Reflection of the Cold War The Cold War, from 1945 to 1991, is one of the most important periods of time that has greatly influenced and shaped the modern world. It was not just a battle between two super powers, the USA and the Soviet Union, but also a clash of two really popular ideologies during that time. There was the American claim of fighting for freedom and democracy and the Soviet claims of fighting for the interests of the workers and the common people. Now in theory, these ideologies seemed ethical, but throughout this period, both countries’ actions severely opposed the ideologies they represented on numerous occasions. Some say it all came down to a competition of achieving the most power and influence and just using what …show more content…
The Marshal Plan although was one of the greatest actions USA had taken and they gave about 13 million dollars in aid to the war devastated countries in order to help them rebuild. Some might argue that they only did this to improve their trade business with these countries and to help form NATO in order to compete with the Soviets and this is partially true. Other things they did which showed they actually stood up for democracy was supporting the democratic revolutions in the Korean War, Polish Solidarity Movement, and the Velvet Revolution. They not only did they do this for freedom, but also to stop the authoritarian spread of Communism which they deemed highly undemocratic and even propagandized it as evil especially during the Berlin Airlift which is one of the most famous benevolent event that the USA orchestrated. But those were the only freedom fighting they took. Everything else they did was highly undemocratic. USA has a tendency to overthrow foreign government if they don’t please their interests. Their first major anti-freedom action was overthrowing the democratically elected government of Iran simply because the new leader decided to nationalize the oil for benefit of the Iranian People. Then they did the exact same thing in Guatemala because the interests of their fruit companies were in danger. All of these overthrows were done through US backed coups and the School of America played a key
DBQ Outline Intro Paragraph · Background/Context: The Cold War was a state of political tension after World War II between the Eastern bloc countries and Western bloc countries. Cold War took a significant place in between 1947 to 1991 which the two most powerful countries, United States of America and Soviet Union, were competing with each other over spreading the rule and showing off their arms without killing people. After the World War II, people in different countries started to think about who bears more responsibility for starting the Cold War, United States or USSR. · Three-point thesis: The United States of America bears more responsibility for starting the Cold War because it built up military powers and prepared for
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.
A war does not necessarily require a physical weapon to fight. From 1947 to 1991, military tension and ideological conflicts held place. Cold War is defined as a state of political hostility existing between countries, characterized by threats, violent propaganda, subversive activities, and other measures short of open warfare, in particular. The causes of the cold war between United States and the Soviet Union were the mutual distrust that had taken place in World War II, intense rivalry between the two super powers, and conflicting ideologies. The two superpowers differed in views of political and economic principles and were eager to spread their ideologies to many countries. United States were in favor of democracy and capitalism while
The Cold War was the longest war in which the United States has ever partaken and is the only war that involved little to no fighting. After researching the events, reading historical opinions, and listening to lectures in class, I have come to the realization that the war was just an exaggerated argument between two neighbors over which model fence, wood or metal, they would allow in their yards. One neighbor, President Truman, wanted Democracy, and the other
There are many opinions on who started the Cold War, whether it be the USSR’s fault or the United States. With old trust issues rising up again, the next forty years resulted in constant tension and aggression between the two rival powers. But, when it’s time to place the blame for this tedious conflict, it is clear the United States can be blamed, for they were constantly imposing their greater power, and led the USSR to lose their trust due to international acts of aggression from the US. From 1945-1991 the US took action abroad to stop the USSR from gaining more global power, they misinterpreted Soviet motives, and threatened the USSR with acts of aggression through major bomb threats. With both nations having different motives after WWII,
During the Second World War, USA and the Soviet Union came together against a common enemy. It was the immediate events after the War which lead to renewed tensions between the superpowers. Many commentators attribute the Berlin Blockade crisis of 1948 to be the catalyst that sparked the beginning of the Cold War. The Cold War period was a state of political and military tension running parallel with the development of nuclear weapons between the United States and the Soviet Union. The ideological differences between these two Superpowers put massive strain on their relationship. USA was democratic, capitalist state. Their ideals were heavily based on a classist society, where the means for producing and distributing goods is owned by a small minority of people (World Socialist Movement 2016). The Soviet Union’s communist ideals were at the other end of the spectrum. Their ideas were based around communal management and public ownership of major production mediums (Richard Dagger 2014). It is obvious that these ideologies are extremely different. Over the next four decades the world came close to
The Cold War, which started sometime in the 1940’s, was a large quarrel between the United States and the Soviet Union. This dispute involved a lot of propaganda and threats of nuclear warfare. Despite all of the trouble though, after over forty years of fighting, the two leaders of these countries (Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev) would finally work out a solution. However, although they did reach an agreement, there were many differences between these two men.
