Russia 's Foreign Policy During The Cold War

One country is comparable to the United States of America in terms of world power and prominence. Russia makes their name known beginning in World War 2 (WW2), later in the Korean War, Cold War, and today’s proxy war in the Syria. Russia’s culture, environment, politics, military, and economy do not just make Russia a regional powerhouse, but slowly becoming a region of influential power to surrounding countries with the end state of a global superpower. All the factors that make Russia the powerhouse that it is slowly becoming, highlights the impressive trend that supersedes the previous Soviet Union and past leaders.

“I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” This declaration, made by former President Harry S. Truman on March 12, 1947, is part of the Truman Doctrine, and was the basis for U.S. involvement in Western Europe throughout the Cold War. Although the North Atlantic Treaty, and the resulting North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), was established during the Cold War “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down,” NATO has persisted since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990. This essay will seek to examine the U.S. decision to create and participate in NATO. It will begin by providing a history of NATO and the U.S. decision to participate in NATO before considering how this decision is both an instance of continuity and change in U.S. foreign policy since former President George Washington’s Farewell Address. The essay will conclude by considering the legacy of this decision and its impact on U.S. foreign policy. While this essay will consider the period of time leading up to the formation of NATO and will briefly touch on the present day, greatest consideration will be paid to the time period immediately preceding and following the formation of NATO in 1949.

The Cold War was a state of economic, diplomatic, and ideological discord among nations without armed conflict. The Cold War was between the United States and the USSR because these were the two major powers after WWII. Basically, the Cold War was a series of proxy wars that had taken place back in time involving surrounding countries. One of the main causes for Cold War was that the Soviet Union was spreading communism and the United States didn’t like that so they were trying to contain communism. However, in the end they failed. Many events took place in other countries. In Korea, Vietnam, Latin America, and China, communism took over; however, before it did, major wars had taken place. The cold war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union worsened the condition of countries involved. The Cold War broke countries into two parts that turned against each other, the United States and the Soviet Union used these countries to fight their war and caused a big disturbance to daily life, and the Communist States fought the Non-Communist States; however, the end results of these wars only caused more damage in these countries.

The Cold War was a state of political and military conflict that tested the vigor and fortitude of a multitude of United States presidents. Throughout the Cold War, various different strategies and foreign policies were tried and tested by US presidents. However, the environment in which these policies operated in did not stay consistent. Correspondingly, the Soviet Union’s potency fluctuated consistently, meaning that during some periods the “Red Scare” was not nearly as threatening as others. The ever-changing state of affairs throughout the Cold War was spawned from a number of reasons, including both the belligerency of what was then the current Soviet administration and the acting effects of previously implemented American foreign policy.

1. The three sources of tension between the United states and the Soviet Union from the end of the Second World War to the Marshall Plan are religious conflict, commercial expansion, and the consolidation of dynastic power that transformed Europe. United States and the Soviet Union both wanted to expand their territories with strong military and power. The Marshall Plan dealt with the social issues which helped aid Western Europe economy. However, from the experience of World War II, U.S. policy makers came to the decision that no hostile state can be allowed to gain control over the populations, territories, and resources of Europe and East Asia. Americans in the United States developed stronger military naval bases where they wanted to increase

There has never been a direct war between the United States and the Soviet Union. That’s how the Cold War got its name. On June 25, 1950 the first military action of the Cold War started. It was the between two states in Korea, the North and South, this war is also known as the Korean War. Although the war was called the Korean War, it was actually between the United States’ and the Soviet Union’s controversies in their way of govern. The United States supported South Korea because they were Nationalist and the Soviet supported North Korea, who were Communist. Earlier in China, there was an identical disagreement about the governmental system between the United States and the Soviet Union. Harry S. Truman, the 33rd President of the United States,

The objective of ‘the U.S. foreign policy’ course is to develop personal ability for applying IR theories to the U.S. foreign policy. Then, students will be able to understand the direction as well as the grounds of the U.S. foreign policy. To achieve this objective, I will discuss major the theoretical issues through the brief history of the U.S. foreign policy until the Cold War. After that, I will examine the challenges which the U.S. confronts.

