The Cold War Era Essay

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).”

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

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

Hanson’s 2012 premise, albeit over two years old today, is immediately discernible: America faces devastating self-inflicted wounds by implementing the current Administration’s defense spending budget. The dawn of 2014 finds this debate ongoing and the implementation of this budget well in progress, with even more drastic cuts taking effect than the ones analyzed by Hanson previously. While few historians of repute would argue against the reality that the siren song of defense reductions has lured the nation onto the shoals of unpreparedness for future conflict many times in the past, two shortcomings in Hanson’s piece beckon us to pause and reexamine.

After World War II there was still a main conflict between the two major world superpowers; the US and allied countries that supported democracy and on the other hand the Soviet Union (USSR) who supported communism and wanted to spread it. The conflict was that the Soviet Union tried spreading communism in other countries, but the United States was not going to allow that. This conflict influenced the Cold War to be fought by the Eastern Bloc (Soviet Union) and Western Bloc (the United States and allies). When the Eastern Europe was taken over by the USSR and turned into communism the US helped the Western Europe to not be taken over by communism. As an adviser to the President of the United States the policy that he should follow is to rapidly build up the political,

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.

Taking away nuclear deterrence from the argument, it is the conventional forces that provide the U.S. military to protect the homeland, deter aggression, and project power abroad – the direct aims of the 2014 QDR and 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance. Legitimate deterrence requires credible capability. The 2014 QDR seeks to reset the military, not to whitewash the past decade or the likelihood of continued irregular conflict, but rather to reset and reinvest the conventional capabilities for conflict with a peer competitor. To do so requires

After world war one peace looked inevitable. Everyone was wrong about this because a few years later world war two erupted. This great war was supposed to be the war to end all wars. In this war it was crystal clear who was the good side and who was the bad side. Almost everyone figured that if the bad side was defeated then peace couldn’t possibly escape us again. We defeated the evil Axis powers, but of course another serpent would rear its ugly head from behind the curtains. This period of a “cold war” after world war two has become one of the most complex and studied eras since America’s birth. This state of paradoxes, paranoia, and public disorientation has only ended a few years ago, but its

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

Following World War Two, two distant political governments emerged to dictate the direction the world would take. These two governments consisted of Communism and Democracy which stared untrustingly at each other and staunched economic growth with their excessive military budgets. In the end though, Democracy would prove to be the preferred government archetype for the general population of the world.

With the war looming large at the end of November the first act of hostility was when Soviet Union broke of all diplomatic ties with Finland on November 28th. On November 30th at first light the Soviet troops sent 4 divisions of its army with over 450,000 men over the borders of Finland. The Finns however could only muster around 180,000 men initially against the world's largest army. The Soviets also had the advantage in machinery with Soviet armoured tanks outranking the Finnish 6541 to 32 and aircraft 3880 to 114 (History Learning Site) (Hickman). To make matters worse the majority of the Finnish machinery was severely outdated compared to the Soviets, which were all cutting edge at that time. In Finland bullets were also scarce and soldiers

After all the invasion of different countries in Europe and the killing of so many lives of innocent people, Adolf Hitler was finally put to stop. One result of the end of WWII was the division of Germany into four zones controlled by Great Britain, France, Soviet Union, and the United States. Lack of agreement and compromise with the Soviet Union about the agreement of Germany led to the beginning of the Cold War. U.S and USSR became focus in an Arms Race to have the greatest nuclear capability. This lead to the Space Race where another heated competition to whoever get to the moon first and to have the best space technology. Focusing to the whole world U.S reasoned that if one country came under the influence of communism, then the

The United States needs to adopt and maintain an irregular warfare mindset, above that of conventional, to ensure adaptable economic, political and military capabilities in an ever evolving global environment. In

American national security enterprise depends on resources for any strategy implementation and the planning and resource integration activities across agencies are parallel to the budget and resources. Any policy and strategy without a budget will remain as a written opinion. In defense strategy, we often talk about planning, programming, budgeting, and execution, which explains the importance of the budgeting for any process. The Strategic Choices and Management Review (SCMR) in 2013 proposed options for implementing defense cuts was a great exercise to understand better budget as policy and strategy.

Today, although people say the Cold War is over, that is far from reality. Even today, proxy wars continue to haunt mankind. The USA and Russia are still not the best of friends and capitalism and communism still have their differences. “Moscow’s current foe is Washington, and Washington’s is Moscow” as a journalist Michael Kimmage correctly says. This quote seems to summarise all of world politics of the last few decades.