Containment During The Cold War

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.

One of the major conflicts in the 20th century was the Cold War. One of the key events of the Cold War was the Korean War (1949-1953). Essentially, the Korean War was a conflict between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), and the Republic of Korea (ROK). However, the DPRK was backed by Stalin’s Communist regime. While the ROK, was backed by US and UN forces. The support that the divided Koreas received demonstrates that this war was the direct result of Cold War tensions between the USA and the USSR. Therefore making this war a proxy war between the two superpowers.

One time the United States demonstrated the policy of containment was during the airlift in Berlin. On June 27, 1948, the Soviet Union blockaded any shipments coming into West Berlin. West Berlin was completely surrounded by communism. West Berlin might have surrendered if it weren’t for the United States and their allies. The United States and its allies flew over the blockade to aid West Berlin. They dropped everything from food to coal to help over two million people. On May 12, 1949, Joseph Stalin removed the blockade and the United States was thrilled.

Germany and the capital, Berlin, was split at the end of WWII. The East Berlin and Germany were controlled by the Soviets and West Berlin and Germany was controlled by the US, France, and Britain. Since West Berlin was completely surrounded by communism, Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union, decided to prevent any shipments (including food) from going into West Berlin (Doc. B) in an attempt to starve them out. They created a blockade. When the US and its allies found out, they sent planes over to get the shipments and take them to the West Berliners which provided over two million people with supplies ranging from food to coal for nearly over a year (Doc. B).

For example, The USSR decided one day to blockade West Germany from supplies in order to get them to surrender. Now, the USA then did something called the Berlin Airlift, which planes flew through West Germany and gave supplies to the West Germans. For instance, in Document B, the west was planning to surrender since they did not have enough food or supplies to survive. But the USA came in to give food to contain communism, which shows that the USA will be willing to do anything to contain communism. To summarize, On June 27, 1948 Stalin and the USSR blockaded

“The Middle East, which has been converted by Russia ,Would today be prized more than ever by international communism.” Thesis: While all Cold War presidents wanted to stop communism,they all had different ideas on how to accomplish that issue.President truman used economic aid. President Eisenhower focused on military aid.President Kennedy used military use.

The Cold War was an over 40 year war between the former World War II alliances The United States and The Soviet Union. This was a war that begun by political disagreements, harsh anti-communist words from Winston Churchill, and a power imbalance between The Soviet Union and The United States. Though it was a war, a new, lethal weapon was used to emotionally harm the opposing country rather than causing physical damage.

The Berlin airlift initially started with the division of Germany into four sections amongst major powers, including the US, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union after WWII. The United States, Britain, and France united to make West Berlin, while East Berlin belonged to the Soviet Union. On June 27, 1948, Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union decided to blockade any shipments into West Berlin in an attempt to weaken and overthrow it. With West Berlin surrounded by communism and no source of food because of the blockade, they saw no other choice but to surrender, that is until the US and its allies stepped in to help. The US and its allies supported West Berliners through airlifts, this consisted of supplies from food to coal being flown in to over two million people. On May 12, 1949, Stalin discards of the blockade, this left the nation and Harry Truman thrilled. The Berlin Airlift is a good example of containment because the United States was triumphant in keeping West Berlin from being overthrown by communist East

The Cold War was a state of tension between the Soviet Union and the United States of America. It was characterized by an arms race particularly in nuclear weaponry. The Soviet Union and the United States were also embroiled in a space race. The American people were afraid of nuclear war and the global spread of communism after World War II. The Eisenhower administration did not address these fears effectively, although he attempted to relieve these concerns.

According to an article written by Clif Staten he asserts that John Lewis Gaddis has argued that the history of our containment policy toward the Soviet Union reflected the swing of a pendulum between periods when our resources did not match our ever-expanding goals and periods that required us to react to this deficit by either reducing, redefining or reprioritizing our goals to bring them in line with our limited resources. He continues to argue that the pendulum swing is illustrative of the shift between our idealist and realist sides. In the early years of the Cold War, our foreign policy goals focused on containing communism in Europe. We recognized that our resources were limited. We had been demobilizing since the end of World War II and the American public had reverted to its traditional isolationist character. Containment was limited only to Western Europe where our military strength was greatest.

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 containment was ultimately successful because after communism had taken over many countries, communism didn't spread any further..The US offered aid to countries to prevent communist factions from gaining support. It also helped rebuild Western Europe. In the end, there was no major, direct confrontation with the Soviets, and the Soviet Union succumbed to the pressure in 1991, collapsing.

The Cold War had the United States and the Soviet Union fighting. But before all of this they fought alongside each other in world war 2 against the Axis powers. The total death count for the Cold War was about 6 million deaths by U.S. People's homes were destroyed. At the time of the war Russia was planning on controlling the world. American officials encouraged the making of atomic weapons. The Cold War also enraged Ronald Reagan.

The Cold War was political hostility between the United States of America and the Soviet Union through threats, propaganda and series of warfare incidents that made these superpowers of the time suspicious of one another. With the sources of the reader I will explain who’s to be at fault for the Cold war, the United States or the Soviet Union. The term “Cold War” according to Heonik Kwon in his document origins of the Cold War “… refers to the prevailing condition of the world in the second half of the twentieth century, divide into two separate paths of political modernity and economic development.”(Kwon 1002) The Cold War happened after World War II primarily between the USA and Soviet Union. The main reason that the Cold War occurred was the different beliefs and ideologies that both countries upheld. The US had capitalistic views compared to the Soviet Union, which had a communistic output. Religion could also be seen as a reason that fueled the Cold War because at the time the superpowers looked for opportunities to expand anywhere in the world, especially the United States of America. During World War II the US and the Soviet Union were allies only because they had a mutual enemy-the Nazis. The Soviet Union and America never fought each other directly; they used client states, like Vietnam to spread their beliefs of communism or capitalism.

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.