Europe's Cold War: the 1945 – 1950 Bridge of Bitterness

During World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union created an alliance to prevent Nazi Germany from spreading their fascist and radical ideals, but after the war, it quickly became apparent that both countries had intentions to exploit their previously stable relationship. Shortly after World War II, the Soviet Union made it their primary goal to expand their communist policies across Europe (and eventually the world). Their communist policies heavily contradicted the reason why the United States joined World War II, contrasted American ideals, and placed American democracy in jeopardy. Although relations seemed healthy shortly after the war, the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union dwindled to war due to the United States’

The relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union was very tense, especially during the Cold War. Prior to this war, during World War II, they worked together as allies. Both of them had different ways of economically thinking. The Soviet Union was communist and the United States was capitalist. However, during this time Russia wanted to spread communism across the world, but the United States aided the cessation of the spread.

When one can truly understand and uncover the meaning behind these articles and how they fit into one or more of the ‘boxes’ we call paradigms and perspectives. In order to dissect and analyze the case of the Cold War, especially its origins, one must not only skim through the text and uncover main ideas, but also must also relate the readings to these paradigms and establish one’s own ideals and opinions regarding the study of international relations. Personally, I believe the articles associated with the origins of the Cold War along with Professor Katzenstein’s lecture on the topic provide strong arguments for the use of a ‘middle fish’ perspective and a ‘big fish’ paradigm: domestic politics and realism, respectively. Through George Kennan’s personal accounts, experience and analysis at both the time of the Cold War’s inception and forty-plus years later after the fall of the Soviet Union, a point is made regarding the nature of Soviet expansion as an offensive maneuver, which he believed must be contained by a defensive strategy. This point of conflicting strategies by the U.S. and (especially) the Soviet Union provides the reader with a realist argument and perspective. Also, in his second piece, which details remarks made to the Council on Foreign Relations in 1994, Kennan explains that instead of whole-heartedly adopting

In the World War II, two super power and allies, the United States and Soviet Union fought together with different reasons. The United States wanted stop Nazi-German, but the Soviet Union wanted absolute control of the Eastern Europe countries. These differences brought tension to the relationship between them, which Americans started to concern about Joseph Stalin, the Russian leader.

Despite the U.S’s effort to come to a mutual agreement with the Soviets after the war at the Yalta Conference, tension has gradually progressed throughout the years that led to an even further separation between the two leading powers. In addition to, the Soviets disregarded the compromises made at the Yalta Conference to have free and fair elections in Europe, instead creating a buffer in Eastern Europe, settling Soviet satellites. By committing such actions, the U.S automatically became suspicious and concluded that the Soviets were ultimately compelled to spread communism. The U.S further distrusted the Soviets when they secretly signed the Nonaggression Pact with the Nazis, to acquire half of Poland for security reasons, so Germany doesn’t invade Russia. This pact made it clearly evident for the U.S that the Soviets are not loyal, that their primary goal is to protect their own interests or assets first, and moral or obligatory issues involving other countries second. The Soviet Union had their own reasons for not trusting the U.S too because they claim them to be just as interested in protecting their own interests and had their own motives for

The end of World War Two saw Russia and the United States as world powers, each with totally different views on how the new world should be governed.The Cold War was a fight between Communism and Capitalism; only one method could prevail. Communism, was the notion that through a class war all would become equal, all property owned publicly and each person paid equally. On the opposite end of the spectrum lay Capitalism where there is an economic and political system of a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit; not the state. One way that America sought to protect and hopefully impede Soviet Russia was through its foreign policies. The major foreign policy act that the U.S had in place during the Cold War,

George Kennan, who was a well-known Foreign Service officer, Political Scientists, Historian, and the maker and advocate of Policy of Containment, in the 1940’s strongly presented his views on how to deal with U.S. policy toward the spread of communism and the Soviet Union. While Kennan was one of the first to build a U.S. embassy in Russia, and had respect for Russian people, he increasingly became harsh towards the appraisal of the communist leader, Vladimir Lenin. His Policy of Containment was a way to stop the spread of Communism, and coincided with Kennan’s views that the Soviet Union could not have any peacefully cooperate with the western views of a democratic and capitalist society. Kennan knew the Soviet Union feared any resistance

Kennan, author of the Long Telegram, published an influential article under the pseudonym “Mr. X” in the journal Foreign Affairs in which he outlined a policy of containment against the Soviet Union. The strategy was designed to put enough pressure on the Soviet Union to produce a change in both its internal structure and its international conduct. The application of counter-forces at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points were designed to break-up or gradually mellow Soviet power. Thereafter, the United States embarked on a global strategy to confront the Soviet Union. Notwithstanding changes in tactics, containment remained the basis for U.S. policy for four decades.

