Cause And Impact Of The Cold War Essay

The Cold War was a period of espionage and international rivalry between the U.S. and the USSR. It involved no armed conflicts between the two nations but was just as expensive. The Cold War was caused by tension during WWII and political ideologies which created distrust and pushed the U.S. and the USSR to the edge of conflict. The Cold War affected the legacies of both the U.S. and the USSR.

Democratic localism was also enforced to keep the government at bay, allowing people to make their own economic decisions. Capitalism was renewed due to growth. Americans were enjoying various freedoms in politics, religion and travel. Nixon stated in one of his speeches that the United States had “come closest to the idea of prosperity for all in a classless society (166).”

Truman believed that if Russia got Greece and Turkey it would then get Italy and France and the “iron curtain” would extend to western Ireland and to the United States. Arnold posits that Truman’s views were excessive. Stalin never challenged the Truman Doctrine or western dominance in Turkey, which was under U.S. military guidance, and Greece. Arnold states, “ [Stalin] provided almost no aid to the Greek rebels and told Yugoslavia’s leaders in early 1948 to halt their aid because the United States would never allow the Greek Communist to win and break Anglo-American control in the Mediterranean” (221). Arnold believed that President Truman more often than not narrowed rather than broadened his options. Truman’s insecurity also reinforced his liking to view conflict in black-and-white terms, to categorize all nations as either free or totalitarian, to demonize his opponents, and to ignore the complexities of historic national conflicts. In sum, despite Truman’s claim to have “knocked the socks off the communists,” he left the White House with his presidency in tatters, military spending at a record high, McCarthyism rampant, and the United States on Cold War footing at home and abroad.

A Cold War is when there is a large amount of tension built up between two countries but no fighting occurs. The Cold War between U.S. and Russia started in 1947 and ended in 1991. It started over a race to build a bigger and better atomic bomb. Although the U.S. working class was able to live comfortably again, the Cold War affected the United States by increasing people’s fears of Communist spies, of nuclear war, and of losing to the Soviet Union.

In 1961 President John F Kennedy put together a doctrine, which altered from President Eisenhower’s one. It was to “Respond flexibly to communist expansion, especially guerrilla warfare.” (Roskin & Berry, 2010, p. 58) It was a time when the Cold War was at its height and nuclear weapons a mass threat and source of power. This doctrine was aimed at using alternative means before opening into combat. This, in light of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, it succeeded in doing.

After World War II, the United States created a policy of containment. This policy’s initiative was to prevent the Soviet Union from spreading communism (Cold War History, history.com). The Truman Doctrine of 1947 coincided with the policy of containment. In the Doctrine, Truman discussed the economic state of Greece and Turkey. Greece was in great need of financial assistance in order for the country to

Throughout the Cold War, Korean War, and Vietnam War the main problem was communism. Although the United States and the Soviet Union were allies in World War Two, during the Cold War the United States and the Soviet Union were known as enemies. The Soviet leaders bragged to other nations that communism would “scrape apart” free-enterprise systems around the world. This attitude angered the capitalists which led into the fifty year Cold War. The United States tried creating many tactics and strategies to contain the “bleeding” of communism, but during the cold war, communism spread faster then it could be restrained. The United States used the Marshall Plan , the Trueman Doctrine, and the Berlin Airlift to help lead people to a

The Cold War was the ideological conflict between the two superpowers of the world, the democratic United States of America and the communist Soviet Union. For over fifty years the two superpowers fought each other indirectly for power and control of the world. The Cold War started after the end of the Second World War in 1945 when the eyes of both superpowers were no longer looking at Nazi Germany, but instead at each other and the fate of the rest of the world. The Cold War began after the Second World War had ended, although tensions between the two new superpowers, United States and Soviet Union, had been lasting since 1917 with the start of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. With the start of the Second World War, tensions were put

Introduction What was the cold war? The cold war was a state of geopolitical tension after World War II between powers in the eastern bloc (the Soviet Union and its satellite states) and powers in the western block (the United States, its NATO allies and others). The cold war was caused by many things for example American feared of a communist attack, Truman’s dislike of Stalin, USSR fear of the American atomic bomb and many more. The cold war was marked by continuous rivalry between the two former World War II allies.

The terms ‘hawks and doves' were quick labels attached to politicians in order to categorize their views on war and foreign policies, as to make them understandable and accessible for the public. However, these labels were not always accurate and in some cases could be quite misleading; it would have been more accurate not to label individuals as either Hawks or Doves, but instead, what they stood for.

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

“As crossfire raked his body, the second boy fell back onto the strip of now churning sand. Wounded, moaning for help, he lay only 300 yards from a unit of United States troops. But the American commanding general issued orders: ‘Stand fast. Do nothing.’ Fifty-five minutes later Peter Fetcher was dead, and his body was carried away into the recesses of the city from which he had tried to escape.” This excerpt, from The Cold War: From Yalta To Cuba by Robin W. Winks shows how, despite its name, the Cold War was anything but cold.

characterized international relations and dominated the foreign policies of Europe. It affected all of Europe and determined lasting alliances. The Cold War was caused by the social climate and tension in Europe at the end of World War II and by the increasing power struggles between the Soviet Union. Economic separation between the Soviets and the west also heightened tensions, along with the threat of nuclear war.

In my opinion ,the US should bear a bigger responsibility for causing the cold war .After the second world war , the ideological difference ,mutual distrust and the disappearance of the common enemy (germany ) , these all are the causes of the cold war .However ,these comflicts were all brought by the US . Many historians believe that the Cold War was inevitable once the common enemy, Germany, was defeated after the end of World War II. Other historians such as John Gaddis stress that neither superpower can be held solely responsible for the ideological war that lasted half a century. These historians believe that the US and the USSR followed a pattern of action and reaction; and that neither nation had a definitive plan of action (Todd,

place between 1941 and 1991 as the Cold War. The Cold War was so named