Was the Cold War Inevitable Essay

The Cold War, a period of sustained political and military tension between the USA and the USSR, resulted in various viewpoints concerning the cause of the tension emerging. Until today the question remains unresolved, even after the 1991 release of Soviet archives. The main point of disagreement relates to the roles that ideology played in the events between 1945 and 1949. Was it the strongly opposing ideologies, capitalism and communism, or power and material interest that drove both superpowers to the decades of struggle for global supremacy.

MacDonald’s article Communist Bloc Expansion in the Early Cold War, four schools of thought surrounding the origins of the Cold War are laid out. Specifically, MacDonald argues mostly in favor of the traditionalist school, which emphasizes the expansionist, offensive nature of Soviet expansion into Asia and Eastern Europe. Also, MacDonald makes an important point regarding the accuracy of information and historical texts regarding the origins of the Cold War, explaining that “The argument over the origins of the Cold War is important not only for historical accuracy, but also for the consequences it will have on theoretical questions and therefore on their implications for policy.” Not only is this true, but also extremely relevant to scholars studying the Cold War with regard to international relations, as it points out the importance of the correct application of paradigms and perspectives to the Cold War case study. In MacDonald’s argument in favor of the traditionalist school, he

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

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.

During the course of history, great leaders have coerced the world to the brink of war; this was the case for Joseph Stalin, who forced the world to the unprecedented Cold War. To a large extent, Stalin’s actions were responsible for the onset of the Cold War. Stalin displayed a lack of trustworthiness, evident in the Yalta conference during February 1945, and spread communism into eastern European states. This led to mutual distrust between the USSR and the United States. In 1948, Stalin further escalated tensions between himself and the United States, by enforcing the construction of the Berlin blockade, created to weaken the United States supplies in West Germany. Stalin was a strong believer in militarism, because of this Stalin ordered the creation and consolidation of the USSR’s nuclear arsenals in 1947, inflaming the arms race that could have potentially inflicted total devastation throughout the globe. Stalin’s impetuous actions caused great tensions between himself and other leaders, subsequently causing him to be responsible for the outbreak of the Cold War.

The phrase "cold war" is associated with the so-called "competition" of the United States and the USSR, which began almost immediately after the Second World War. The Soviet Union was in fact a serious competitor to the United States in terms of the international prestige and as one of the most influential superpowers of the world at that time. Instead, the partnership between the victor countries soon turned into an indirect, "cold" war. Despite the scale and actuality, this subject is studied a little, and is not quite fully covered in the historical literature. Cold War was unavoidable because of Stalin 's mistrust after U.S. intervention in 1918, Churchill 's "Unthinkable" operation and his speech in Fulton and also Truman 's friendship with Churchill, his Marshall Plan and offensive comments.

It illustrates the idea of the world coming together to fight Communism. This idea was well supported by Americans. This idea of “containment” became very popular and was a main priority with regard to national security. The political leaders in the years after the Truman Doctrine continued to support this idea throughout the Cold War. Scholar Evanthis Hatzivassiliou believes that there was a side effect to the Truman Doctrine and the United States’ aid.

Neither the orthodox historian nor the revisionist historian would necessarily disagree that, as Federico Romero put it, the Cold War should be imagined “as an East-West conflict of increasingly global reach that burst out in the aftermath of the Second World War to die away around 1989.” That is to say that neither would disagree that the primary antagonists of the war were the Soviet Union and the United States and that the conflict continued to escalate into an increasingly global competition for influence. However, they choose one side of the conflict to define as the primary contributor to the escalation of tensions between the nations with orthodox fixating their blame on the Soviet Union while revisionists choose the United States.

In this article the United States and Soviet Union were the main antagonists in the war, and the soviet used covert operations to attack the U.S. using propaganda. These attacks were what made up the Cold War, which was a war involving words, not weapons. People debated whether it was a fight between ideas and foreign power, versus armed forces and military strength. This communist war affected not only the U.S. and Soviet Union but China as well; outbreak happened in 1949, immediately following was a civil war in Korea, which was accompanied by the civil wars in Afghanistan. Throughout the events of the Cold War we see a turn in power struggles, where both parties are, “becoming less concerned with hard power and more concerned with ideology

The past few years before the commencement of the Cold War already gave rise to hostility between the United States and the Soviet Union. As World War II came to an end, it was evident through the Potsdam Conference that President Harry Truman and Soviet Joseph Stalin were opposing each other. Unlike former President Roosevelt for whom Stalin had respect, Truman did not trust Stalin because the Soviet dictator made it evident that the USSR would have complete control of the Eastern European countries. Because the Soviet Union was spreading communism to these areas, the United States

The United States and Soviet Union began as allies to each other until they both lost trust in each other and fear of the other’s increasing power. President Harry Truman reported during the Cold War, “I believe it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation [domination] by armed minorities or by outside pressure. Should we fail to aid Greece and Turkey in this fateful hour, the effect will be far-reaching to the West. The seeds of totalitarian regimes are nurtured by misery and want. They spread and grow in the evil soil of poverty and strife. They reach their full growth when the hope of a people for a better life as died”(Doc.2). Truman exhibited that the United States had chosen its side, the capitalist, and they would do everything to keep communism contained. This containment policy was used by the United States, and they did everything in their power to “contain” communism. It included using the Marshall Plan to ensure that communism would

However, the Cold War was not completely inevitable. Both revisionist and orthodox historians agree that the war “resulted from essentially unilateral actions by one or another power and that therefore the cold was an avoidable tragedy” (Crockatt 65).

The Cold War was a state of political hostility and military rivalry between the United States of America and the Soviet Union. It was characterised by threats, propaganda, power blocs, espionage and intense competition. Schlesinger defines the Cold War as “a presumably mortal antagonism, arising in the wake of the Second World War, between two rigidly hostile blocs, one led by the Soviet Union, the other by the United States.” Despite the lack of direct open warfare, this antagonism still dominated the fears of global society and the international community. However, the question remains, was rivalry and tension between the USA and the Soviet Union inevitable after the conclusion of WWII in1945? It is no surprise that the answer to such a

Ideological differences had a substantial impact on the deteriorating relationship between the USA and USSR from 1945-1950, heightening tensions at the outbreak of the Cold War. The 'Cold War' was a period of political tension and hostility between powers in the Eastern Bloc (USSR) and the Western Bloc (USA), formed by a conceptual crusade in favour of one ideology or the other, fought by unorthodox measures such as threats and propaganda campaigns. Although the Cold War was believed to have started because of Soviet expansionism and America’s means of intimidation, contextual historians such as

United States and the Soviet Union were opponents in the Cold War, because both were powerful states after World War Two ended. Classical realism notices the behaviour and international politics that both states were struggling for power. “So long as the notion of self-help persists, the aim of maintaining the power position of the nation is paramount to all other considerations” (Shimko, 2005, p. 60). United States and the Soviet Union were trying to become dominant than the