Once an ally the United States fought together with in World War II from 1941 to 1945, the Soviet Union became an enemy of the U.S. after Stalin broke his promise of free elections in Eastern Europe. With nothing to stop invasions on its west, the USSR installed Communist governments in countries bordering its west to make them buffer states. The U.S. was afraid that the Communist takeover of one country would cause a chain reaction of neighboring countries falling to Communism, so it enacted a policy called ‟containment,” whose objective was to prevent the spread of Communism and encourage the USSR to stop its aggressions. U.S. Cold War policies embodied the ideals of democracy because it gave financial aid to countries that opposed Communism

The Cold War is unique among war’s to be not a war between states, but a war between ideologies. The United States and other allies defend social democracy capitalism, as the pinnacle of freedom and equality; and the Soviet Union though communism was the pinnacle of equality. These ideologies manifested themselves through the superpowers, which caused the conflict between them. Both the United States, and the Soviet Union are to blame for the outbreak of the Cold War. The United State’s mission to contain communism with the Marshall Plan, personal remarks against Stalin, the creation of NATO, and the use of the atomic bomb in Japan without warning the Soviet’s, their ally in the war. On the other side, Stalin’s remarks on Churchill and Truman, the Berlin blockade, and the breaking of agreements in Poland, escalated the situation from tense to a Cold War.

The Cold War was a period of continuous tension between the United States and the Soviet Union lasting from 1945 to 1989. As the two nations emerged from World War II as world superpowers, the race for supremacy commenced. While American democracies consisted hostility towards the idea of a communist state, the Soviet Union aimed to dominate the Eastern hemisphere with their communist ideals. Although the two superpowers never engaged in full scale combat, their rivalries produced a long period of mutual distrust and antipathy. American presidents Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan all played large, impactful roles during the Cold War, however, they each attempted to lead their country to peace in respective ways.

After World War II, the world was in a state of heightened suspicion that was lead by ideological differences. There were two main “superpowers” that shaped perceptions of the rest of the world. One was the United States, who had come out of the war fairly unscathed, which was due to little to no conflict directly on its soil, in addition to the possession of atomic weapons and a strong navy and air force. The other major player was the Soviet Union, whose industry was recovered during the first few years of the war in addition to a powerful army. These superpowers had a large impact on other countries due to their ideological differences: the United States favored a capitalistic democracy while the Soviet Union believed in communism. One country that was heavily influenced by both superpowers at the same time was Korea, which was ultimately split into two halves. The United States had a heavy impact on the south while the Soviet Union had an effect on the north. During the Cold War from the late 1940s to the early 1950s, The Soviet Union and the United States wanted to set up spheres of influence in foreign countries so that they could observe what the other was doing, which ultimately lead to the exploitation of North and South Korea.

Commitment to international security has been a point of conflict between Russia and the U.S. Historically the U.S. has abided by an ideology of universalism, “by which all nations share a common interest in all the affairs of the world” whereas Russia, formerly the USSR, has abided by the sphere-of-influence view, “by which each great power would be assured by other great powers of predominance in its own area of special interest” (Origins, p.26). Therefore, it is imperative that U.S. leadership protects the sovereignty of

The Cold War was a state of political and military conflict that tested the vigor and fortitude of a multitude of United States presidents. Throughout the Cold War, various different strategies and foreign policies were tried and tested by US presidents. However, the environment in which these policies operated in did not stay consistent. Correspondingly, the Soviet Union’s potency fluctuated consistently, meaning that during some periods the “Red Scare” was not nearly as threatening as others. The ever-changing state of affairs throughout the Cold War was spawned from a number of reasons, including both the belligerency of what was then the current Soviet administration and the acting effects of previously implemented American foreign

Today, one of the powerful country in the world is Russia. They are known for a multitude of things, notably being the first to send humanity into outer space. However, Russia has not always been what it is called today. Prior to the Cold War, Russia and other smaller countries surrounding Russia, had been known as the Soviet Union; with Russia as the most powerful.

“..all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in the Soviet sphere and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and increasing measure of control from Moscow..” (Churchill 6-7), this is a lesser known quote from Winston Churchill’s famous ‘Iron Curtain’ speech. This sentence, in reality, is the sentence that comes right after the famous “Iron Curtain has descended across the continent” quote, one that most Americans have heard in History Class. The Iron Curtain related to a period of the Cold War where the USSR controls most of the eastern half of Europe. History classes tell their students a lot about how America and the USSR were on the brink of war; nuclear weapons could have destroyed the world at any given moment, the Iron Curtain over Europe, that whole ordeal. The one thing that Social Studies classes never really covered was the effect that the USSR had on the countries it occupied, influenced, or controlled, and even in today’s world, Russia still impacts similar territory as it used to back during the Cold War. Back during the days of the USSR, the country had much control over Eastern Europe, including Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, Belarus, Czechoslovakia, eastern Poland, Hungary, Rumania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and of course, Eastern Germany. Many of the further away countries of the controlled area were not as heavily influenced as some of the countries that actually became part of the USSR,