The Soviet Union Tested A Nuclear Weapon

Furthermore, in 1950 Harry Truman ordered the production of the hydrogen bomb. In April of 1950, the National Security Council documented “NSC-68” which was a call to expanding defense efforts against the Soviet Union. Acheson feared that the public would be taken back by this idea, believing that the best solution would be to stay out of foreign affairs. Paterson notes that come June 1950, this attitude would change. In the summer of 1950, Soviet forces in North Korea invaded the American-backed South Korea.

Washington D.C. in the summertime is constantly perspiring, a rather miserable place to be. And, although the summer of 1949 was equally as dredged, Paul Nitze, an expert economist who lacked status in the United States government, was about to receive the opportunity of a lifetime. George Kennan, longtime diplomat and Russian studies expert, was looking to retire to his quiet farm in Pennsylvania, but he needed to leave a successor for the Policy Planning Staff. He decided on Paul Nitze. However, just months later after Russia succeeded in building and testing an atomic bomb and Nitze’s appeal for an assessment of U.S. Foreign Policy, Kennan on September 30 wrote, “I face the work of these remaining months with neither enthusiasm nor hope for achievement.” Obviously, the Cold War would be a large undertaking for any Russian expert in the State Department, however, it is more than likely that he was referring to working closely with colleague whose foreign policy tactics evidently began to differ greatly from his own as time would show.

On April 14 1950 NSC-68 a 58 page top secret policy paper was presented to President Harry S Truman by the United States National Security Council. It was a very important statements of American policy in the Cold War. NSC-68 provide the blueprint for the militarization of the Cold War. It called for an expansion of the military power and defense budget of the united states development of a hydrogen bomb,and increased military aid to be allies.The US could not expect other countries to stop communism and the United States must estimates itself in a non communist

Since the invention of nuclear weapons, they have presented the world with a significant danger, one that was shown in reality during the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. However, nuclear weapons have not only served in combat, but they have also played a role in keeping the world peaceful by the concept of deterrence. The usage of nuclear weapons would lead to mutual destruction and during the Cold War, nuclear weapons were necessary to maintain international security, as a means of deterrence. However, by the end of the Cold War, reliance on nuclear weapons for maintaining peace became increasingly difficult and less effective (Shultz, et. al, 2007). The development of technology has also provided increasing opportunities for states

In June 1950, 90,000 soldiers from the communist Korean People’s Army crossed the 38th Parallel into South Korea. The most important reason for a military response from the US was the document NSC 68, which stated that they must meet communism wherever it arises. Due to this document, it was the US assumption that the invasion on South Korea was not a Civil War due to the events in Korea, and the permanent divide in 1948. However, there was also US domestic policies, and Truman’s fear of being accused of being ‘soft on communism,’ as well as the US based organisation, the UN, which was a new institution, which Truman had to support. Furthermore, containment in Europe and Asia and the

The two superpowers in the world, the United States and Soviet Union, had begun to show their strengths immediately after war. Following the war, they got involved in events such as the Berlin Airlift and the Korean War in an attempt to prove who was stronger. After those events the two countries participated in an arms race, a contest in which they competed to see who was to build more powerful weapons. As this race turned into a more serious situation, and Americans started to realize that the United States wasn’t the only one with powerful weapons, fear united them once again. As shown in Document 3, the dominant problem throughout the years 1953-1962 was the threat of war.

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

Characterized by the ideological divergence of Communism and Capitalism as well as the intense economic rivalry when World War II came to an end, the political tension between the only two world’s superpowers, United States and Soviet Union, was inevitable. While both of these two nations were motivated by the ambition to expand their worldwide influence, Soviet Union carries more responsibility for instigating the Cold War and exacerbating its discord with United States. While critics argued that America initiated the war by carrying out the Marshall plan when there was no solid evidence about the threat of Communism posed on the United States, it is unassailable that Soviet’s aggression and expansionism prior to the Cold War led to America’s mindset about the nature and potential danger of Communism. The Telegram from Moscow clarified the

C) Korea heralded a new and more disturbing phase of the Cold War in June 1950. The Korean invasion also provided the occasion for a vast expansion of the American military. NSC-68 was a key document of the Cold War period, because it vividly reflected the sense of almost limitless possibility that pervaded postwar American society and it also expanded the Cold War, which to that point had mostly been concerned with Europe.

