Cold War Dbq Analysis

During the cold war, the United States engaged in many aggressive policies both at home and abroad, in which to fight communism and the spread of communist ideas. Faced with a new challenge and new global responsibilities the U.S. needed to retain what it had fought so strongly for in World War II. It needed to contain the communist ideas pouring from the Soviet Union while preventing communist influence at home, without triggering World War III. With the policies of containment, McCarthyism, and brinkmanship, the United States hoped to effectively stop the spread of communism and their newest threat, the Soviet Union.

Immediately after World War II, the world was thrown into a massive ideological conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union, which culminated into the Cold War. The Cold War ignited overwhelming, panic-inducing fears across the United States, and Dwight D. Eisenhower, elected in 1952 and remained president until 1960, was faced with the challenge of quelling the fears of the American people. Americans during the Cold War, particularly during the presidency of Eisenhower, had constant fears of Soviet expansion, the pertinent anticommunist crusade at home, the spread of communism, and the neverending uneasiness of total nuclear annihilation, all fears which the Eisenhower administration would inadequately allay.

After World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union emerged as the two new superpowers and as archrivals. The United States wanted to keep the Soviet Union from spreading communism by force so the United States came up with a plan of containment, which was to block the Soviet Union wherever possible to contain the spread of communism therefore beginning the Cold War. (Davidson et al., 2005)

The Cold War was a war that most nations were not accustomed to, for it was not a war over property or materials, but a war over different ideological views. The Cold War began at the end of 1947, the two main powers involved were the Soviet Union and the United States. The Soviet Union leaders Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin forced the people of the Union to accept communism, which was a belief that private property should be replaced by community ownership. The United States and its allies on the other hand, believed in capitalism; a private ownership economy. To keep the Russia from expanding, the United States set a policy of containment. (Document A) The Containment policy was an idea to stop the Soviet Union and communism from spreading;

There are many stories of many tragedies, loses, and sadness that was in and followed World War II. To start, there were many ways the war impacted America and it changed American home life. There were many people who gave their lives to the war from America and other countries. A cause of the war was the stock market crashed. This led to very dark times for America. As you can see, many people all over the world suffered from this disagreement between countries.

After defeating Hitler and the Nazi Party in World War 2, a Cold War started between the United States and the Soviet Union. The war consisted of tension between the two countries. The Cold War was between two government policies, Communism and Democracy. The Soviets wanted to expand on their ideas of communism, but the Americans were not going to allow that to happen. Their American policy was containment. Containment is the idea that there should be no spreading of the Soviet communism. Events that portrayed containment were the Berlin Blockade and Airlift, The Korean War, and The Cuban Missile Crisis.

The twentieth-century clash between the Soviet Union and the United States would come to split much of the world between those allied with the U.S and those with the U.S.S.R. These two powerful nations vied against each other not through traditional means but rather through a series of proxy wars to gain spheres of influence. America fought these proxy wars under the guise of containment, which was a strategy to stop the spread of communism. This led America into arguably one the most contentious wars abroad, the Vietnam war. Which was an inevitable consequence of the policy of containment. However, the greater global conflict known as the Cold war did not suddenly come to fruition out of nowhere. It was rather the inevitable consequence

The Cold War was all about capitalism vs. communism, where the soviets were communist and the west was capitalist. From The Geography of the Cold War: What was Containment, “communism is a belief that private property should be replaced by community ownership.” Also from The Geography of the Cold War: What was Containment, “…private ownership economies of the United States and its allies.” One thing that started the Cold War was Winston Churchill’s speech, “Iron curtain.”

The Cold War was the age of spreading Communism and the USSR was the leader of that revolution. As depicted in “WWII Estimated Casualties” the Soviet Union lost the most military forces and civilians compared to France, Germany, and the US. This death large rate was presumably one of the leading factors toward wanting to expand their communist ideas and bring underdeveloped countries under their “communist wing”. Knowing that once they have these counties on their side they will be able to use them for their resources, the USSR knew their income rate would rise greatly. Shown in document 10 the soviet national income growth is compared from 1928-1987 and the income before WWII was the highest it was and during the Cold War it was the closest

The Cold War was mainly the U.S vs the Soviet Union, it could have also been seen as capitalism vs communism. The war was surrounding the idea of communism, as America attempted using a strategy known as containment, which meant to try and prevent the Soviet Union and communism from spreading across the world. While on the other side of the war, the Soviets were constantly attempting to spread communism. During the Cold War, multiple events occurred, where America demonstrated their strategy of containment, events such as the Berlin Airlift, the Korean War and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

A very influential fear on the American People was the fear of nuclear bombs. Nuclear bombs presented an unimaginable amount of destruction compared to all weapons throughout the world. With both the U.S. and the Soviets having nuclear bombs, there was a tense standoff. The American people were worried about the possibilities of these bombs, and the fact that entire cities could be wiped out by one bomb. As a result of these fears, many families invested in shelters such as the one shown in Document C, which provided protection from initial blasts. Nuclear bombs were difficult to deliver by modern bombers, but a major fear was instituted by the missile capabilities of tomorrow, illustrated in Document E, where nuclear bombs could hit the Untied States in a matter of 35 minutes after a button was pressed by the Soviets.

Beginning in 1947 and gradually declining in solemnity until its end in 1991, the Cold War kept the United States and the USSR at high tensions for over four decades. The name refers to the fact that no fighting took place throughout the war, and that it was solely based around threats and propaganda. During this time, a major goal of the US was to stop the spread of communism through containment, which was made possible through the Truman Doctrine. It was believed that if communism began to spread, it would start the domino effect and over time all of Europe and Asia would fall to communism.

The US policy of containment and the idea of “us vs them” guided our decisions through the Cold War. The US wanted to stop the spread of communism throughout the world and would do anything to stop it. The tension between the US and the Soviet Union was growing because of the idea of “us vs them”. During the Cold War there was a sense that at any moment there could be nuclear war and there was a heightened fear of communism.

During the Cold War from 1946 to 1990 the United States had formed a policy called the containment policy which was adopted by President Harry Truman. The containment policy was a doctrine uniting military, economic, and diplomatic strategies to turn back communism and to insure that America would hold the leading role in world affairs.

After WWII the tensions between East and West started to build up. America did not like the expansion of Communism around the world and therefore America’s leader at the time, President Truman, introduced the policy of containment, which stated that they don’t want to get rid of communism, they just want to stop it from spreading. The period from shortly after WWII to 1989 (sometimes 1991) became known as the Cold War because there was little to no actual fighting, although the political tensions were boiling.