Essay on What Factors Led to the Cold War?

The Cold War was the result of a clash between communism and capitalism, two opposing world-views. Another cause of the build up to the Cold War was the intransigent attitude of both sides. The Soviet Union was extremely concerned about its security after having been invaded twice in the twentieth century. In 1945 America created and used the atomic bomb against Japan and the USSR was determined to create one of its own. Both the

From the years of 1941 to 1949, there was an increase in suspicion and tension between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was a Communist country ruled by a dictator while America was a capitalist democracy that valued freedom. Their completely different beliefs and aims caused friction to form between them, which contributed to the creation of the Cold War.

A Cold War is when there is a large amount of tension built up between two countries but no fighting occurs. The Cold War between U.S. and Russia started in 1947 and ended in 1991. It started over a race to build a bigger and better atomic bomb. Although the U.S. working class was able to live comfortably again, the Cold War affected the United States by increasing people’s fears of Communist spies, of nuclear war, and of losing to the Soviet Union.

Like I said the three main causes of the Cold War were the spheres of influence, ideology, and military factors. The spheres of influence is like a challenge, if the United States gains power the Soviet Union would react in fear, and vise versa. Ideology has to do with capitalism and socialism. The same thing is going on with the Soviet Union except they practice socialism. Military factors are when one side of the war makes an adjustment to their military, the other responds in kind. For example if the United States made a new bomb, the Soviet Union would do the same thing.

The Cold War was a very frightening time for the world. panic rose as tensions grew around the world superpowers. Fear of a 3rd world war raged throughout the globe. The Cold War caused devastation throughout 1947 to 1991 from Western Europe, Korea to Vietnam, and even the U.S. Naturally people have to blame someone for these events. For decades people have disputed, who is the most responsible for the Cold War.The facts and evidence point to the west. The west is the most responsible for various reasons. The Western European Countries let Hitler rise to power. The U.S. Started the arms race. The West quickly criticized Stalin's expansion of the Soviet Union and communism. Some would say that the Cold War's roots go back to World War 2.

There are several causes of the Cold War that were caused by the Soviet Union and Stalin’s dominating behavior was the most important cause of the Cold War. According to Former Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech, “…all these

Who Caused the Cold War? During World War II, the Soviets and the US worked together to defeat a common enemy. However, after Germany was defeated and World War II was over, their alliance was terminated. They both noticed that the other side had different views on how to run their government and countries. And they both saw each as a threat, since they were the only two “Super Power” countries left.

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

The conflict started between the Soviet Union and the United States was because they had completely different ideologies, and both the US and the USSR wanted their own economic and political systems to prevail. The Soviet Union’s ideology was communism. Communism is a society where all property is publically owned by the government and each person works and is paid just for their needs. The Soviets were also totalitarian, because one person had all the power. They opposed a democracy and free enterprise. The United States’ ideology was capitalist democracy, which meant that people were able to own their own land and the people had a say in electing rulers. Therefore, we entered the Cold War, a period of geopolitical tension (Foner 886-887).

During the year 1945, there were quite a few reasons for the start of the Cold War. Hysteria was one of the major catalysts towards the start of the Cold War. Many American citizens shared the extensive fear of communist attacks against America, while the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) feared the same from the Americans. Another reason being that the United States wouldn’t share their advances in the study of nuclear fission due to the USSR’s aim of spreading world communism. The USSR had a deep hatred for capitalism. This feeling of suspicion lead to a mutual distrust between the two countries, therefore deepened the quarrel between the world’s two superpowers.

characterized international relations and dominated the foreign policies of Europe. It affected all of Europe and determined lasting alliances. The Cold War was caused by the social climate and tension in Europe at the end of World War II and by the increasing power struggles between the Soviet Union. Economic separation between the Soviets and the west also heightened tensions, along with the threat of nuclear war.

This is because the USSR took these policies as a direct attack against communism. Stalin coined the term "dollar imperialism" for the US foreign policies because they offered economic aid to nations in Europe that were detrimentally affected by WWII in an attempt to make these nations economically dependent on and politically influenced by the US. It caused fear and paranoia in the USSR because the soviet communists believed that the US would gain political and economic control of the countries in need of aid. It also caused fear and paranoia because the Truman Doctrine and Marshall plan condemned communism as evil and it took action to prevent the spread of communism to any susceptible nation by providing military assistance. The USSR was upset that the US could do such a thing, thus they responded furiously to these policies by developing their own similar form of economic aid. These were called the Molotov Plan and Comecon which forcefully imposed economic aid on countries such as Czech (even if these nations wanted the aid of the US instead). These actions and reactions caused tensions to greatly rise in the Cold War (Todd, 2009). Thus, it can be argued that it was not only Truman's policies, but Stalin's policies that also played a major role in the Cold War.

I think that to some extent, the Soviet Union was to blame for the start of the Cold War. The Soviet Union’s aggressive actions in Eastern Europe meant that the Americans had to step in to stop the Soviet Union from taking over Eastern Europe and making the countries into puppet states of theirs. As stated in the Truman Doctrine, America was supposed to aid all countries under oppression. That is why the Americans tried to stop the Soviet Union and allow democracy in those countries which the Soviets didn’t like at all. That distanced the two countries from each other and made them hate each other even more.

The Cold War was a geopolitical, ideological, and economic struggle mainly between the two superpowers, The United States of America and the USSR. Although the USSR and US were the two superpowers that initiated the conflict, other countries such as Vietnam, North and South Korea, and Cuba had major involvement in the Cold War. The US was a capitalist country while the USSR was a communist country. There are many reasons, that when combined caused the Cold War to start. Some of the most important reasons were the fear of the USSR’s expansion of communism into Eastern Europe

The Origins of the Cold War The Cold War period from 1945 to 1985 was a result of distrust and misunderstanding between the USSR and the United States of America. This distrust never actually resulted any fighting between the two superpowers but they came very close to fighting on several occasions. The Cold War was a result of many different events and factors including the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the Potsdam Conference of 1945, the differences between communism and capitalism, the 'Iron curtain' speech and Marshall Aid.