The Cold War Era As A Dynamic Political Standpoint Based On Its Own Needs

The cold war started in 1945 and ended in 1989. It was a war between the United States and the Soviet Union. This war took place right after WWII and it is called the cold war because there were no real battles such as with tanks and bombs.

During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, China’s position quickly dwindled from being the dominant power in the East to struggling against encroaching Western powers that desired its territories, one of its main opponents being Russia. After the 1917 Russian Revolution, the newly established Bolshevik regime offered to return various territories seized by the Tsarist empire to China, but they failed to deliver on their promises when they seized Outer Mongolia and $2 billion in machinery soon after. This instance, among many others, contributed to hostile Sino-Soviet relations during the twentieth century.

Prior to Communism in China, it was known to be a chaotic country on the brink of self-destruction. With the emergence of the party leader Mao Zedong, came a new hope, which filled its inhabitants with the belief that China would return to its former historical greatness. American and Chinese relations before 1971 were in simple terms described as “uneasy”, due to the American, Soviet Cold War. It was not until President Richard Nixon visited China and realized the high value of having China as a ally that relations between the two powers began to become positive. Unknown at the time, it is assumed in the book Chinese Lessons written by John Pomfret, that the relationships he formed with the people he met in China would change his outlook on life and Communist China forever.

To begin the new plan in Asia, the US gave 2 billion dollars to the Chinese nationalists, set up in Taiwan, who were fighting the Chinese Communist Party. The CCP won the war against the nationalists in 1949 by appealing to greatest population in China, peasants.This victory made the American people fearful because the government had let China go “red.” They thought that if such a big country could turn communist, then what would keep the rest of the world from turning to the same communist policies, paralleling Eisenhower’s later “falling domino”

John Gaddis is a professor at the University of Yale. Gaddis field of interest are the “U.S Cold War history; Historical methodology; Biography; Grand Strategy (Yale University." John Gaddis. http://history.yale.edu/people/john-gaddis). Since his field of interest is in the U.S Cold War history, he wrote a book about it by the name of The Cold War A New History. Gaddis’s book is written for his undergraduate Yale students that he lectures to every Monday and Wednesday afternoon. His real purpose in this book is to make his Yale undergraduates understand what the Cold War was since “hardly any of them remember any of the events I’m (he is) describing”(preface).

Realism is one of the most dominant international relations theories in the academic world. But within Realism, Realists are split on a number of issues. A perfect example of which being the rise of China. Over the past 30 years China has increased not only in population and power, but has also achieved one of the strongest economies in the world. The rise of China is seen as problematic by many realists. Since the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union, the US has enjoyed a position of hegemony in the unipolar power structure of the world. Many fear that the rise of China could upset the current balance of power. One such individual is a prominent realist scholar, John Mearsheimer. He believes that war with China is inevitable and “calls for the US to do whatever it can to slow China’s rise.” Another political theorist Jonathan Kirshner wrote this paper to counter many of Mearsheimer’s claims, stating that Mearsheimer’s offensive realism “is wrong, and dangerous”. Kirshner suggests that instead of using offensive realism we should look instead to the theories roots in classical realism to analyse the rise of China.

The Cold War era was an infamous time in United States history. The stand-off between the USSR and the US lasted nearly forty-five years, and began shortly after World War II had ended. Even though the USSR and the US had been Allied Powers during the war, Stalin’s ruling of his country frightened the United States, and the US’s late entry in the war caused Russian resentment. The tension the Cold War caused terrified everyone and pressured the United States government to start preparing for desperate measures. The US began mass-producing nuclear bombs, increasing production four times over, and even started working to create the first fusion hydrogen bomb (History, 2009). It the stress of the Cold War that caused Rocky Flats to be constructed. Rocky Flats was a plutonium processing plant in Colorado, just 26km north-west of Denver (Coates, 2014). During its life it manufactured fission cores that were to be used to detonate hydrogen bombs. The science they used to construct the fission cores utilized the discoveries made during WWII. However after the FBI’s raid in 1989, it was quickly shut down for good. Although the site has received a massive cleanup from the government and community, its impact on Colorado can still be seen today.