It is generally believed that the containment policy on the Soviet Union by the US after World War II is a typical product of Realism. However, the containment policy is by no means a simple balance of power, it is actually part of the grand strategy of the US Liberalism. The famous 8000-word telegram by George Kennan related the threats of Europe with the nature the Soviet regime. He believes that only after the zeal of the Soviet Bolshevik revolutionary exhausted could Western military have a relax because then the collapse of the Soviet system would be spontaneous. Kennan noted that the priority of the US is to rebuild Germany and Japan, and thus to transform the social objectives and national preference of Western countries. History showed

After the end of World War II, the Soviet Union emerged as a global superpower. There were vast ideological differences between the two major superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was a socialist country following Marxist ideals where land and the means of production were publicly owned. The United States was a liberal democracy and capitalist country where land and the means of production were privately owned. The Soviet Union wanted to spread socialism and the United States was scared of Marxist views spreading. The United States was

George Kennan did not make any detailed policy recommendations in the Long Telegram of 1946, although he made it clear that he did not regard the Soviet Union as the same type of threat as Nazi Germany. He opposed the ideas of National Security Council Memorandum 68 (1950) as a hysterical overreaction, and thought that global containment was a serious strategic error, especially in peripheral regions like Indochina. Unlike Hitler, Stalin's aggression and expansion were unplanned and opportunistic, and its leaders did not wish to risk a general war with the West. For this reasons, the Soviets were highly sensitive to the "logic of force" and would retreat if confronted with resolution (Kennan 1946). Internally, it was a police state ruled by a Communist Party oligarchy and bureaucracy, but one that was always insecure in its power. Although Marxism had no real emotional appeal to the masses, the elites were guided by the assumption that the imperialist powers were always attempting to encircle the Soviet Union and that the contradictions within capitalism would always lead to wars. They would attempt to exploit these differences within the capitalist nations, while at the same time attempting to weaken their hold on the colonial areas. Kennan was well aware that the main problem in Western Europe was war-weariness and economic insecurity, and the U.S. would have to take the lead in reviving these countries or the "Russians certainly will" (Kennan 1946). In this case, though,

George Kennan, an expert of Russia, provided philosophical and conceptual framework for interpreting Stalin’s foreign policy. (Kissinger, 114) He explained that communism ideology was what Stalin’s plan was for the world, and he was looking to expand his territory.

Both Washington and Moscow recognized the huge power vacuum throughout Europe as the Nazi’s Germany waned. The United States recognized that the Russians would rise out of World War II the foremost power with the potential to dominate Europe and Asia alike. The mistrust, which started during the war between the Americans and the Russians, continued to proliferate. As a direct response to the Soviet menace, NATO was established. For the Russians part, after World War II, the Russians were slow to withdraw their troops from the Middle East and Turkey. Furthermore, the Russians began to accumulate their Iron Curtain installing

During World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union were allies. After the war the two countries emerged as the two most powerful countries in the world. Although the world war ended, it was not a clean ending. Iron-willed Stalin wanted a postwar settlement that would guarantee the Soviet Union's security and future. He wanted parts of Poland and Finland and the Baltic states. With Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union would have a buffer against future aggression from the West, colonies for rebuilding the economy, and new territory to the Communist world map. Roosevelt, on the other hand, opposed colonialism and the spread of Communism. For the next couple decades until 1991, the US and USSR would be locked in an arms race known as the

America had revolutionized it’s military strength, along with being supported by an economic boom, while the Soviet Union had gathered multiple resources and extraordinary land access out of the second world war. Due to such easy land access this ultimately led to the Soviet Union gaining a significant amount of satellite states, giving them a dominant fist throughout most of Europe. (Wikipedia 1947-1953) The United States in the west, had the same dominance that the Soviet Union had, however didn’t posses satellite states and was mostly due to the large amount of countries receiving finances and money from the U.S. due to the Marshall Plan, creating more countries to become dependent on the United States economy. (Neigberg 16-17) From gaining strong dominance in the east and the west, along with having plenty of say in what was to come next on the global stage, tensions quickly rose with these two conflicting nations. Russia, seeing the destruction and power behind the atomic bomb used in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, refused to fall behind America’s military power. Hence, tensions grew sour and a seed slowly started to grow between these two nations splitting their ideals further, and further