The United States And The Soviet Union Essay

In the period after World War II, from the late 1940’s up until the 1990’s, the United States and their allies were engaged in a “cold” war with the Soviet Union and its allies. Except for minor proxy wars between countries supported by the respective sides, no major wars were fought between the U.S. and the USSR. Nonetheless, tensions were extremely high for many years and the two superpowers constantly went back and forth trying to best the other. Likely the most well-known of these competitions was the Space Race. Battling for cosmic supremacy from the late 1950’s to 1969, the two countries traded many victories over the years and pushed each other to their technological apexes.

In 1945 the Soviet Union and the United States became enemy's. They had became enemies because they could not agree on a lot of things. There where a lot of factors to them splitting up. They decided it wasn't a good idea to be allies with all of their differences. One of the biggest things that they couldn't agree on was government. The United States believed in encouraging democracy into other countries so that a communist government didn't rise to power in other countries. Unlike the United States the Soviet Union believed in communism. They would encourage communism in other countries as a big part of the world wide "workers revolution" I believe that this was a big reason that the two countries could not get along and decided to not be

When President Truman authorized the use of two nuclear weapons in 1945 against the Japanese in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II, the nature of international security was changed irreversibly. At that time, the United States had what was said to have a monopoly of atomic bombs. Soon thereafter, the Soviet Union began working on atomic weaponry. In 1949, it had already detonated it first atomic bomb and tensions began to heat up between the two countries. With the information that the Soviets had tested their first bomb, the United States began work on more powerful weapons1, and a fight for nuclear superiority had begun.

Relations between the United States and the Soviet Union have always been complicated. Over the entire 20th century they have been close allies to bitter rivals. The stark differences in each of their political systems prevented the USA and the USSR from maintaining a close political friendship and understanding, and even to the very edge of war.

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.

Propaganda used to induce terror included posters, political statements, and comics. One such comic was Is This Tomorrow?, a popular dramatization of the Soviets and of communism(Document 7). By depicting the Soviets in such a violent, authoritarian light, it spread anti-communist feeling among Americans, and attempted to prevent any Soviet sympathizers. In the Soviet Union, a secret speech made by Nikita Khrushchev to the closed session of the Twentieth Party of Congress denounces capitalism and fights against the anti-communist campaign(Document 6). The Secret Speech was a counter to recently made anti-communist organizations, and reinforced the Soviet Union’s own ideals, while countering the US’s arguments for capitalism. Through the use of past faults and militaristic policies, Khrushchev argues that the US’s attempts at peace were false, and only a front for their true intentions. This effectively promoted terror and anti-capitalist feeling among Soviet Congress. It gave strong reasoning to fight back against Americans, as it instilled fears of a capitalist overtake, and the need for preservation of the

The various miore events of invasion and prevention of expansion had sharpen the Cold War to become what it was. The various events in question mostly involved the United States and Russia arguing over territory. Although these events influenced the outcome the Cold War, undoubtedly the formation of the Soviet sphere, the Truman Doctrine, and the attack on Afghanistan prolonged tensions during the Cold War. During the span of a few years, the demand and production of nuclear arms was increased significantly.

“The Evil Empire” — that is what, at the height of the arms race, United States President Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union (Rudolph 1). Unsurprisingly, the Soviet Union was similarly upset at the United States. This anger is what fueled the arms race. During the Cold War, due to fears of nuclear attack, the US and Soviet Union designed and deployed thousands of nuclear warheads, each hoping to deter the other from nuclear launch with threat of counter attack (O’Neal 1). This massive arms buildup, however, had many negative effects on the US. To recognize the impact that the arms race continues to have on today, it is crucial to understand not only its causes, but also its immediate impacts on the US economy, society, foreign

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 role of America at the end of World War II was where the origins of policing the world originate. America had been engaged in a very costly war in terms of dollars as well as lives. But, despite the expense the United States came out of World War II better than any other nation that was involved. The Second World War was a battle between the Allied and Axis Powers. The Allied Powers consisted of the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, China, and France. This war was seen as the fight against Nazi Germany, and therefore resulted in a majority of the battles fought on German and Russian soil. The aftermath left the Soviet Union in bad shape. Close to twenty million Russians

Since Cold War began at the end of World War in the late 1940s, the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, were racing their power to get their dominance over another. Each side feared the other’s superior weapons, such as the United States had nuclear weapon and the USSR had their mighty Red Army. The Cold War spread through decades and seemed to be indefinite. Two superpowers with the race of weapon not only weakened their economy but also threaten each other with their massive arsenals. Two sides negotiated to reduce half the numbers of nuclear weapon on each side as they worried that if the war started, it would be the third World War, and the

After World War II, The United States and the Soviet Union were amidst a nuclear arms

After the World War II, despite the losses in material and in human lives, both United States and Soviet Union were the only two countries which emerged from that war, and whose powers were really strengthened. That was because both possessed some characteristics that other nations could not boast, such as a multi-ethnic society, a government able to exploit the immense human and industrial resources, implementing also new political programs worldwide. Moreover, these two great countries were markedly different from each other, for both ideologies and purposes, for this reason they proposed two distinct models of development: the "American model" which proposed a liberal system (political- economic), deeply individualistic and characterized

During the late 1940’s and the early 1950’s, America began to find themselves in the middle of fear as the Cold War began to approach. Tensions began to grow between the two nations of the United States and Soviet Union. These tensions lasted for roughly seven years, which lead to international episodes. Leader of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin and leader of the United States Joseph Stalin had led their dictatorship into disaster. Both the United States and Soviet Union had fought as allies against Nazi, Germany. This war had become capitalism between communism both countries had different belief principles. These differing views lead to a war that would change America. Resulting in the first nuclear attacks, that were successful by the Soviets in 1949, American began to fear that the people around them were Soviet spies, passing on nuclear technology from the Unites States to Russia.

Nuclear arms proved to be the central force behind the fears of a global war during the latter 20th century. However, with the collapse of the USSR, and the legacy of the Cold War leaving the United States as the sole superpower, the tensions of global nuclear war seem to have eased. Despite this, both the United States, and the successor state of its once powerful rival the Soviet Union, still possess in their arsenals the ability to destroy civilization two times over. Russian nuclear capabilities are still as powerful as they once were, and modernization of nuclear arsenals remains a key component of Russian foreign policy. The Russian state’s massive arsenal, the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet, is pushed as the central tenant of