The Impact Of World War II And American And Soviet Responses

Immediately after the close of the WWI, Europe plunged itself into WWII, a major world conflict that ended in 1945 and brought forth significant changes that set the footnote for Europe’s future development. In many ways, the 1945 was seen as a turning point of modern European history.

As the Cold War started to intensify, President Eisenhower began to worry about the strength of the US economy. The Dulles Brothers, along with the president viewed the communist threat through the same prism. They then decided on a foreign policy to fight against the communist expansion. ​

Prior to the First World War, Europe was the world center of industry and capital. Massive death, destruction, and resentment after World War I left most countries unable to recover to a normal existence and damaged the world economy. The economic collapse and the political instability caused by World War I eventually led to the rise of fascism in Europe. Forceful dictators in Italy, Germany, and Japan took advantage of these problems to seize power by territorial expansion. These events caused a major repositioning of world power and influence. This paper traces a variety of significant factors and forces that contributed to the outbreak of World War II.

Changes were happening all over Europe between World War I and World War II, and the book Europe in the Era of Two World Wars highlights a lot of them. Volker Berghahn, the author, discusses how violence escalated all across Europe during this time frame. The book digs into the desires and upsets of countries like Germany, Britain, France, and Russia, during war times more than others I have read do. Economies of each country and the escalading violence are the main focuses of the book. In the following review of Berghahn’s work, Europe in the Era of Two World Wars, I will highlight why the author is qualified to write the book, and survey the strengths and weakness of the information he provided.

The United States truly showed that we were coming together as a nation to become one of the most dominant countries in the world. The United States was brought into World War II when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. This event took Americans by surprise and soon would lead to bigger problems. The United States did not take the bombing lightly, and we gave Japan exactly what they deserved. On August 6th and 9th in the year of 1945, the United States dropped atomic bombs in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I believe this was a message to the rest of the world to show them the kind of power that we had.

As the Old World became embroiled in World War I, the United States grappled with a defining issue in foreign policy: whether or not to join in the fighting, and if so, on which side. In April 1917, President Woodrow Wilson requested that Congress declare war on Germany, Austria-Hungary, and their allies, officially joining the Triple Entente. However, historians still debate on the question of why the US conceded neutrality to military action. Different scholars employ different methodology for answering this question, and one method includes broadening the question to ask at what point must neutral nations become belligerent. That being said, political actors often portray partial characteristics while remaining officially neutral, so how

In September of 1939, a global war had begun when Hitler led the German forces to invade Poland. The American president was reluctant on entering the war because he was building allies in the western hemisphere and was focused on making life better on the home front. Tragedy struck America on the morning of December 7, 1941 when the Japanese conducted a surprise aerial attack against the United States naval base at pearl harbor. The lethal and deadly force of the attack spurred President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to realize it was time to enter the war. As American troops were being sent off to war citizens' lives on the home front changed dramatically. The soldiers were being taken care of before the people and did not experience the

After World War II, the United States and the USSR established themselves as the two most dominant nations in the world. Though they were tentative allies throughout the war, they came to distrust each other as direct rivals. Throughout the Cold War, the United States attempted to contain the spread of Communism, endorsing democratic regimes in Asian, Latin American, and African countries. The conflict reached its peak in October of 1962 in the Cuban Missile Crisis which was triggered by the Soviet deployment in Cuba of intermediate and medium-range ballistic nuclear-armed missiles with nuclear warheads. Although deeply challenging Americans’ tactical interventions, the Cuban Missile Crisis revealed the sophistication of the U.S. intelligence community, especially in its capability to collect and analyze information. Indeed, the American intelligence discovered the Soviet Union’s missiles through diverse intelligence gathering methods, such as aerial photoreconnaissance, human intelligence and advanced signal interceptions. This intelligence not only revealed critical information about the Soviet’s missiles, military units and weapons present in Cuba but also prevented an imminent nuclear war, hence demonstrating the power and war strategies deployed through espionage while questioning the right balance between its morality and necessity.

The United States of America retreated from European politics but was able to remain the most prosperous economy of that time and led the way in development of new energy sources and goods, furthermore, reshaping daily life during and after the effects of this horrible war. Withdrawal of the United States and the newly formed Soviet Union, international peacekeeping was seriously weakened. Distrust was running rampant in Europe due to the contradiction between stated principles and actual practices of the peace treaties by the victorious Allied powers (66).

World War II had devastating effects all across Europe. There were an immense number of casualties resulting from the war, which deeply affected Europe’s economy. Central and Eastern Europe, suffered a severe shortage of men after the war, and at one point the number of women surpassed the number of men by 20 million (Judt, Postwar, p.19). Western European states were short of labor and welcomed stateless people to begin economic and material reconstruction. Civilians’ homes all across Europe were destroyed, farms were no longer farmable, railroad tracks and bridges were blown up, and communications were severely disrupted (Judt, Postwar, p.21). Following the end of World War II in 1945, the Iron Curtain split Europe into the East and the West.

Europe faced many challenges during the immediate aftermath of World War II (WWII). Firstly, this essay will examine the most important negative consequences confronted by Europe after WWII including the effects the war had on the European economy and political conditions. In this regard, it will look specifically at the Soviet Union, Germany, Poland and Britain. Secondly, the essay will review the numerous displaced populations WWII left behind as well as the expulsions of several Germans from Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Lastly, this essay will observe the destruction and loss of cultural heritage Europe encountered following WWII.

The Second World War was a devastating blow to the economies of Europe. Factories were destroyed, infrastructure was obliterated, and agricultural production was put to a halt. These problems could not be easily fixed since most of the nations that engaged in World War II had exhausted its financial resources over its duration. Former world powers like Britain were on the brink of bankruptcy, and inflation and unrest was prevalent. Communism began to benefit from this, as it began to gain more and more support especially in places such as France and Italy. It quickly became obvious that economic support needed to be given to the continent, not just for economic reasons but also to prevent the spread of Soviet Communism.

Good morning/afternoon ladies and gentlemen I ______ am pleased to be presenting here today at the Cold War symposium. The cold war was a defining ideological conflict of the 20th century that has left a legacy into the 21st century. A critical event in the Cold War was the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. It presented a situation where both the United States and Soviet Union wielded the power of nuclear weapons, with the potential to descend the world into its first nuclear war. The Cuban Missile Crisis was initiated by the Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev, provoking U.S president John Kennedy by imprudently placing nuclear missiles in Cuba. Khrushchev’s superficial proposals of a missile exchange and intentions of preventing Cuba from

Before adopting the name Iran in 1935, the country was known as Persia. At this point, Raza Kahn became Shah, or emperor of Iran. Kahn ruled as an autocrat until being forced to step down in order for his son, Mohammed Raza Pahlavi, to take the throne at the beginning of World War 2. During World War 2, Iran became occupied by British and Russian forces, but was largely absent in any participation in fighting the war. The Iranian government attempted fairly successfully to avoid combat, and with it the probable demise of the nation during the war. Following World War 2, in 1950, Iran saw the brief rule of Prime Minister Ali Razamara. Razamara was assassinated merely nine months after coming into power, and was followed by Mohammad Mossadeq. In 1951, Iranian parliament voted to nationalize domestic oil exports. However, as the oil industry in Iran was still largely controlled by the British, Britain imposed an embargo on all oil exports, demonstrating its power in manipulating the Iranian economy. The Shah was forced to flee the country as

A short moment after the end of World War II, as Europe was slowly coming