Throughout the Cold War, Korean War, and Vietnam War the main problem was communism. Although the United States and the Soviet Union were allies in World War Two, during the Cold War the United States and the Soviet Union were known as enemies. The Soviet leaders bragged to other nations that communism would “scrape apart” free-enterprise systems around the world. This attitude angered the capitalists which led into the fifty year Cold War. The United States tried creating many tactics and strategies to contain the “bleeding” of communism, but during the cold war, communism spread faster then it could be restrained. The United States used the Marshall Plan , the Trueman Doctrine, and the Berlin Airlift to help lead people to a

In 1927, a war commenced between the Nationalist administration of China, headed by Christian official Chiang Kai-shek, and the Communist Chinese, headed by Mao Tse-tung. Thus, war was waged between the Nationalists, representatives of freedom; and the Communists, representatives of the soul-crushing oppression of Communism. Conversely, in America, the sides were interchanged, as liberal American reporters referred to Mao Tse-tung a “true man of the people” and an “agrarian reformer”; however, patriot of freedom, Chiang Kai-shek was prejudicially labeled as “power-hungry” and “corrupt”. Because assistance was not given from the United States to an ally in desperate need, the toxin of Communism invaded China and remains a parasite on a formerly great land.

As I understand the historical connection between China and United States, they were and in some sense still are both rivals, which began with Mao Zedong driving American-supported Chang out of China soon after the unconditional surrender of the defeat of aggressive Imperial Japan in 1945. Mao took over China and forced Chang to beat a hasty retreat to Taiwan Island. Then in l950, the world witnessed the fierce armed confrontation between Mao led China versus the United Nations' forces with the full backing of United States during the three year Korean War which eventually became a stalemate to this day. Then there was another world-shattering war between U.S. and Communist Soviet-China over the devastating Vietnam. So China had been at

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the Cold War was over, making the U.S. the only superpower left in the world. This has made the international system much more tranquil, and relaxed. The only country potentially powerful besides the U.S., is China. Many Americans fear China, not only because they are communist, but also because of their huge population. Their population is 1.3 billion people, which accounts 1/5th of the world’s population. As one of the only potential superpowers in the world, it would be in the best interest of all Americans if the U.S. and China became allies, instead of enemies. Peace and development, economic prosperity and social progress, are goals that both of

However, after the Japanese retreat, the Communists and the Guomindang raced for control the areas that Japan had occupied. The USA became involved, because the US did not want the Communists to win control of China. They supported Guomindang troops to seize most other coastal cities and ports. The USA did not want to renew the civil war, therefore send General George C. Marshall to bring the two sides together in December 1945. He managed to sing a truce between them but it broke down in early 1946. The Civil War started. Guomindang seemed stronger because their military power was helped by America. Chiang Kai-shek was recognised as the true leader of China. Communists were not in good position, because they did not have air force and navy, they had few railways and they only had an army of 1 million men. It seemed really weak; they did not even have the help of a

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has become more integrated and willing to cooperate within the global political and economic systems than ever in its history. However, there is growing apprehension in the Asia-Pacific region and the U.S. in regards to the consequences of rising in economic and military power in China. Descriptions about Chinese diplomacy in the policy and scholarly are less positive lately concerning China’s obedience to regional and international rules. There was little debate in the U.S. and elsewhere in regards to whether China was or was not part “the international community.” Scholars and experts in the early 1990s have contended

Snyder claims that realism failed to predict the Cold War. Given this, Mearsheimer states “China cannot rise peacefully.” Since realists describe the world as a self-help system, according to Posen, every country “must look to its own interests relative to those of others” and because “security is the preeminent issue in an anarchic world, the distribution of capabilities to attack and defend should matter.” Thus, because China’s strive for regional hegemony inevitably threatens the power dynamic of the global system, the U.S. will, according to Mearsheimer, take an offensive realist approach that will eventually lead to war. In addition, as seen in post-Cold War, economic stability greatly determines the distribution of power. Friedberg notes, that the projected “speed and magnitude of China’s growth in recent decades appears to be unprecedented” and as early as 2015, “China’s economy could overtake that of the United States.” Although the U.S. faces an unprecedented challenge to economic power, according to Ikenberry, China has signaled cooperation by “redoubling its participation in existing institutions, such as the ASEAN Regional Forum and the East Asia Summit or working with the other great powers in the region to build new ones.” Nevertheless, following the actions of the U.S. post WWII, China strategically makes “itself more predictable and approachable” to reduce “the incentives for other

The history of Sino-Soviet relations can be traced back hundreds of years, starting with the initial Mongol invasion and devastation of the Kievan Rus’ principalities in the mid-thirteenth century. With time, the rise of the Russian Empire and Czarist rule reversed the infrastructural and cultural destruction caused by the Mongol hordes; by the advent of the twentieth century, the reformed Russian state had begun encroaching on Chinese territory while holding a very strong, influential grasp on the slowly collapsing Imperial Chinese regime. However, with the success of the Russian Revolution in 1917, the creation of the Soviet Union, and the institution of a communist government and administration, the nature of