The Cold War Era Essay example

The Cold War was an all-encompassing face of the 20th century, world politics, and a major idea during this time was domination of the skies. The United States competed against The Soviet Union in a war unlike any other, they didn’t fight with guns, bombs, or war machines but with science and the battlefield was space. The prioritization of the space race on the national agenda was characterized by an urgency, which underscored the commitment to the U.S. to defeat the Soviet Union by all means necessary. This came at the cost of billions of dollars, resources, lives, and political forces.

The American and Soviet Union space programs were in a race to space during the cold war. This space race reflected many political, social, and economic aspects of the cold war. The fact that both countries were in the middle of a cold war didn’t help.

As the US prepared for an attack from the Russians and started police action in other communist countries, like Korea, American policy changed a lot, especially for military funding. With all these threats and “police actions” America increased funding to defense. Document 8 shows in pie graphs that the budget for defense doubled during the time of the Cold War. One way that preparing for war, affected American society was through bomb shelters. As the threat of a nuclear war grew people got more scared many folks started readying for the worst; the government created “informational” videos on what to do in the event of a nuclear bomb coming, like the film Duck and Cover, and many families built bomb shelters, like the one depicted in Document 5.

 Despite the name being a “cold war”, the possibility and threat of a real war was always looming over the heads of Americans. The Russians had now built weapons that could wipe everything of the face of the earth. What affected Americans the most was The Cuban Missile crisis. The fact that the war could start with a single press of a button really frightened the Americans. People were trembling at the sound of war, they even began to build bomb shelters in their homes that they can run to, in case of a bombing. (Document 3) Moreover, these bomb shelters became very popular during these times, I believe this displays how much this war scarred the Americans; even though, it wasn’t technically a physical war they were scarred of what it could bring to them if it progressed to the next level.

The period after World War Two, known as the Cold War, was a period of brinkmanship between the world superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United States. This conflict was fought across the world as these two powers tried to advance their ideologies while blocking the others through military battles and by social prestige. Among the arms race between these powers, a technological battle unfolded, called the Space Race. This race sent humans into space as the two sides took huge risks to outperform the other, giving humanity some of its greatest achievements. This paper will look at the events and outcome surrounding the space race and answer three main questions. First, what led up the Space Race and the Soviet Union’s early victories? Second, how did the United States respond? Fourth, how did the Space Race affect the Cold War? Fourth, what made the United States Space Program more successful compared to the Soviet Union’s?

After World War II drew to a close in the mid-20th century, a new conflict began. Known as the Cold War, this battle involved the two world’s greatest powers the democratic and capitalist United States against the communist Soviet Union. Beginning later in the 1950s, space would eventually become another very dramatic arena for competition between the U.S and U.S.S.R, each side looked to prove the superiority of their own technology, along with its military firepower and of course their political-economic systems. Sputnik, name of the first of several artificial satellites launched by the Soviet Union from 1957 to 1961. Successfully launched and entered Earth 's orbit. Thus, beginning the space age. The successful launch shocked the

Offner, Arnold, "Provincialism and Confrontation: Truman’s Responsibility" in Major Problems in American Foreign Relations, Volume II.

Democratic localism was also enforced to keep the government at bay, allowing people to make their own economic decisions. Capitalism was renewed due to growth. Americans were enjoying various freedoms in politics, religion and travel. Nixon stated in one of his speeches that the United States had “come closest to the idea of prosperity for all in a classless society (166).”

“Sputnik marked the beginning of the "space race," a period of nearly twenty years during which fierce US and Soviet competition spurred both countries to make rapid progress in aeronautic engineering,” (Lee). This period of time birthed a new program from the American government, called the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA. NASA has been building rockets, training astronauts, and studying space for the benefit of science, the government, and the people of America since 1958. Unfortunately, many people don't realize how important NASA is, and there have been efforts made to stop the government from funding NASA. This program is essential for increasing knowledge of outer space, protecting planet Earth, and creating

From a United States and Soviet Union perspective that conveys that the Space Race had a minor impact on the improvisation of United States defense technologies; the Space Race was in a way responsible for the United State’s production of new technology of missiles and defense against intercontinental ballistic missiles. In the late 1950s the United States Air Force started a series of advanced strategic missile projects under the Weapon System WS-199A called Martin's Bold Orion air-launched ballistic missile (ALBM). Similar to ICBMs the purpose of the ALBM was to destroy satellites sent into orbit that posed a intellectual and physical threat to the US. The ALBM was created due to the increasing pressure that the Soviets were to launch a satellite before the United States, and since the United States would not know of the capabilities of this

1.     How NSC-68 influenced America’s response to Communist North Korea’s invasion of South Korea in June 1950 and to Communist expansion in Southeast Asia in the 1960s. The NSC-68 called for military assistance programs that would meet the requirements of our allies. Since South Korea was an ally, we assisted them in repelling the invasion of another communist nation. This help for South Korea meant that a communist nation would be weakened and therefore possibly cripple a potential ally for the Soviet Union. Also, South Korea would then respond to a call for aid if the Soviet Union ever attacked

The launch of the Sputnik had such a big impact on America because “America thought of themselves as the world’s technological leaders” (Richerme 35). Also “the Soviets, after all, were not supposed to be good at technology” (DeGroot 3). This scared America and brought them into a big crisis or as some call a race. This race was known as the space race and it was a very long and twisted path that it bared on its shoulders.

By examining the two nations’ early space technology, it is evident that Russia was initially superior in this regard. Launching the world’s first-ever artificial satellite — called Sputnik I — in October of 1957, the USSR chalked

In 1961 President John F Kennedy put together a doctrine, which altered from President Eisenhower’s one. It was to “Respond flexibly to communist expansion, especially guerrilla warfare.” (Roskin & Berry, 2010, p. 58) It was a time when the Cold War was at its height and nuclear weapons a mass threat and source of power. This doctrine was aimed at using alternative means before opening into combat. This, in light of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, it succeeded in doing.

The Cold War was a response to the perceived threat by the United States that Communism would interfere with national security and economic stakes in the world. It was a perceived threat by communist countries that the United States would take to the world. During the Cold War, the United States, Russia, and other countries made efforts to avoid another world war, while warring in proxy in other lands. The devastation caused by the hydrogen bombs exploded in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the next technological advancements became only deterrents to the public. Governments had their own agenda which would result in worsening the strain between nations. The United States hid behind a curtain of nationalism resulting in increased