When the National Security Council Report 68, better known, as NSC was first made known in Washington, policy makers thought that the evident build-up of Soviet nuclear arsenal would severely counteract America’s eminent nuclear edge, and would, in theory, weaken the country’s plain superiority in economic power. Truman’s advisors were particularly worried about the fact that the danger of mutual destruction would never dissuade the Soviet Union from launching pre-emptive attacks against American positions in Europe and the Pacific. If in fact the Soviets refrained from attacking American military installations in Europe and elsewhere, the only rational option that the Soviets might take would be to reposition its conventional forces in Europe

In document 2, the NSC 68 said that the United States is going against the USRR to “establish justice and promote the welfare and a free society” while the Soviet Union just wants the absolute power. The council proposed that the United States creates a powerful military to contain the communism expansion. The ideas in document 1 and 2 shaped the US foreign policy by creating a policy of containment

George Kennan did not make any detailed policy recommendations in the Long Telegram of 1946, although he made it clear that he did not regard the Soviet Union as the same type of threat as Nazi Germany. He opposed the ideas of National Security Council Memorandum 68 (1950) as a hysterical overreaction, and thought that global containment was a serious strategic error, especially in peripheral regions like Indochina. Unlike Hitler, Stalin's aggression and expansion were unplanned and opportunistic, and its leaders did not wish to risk a general war with the West. For this reasons, the Soviets were highly sensitive to the "logic of force" and would retreat if confronted with resolution (Kennan 1946). Internally, it was a police state ruled by a Communist Party oligarchy and bureaucracy, but one that was always insecure in its power. Although Marxism had no real emotional appeal to the masses, the elites were guided by the assumption that the imperialist powers were always attempting to encircle the Soviet Union and that the contradictions within capitalism would always lead to wars. They would attempt to exploit these differences within the capitalist nations, while at the same time attempting to weaken their hold on the colonial areas. Kennan was well aware that the main problem in Western Europe was war-weariness and economic insecurity, and the U.S. would have to take the lead in reviving these countries or the "Russians certainly will" (Kennan 1946). In this case, though,

This caused the US to believe that Soviets had mainly expansionist aims. The US was “not prepared to see the opportunity for future investment [in Eastern Europe] foreclosed” (Crockatt 67) and this belief sparked the development of the containment policy directed by George Kennan, outlined in the Long Telegram (Lightbody 5). In addition, “the west had to oppose the Soviet Union for its own survival” (Lightbody 5) as the nuclear race between the US and USSR ensued and the USSR strived to equal the already well-established program of the US. This tension did not recede as Soviets sent spies into the US Manhattan Project, the nuclear development program (Lightbody 5). When the Soviets refused to join the Baruch Plan – which controlled nuclear weapon development – the USSR became even more openly viewed as a threat to US security. The growth of communism in Asia within the countries of Korea, Vietnam, and China along with tensions between the “Iron Curtain,” or divide, between Eastern and Western Europe also contributed to increasing threat towards capitalism and the Cold War’s inevitability.

The development of nuclear weapons helped to end World War II, but in turn created their own war between the United States and the Soviet Union. The development of modified military missiles such as the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, or ICBM, by Americans and the Soviets, had an impact on the struggle of power of the Cold War. The importance of military involvement in the creation of modified missiles and engines were critical events of the Cold War. Additionally, the steps taken to get to space were a byproduct of this Arms Race and the Cold War. Because the United States and the Soviet Union feared what the other country would or could do with weapons of mass destruction and the thought of the opposing country being able to control

During 1953-1957 the United State was busily making collective security arrangements in an attempt to recruit ‘Allies’ for her confrontation with the communist camp. In south-east Asia the United State sponsor and encouraged the formation of SEATO (The South East Asian Treaty Organization) and CENTO (The Central Treaty Organization).