Understanding the Cold War Today

1. What do you remember hearing about the Cold War? What did people say about it?

The Cold War was a pivotal time in American history. To a greater degree than most other wars, the Cold War affected American society in unfathomable and profound ways. More specifically, American culture transformed immensely during this time. From a constant state of anxiety, to changes in media and the arts, to McCarthyism; the Cold War fervently affected the quality of life, personal expression, and American politics. Predominantly, the Cold War inflicted fear and apprehension within the American people that was so overpowering that it affected every aspect of their lives and overall American culture.

The Cold War, which was considered the “years of maximum danger,” lasted from 1949-1962. This period brought an increasing sense of danger to America because the Soviet Union came into possession of an atomic bomb in 1949; an idea many Americans thought to be impossible unless the Soviet Union had a spy in the United States, which they did. Because the Soviet Union had an atomic bomb, a nuclear war became a reality. In Kenneth Rose’s “One Nation Underground” he told of rising issues associated with the Cold War and the threat of nuclear bombings. The Cold War, in conjunction with the inventions of (total destructive) bombs, generated new dangers, fears, and morality issues among Americans, which led to further increased fears.

Here are two of the most important orations of the cold war period, by former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Dwight D Eisenhower’s describing the policies and efforts to contain the Cold War era. Churchill starts with his famous speech “the Iron Curtain” delivered in Fulton Missouri in 1946 after being invited by President Truman. The “Iron Curtain” speech was the initial platform that announced and defined the declarations of the Cold war to come with the urgency to have a tight relationship between the countries of democracy against communism. Then with President Eisenhower’s speech in 1953 a “Chance for Peace” this was an initiative that outlined the clear recognition of the prospects the world faced and the cost in sincere efforts to end the cold war. The “Iron Curtain” and “Chance for Peace” both reveal the conviction and strong efforts that are desired to restrict the fears encompassed with the Cold war.

During the Cold War the powers of the Eastern and Western Bloc were states of tension after World War II. The war between the United States and the Soviet Union had lasted about half of the second century where there were many stages to finish this war. There are several documents and speeches that help explain and support what had occurred during the Cold War. It had brought heightened tensions and a series of international incidents that brought the world’s superpowers to the brink of disaster. The Cold War brought many effect around the world such as economic depression, divisions, and fear.

John Lewis Gaddis, is a leading American Historian of the Cold War. He is the Professor of history at Yale University. He is already the author of six books on the same subject. The Cold War: A New History, however, has been written on a less cosmic level. He has distilled a life time of research into this short but comprehensive book. He has given new avenues to old controversies in worldly and stylish, yet direct and plain-spoken manner. The book offers a lot of summaries to intricate historical issues and provides new avenues of thinking about conflict which arose out of pre-emption and ended in the hope for the world.

The forty-five years from the dropping of the atom bombs to the end of the Soviet Union, can be seen as the era of the new conflict between two major states: United States of America (USA) and Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). According to Hobsbawm, ‘cold war’ was the constant confrontation of the two super powers which emerged from the Second World War. At that time the entire generation was under constant fear of global nuclear battles. It was widely believed that it could break out at any moment. (Hobsbawm, 1994) The consequences of the ‘power vacuum’ in central Europe, created by the defeat of Germany, gave rise to these two super powers (Dunbabin, 1994). The world was divided into

The Cold War (1941-91) was a time of political and military tension between Soviet Russia and the United States. During this time, there was a great deal of fear between the 2 international superpowers as they both possessed nuclear weapons capable of wiping each other out. The Americans were in constant fear of Communism and Soviet spies. The paranoia was exacerbated by some politicians who suggested that Soviet spies were everywhere. This fear made some Americans to accuse their own neighbors of being Communist sympathizers.

In this paper I will discuss what actions and thoughts added up to cause the cold war. The cold war lasted from September 1, 1945 to about December 25, 1991. That is about forty-five years, which is an extremely long time. The cold war was a global competition basically between two sides, the Free World, which was led by the United States of America, and the Communist World led by the Soviet Union. The struggle took place through indirect military conflict, and direct competition in the areas of economics, diplomacy, culture, space exploration, and political theory. It also involved nuclear stand offs, espionage, and global competition for other nations. The cold war has established the framework for most

There are multiple schools of thought on the Cold War. Each developed in reaction to the historical context in which the secondary source was written. The traditional view of the Cold War focuses on Soviet’s expansionist policy at the end of the World War Two. The United States viewed the Soviet Union as an enemy against a capitalist economic structure. Traditionalist thinkers are an extension of the realist school of thought, which viewed the Soviet Union as a villain and the United States as the protector of the world.

The Cold War, which started sometime in the 1940’s, was a large quarrel between the United States and the Soviet Union. This dispute involved a lot of propaganda and threats of nuclear warfare. Despite all of the trouble though, after over forty years of fighting, the two leaders of these countries (Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev) would finally work out a solution. However, although they did reach an agreement, there were many differences between these two men.

1. Discuss when, why and how the Cold War began. Then cite at least one factor that perpetuated the Cold War in each decade from the 1950s-1980s and discuss how the item you selected affected America at home as well. Last, discuss when and why the Cold War ended.

This atmosphere is known broadly as the “Cold War.” While the Cold War played out step-by-step between the United States and the Soviet Union, it was simultaneously playing out in the everyday lives of the masses within their borders. Paranoia, nevertheless, was not an effect that followed immediately after the close of the War.

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 unique time period were paranoia ran high and the world was at a stalemate as it watch the competition between the two world superpowers,(U.S. and the U.S.S.R.).