The Cold War peaked the interest of the entire globe. Each threat, policy and action that took place had ramifications far more reaching then ever imaginable. The world sat on edge because it feared its own destruction, after the introduction of nuclear warfare at the close of World War II, another World War could result in the Earth’s demise. This fear ran through the hearts and minds of citizens of both the United States and the Soviet Union, but it is the citizens elsewhere that had to pay the consequences for these fears. The “race” to become the premier superpower of the world between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. did not always remain as subsided as many like to believe. Many regions of the world were held accountable
-The Cold War is one of the most complicating yet interesting topics in history. It was an altercation between the Soviet Union and the United States over different ideologies concerning politics. Russia believed in communism which was the ideology of advocating class war and believing that all property was publicly owned (Sherman, 2004). Each person is given or gets paid however much they need. Everything was owned by the government and divided equally among the people who eventually worked for what they got. This was totalitarian. The United States had a capitalist economy. This was an economical system where a country's industry and their trade is controlled by a private owner for profit not by the state. It followed the idea that people
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
President Truman was convinced from the beginning that Stalin intended to take over countries based solely by the fact that there were communist parties present in them.
The Cold War was a geopolitical, ideological, and economic struggle mainly between the two superpowers, The United States of America and the USSR. Although the USSR and US were the two superpowers that initiated the conflict, other countries such as Vietnam, North and South Korea, and Cuba had major involvement in the Cold War. The US was a capitalist country while the USSR was a communist country. There are many reasons, that when combined caused the Cold War to start. Some of the most important reasons were the fear of the USSR’s expansion of communism into Eastern Europe
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.
After World War II, continuing tensions between the United States of America and primarily, the Soviet Union caused the Cold War. The Cold War lasted from 1945 to 1991, the Cold War is defined as a bitter, typically non-military conflict between the two superpowers, the Soviet Union and America. The Soviet Union and the United States had contrasting views about most things, including political systems, economic systems and societal values. At the end of the Cold War, the U.S was declared victorious but they outcomes were anything but successful. If aspects like the least amount of casualties and who has the most money dictate victory, is it really victory? In fact, millions died due to the cold war and many were harmfully affected on both sides and these outcomes could have easily been avoided if instead of concluding that war was the only option, the two superpowers could promote peace rather than emphasizing on differing values. Lessons that should be learned from the Cold War are that ideological differences are not sufficient enough to declare war and that taking over nations does not make a country stronger or better.
The Cold War was the great political upheaval of the 20th century. The two superpowers of the time, the United States of America and the Soviet Union, fought, through both “hot” (combative involvement) and “cold” (non-combative involvement) means, for supremacy in all areas which a country can be considered “supreme” in, not the least of which were expansion, military power, and moral righteousness. This conflict may seem petty, but the sheer magnitude of this conflict, present in the loss of life, the political and social strife, and even dire economic consequences makes the pettiness, pointlessness, and complete and utter waste of time of involvement an absolute tragedy. Or was it a waste of time? Was the Cold War inevitable? Could it be that if the United States did not get politically involved with the Soviet Union that there would be dire consequences, as so many American politicians of the time predicted? It is to be expected that the answers to these questions are multifaceted. It was public opinion, or at least what the United States government wanted public opinion to be, at the time of this conflict that the Cold War was morally black-and-white. The capitalist Americans were the good guys, noble with the utmost of best intentions: fighting against the wicked social and economic ideas and heinous fascism of the villainous Communists, who wanted only power and corruption. This is not to say that the Soviet Union was politically virtuous whatsoever, and is most