completely accurate because we can find several differences in theories of scholars within the same group and often the authors reevaluated their ideas over time.