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The Cold War During World War II Essay

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The Cold War was a clash of culture, ideologies, and a standoff between the world 's two greatest nuclear powers. The argument of the American side was based around Capitalism and a hunger for ever growing business while the Soviet Union’s was structured around Communism and it’s powerful theocracy that stated it must be spread to every country on the planet. As a result, there has been much debate about whether the U.S. initiated the Cold War through their usage of the atomic bomb in World War II, or the Soviet Union did with their extreme cultural and military expansion. However, the phrasing of the original question makes this clear from a schoolyard fight perspective. It comes down to who threw the first punch? Without a doubt, it was the United States, using the most powerful weapon known to mankind in an attempt to put Japan down for good and flex their muscles as a new world power. The United States’ dropping of the nuclear bomb, a weapon of mass destruction, in an effort to quickly take Japan out of the war had many more side effects than originally anticipated. For one, it incited the Soviet Union to fast-track their research and production of nuclear weapons, which led to a tense situation between them and the United States. Each side was waiting for the other to initiate before putting to use the many nukes they had been manufacturing after the end of World War II. Although, the concept of MAD, or mutually assured destruction, prevented either side from taking

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