What Is The Cold War Essay

It is 1945 and some of my generation has already arrived, with more yet to come. The month is June and I just arrived. President Truman is in office. The war in Europe just ended, and the war with Japan is about to end. The Cold War has started but it will be two years before they officially call it the Cold War. In case you were wondering that is me in the carriage, as you can see I am not really too concerned about world events as of yet. I’m pretty sure that the rest of my generation isn’t either. It is also my guess that we won’t be for a while. However, as I said history is relevant and many world events will take place in the next nineteen years that will lead some of us toward war, and others toward what I believe to committing the unforgivable crime of treason.

Democratic localism was also enforced to keep the government at bay, allowing people to make their own economic decisions. Capitalism was renewed due to growth. Americans were enjoying various freedoms in politics, religion and travel. Nixon stated in one of his speeches that the United States had “come closest to the idea of prosperity for all in a classless society (166).”

Truman believed that if Russia got Greece and Turkey it would then get Italy and France and the “iron curtain” would extend to western Ireland and to the United States. Arnold posits that Truman’s views were excessive. Stalin never challenged the Truman Doctrine or western dominance in Turkey, which was under U.S. military guidance, and Greece. Arnold states, “ [Stalin] provided almost no aid to the Greek rebels and told Yugoslavia’s leaders in early 1948 to halt their aid because the United States would never allow the Greek Communist to win and break Anglo-American control in the Mediterranean” (221). Arnold believed that President Truman more often than not narrowed rather than broadened his options. Truman’s insecurity also reinforced his liking to view conflict in black-and-white terms, to categorize all nations as either free or totalitarian, to demonize his opponents, and to ignore the complexities of historic national conflicts. In sum, despite Truman’s claim to have “knocked the socks off the communists,” he left the White House with his presidency in tatters, military spending at a record high, McCarthyism rampant, and the United States on Cold War footing at home and abroad.

In 1947, the Cold War had started, named after how both of the disputing sides did not fight but only threatened each other with new technologies. The U.S and Soviet Union disagreements on political systems and also questioned war reparation, show how they cause the Cold War with their mistrust and technological issues.

The cold war was the fourth longest war in U.S History, it lasted from 1947 to 1991 a total of 44 years. During that 44 year span, not one of the eight presidents could end the Cold War. This war involved every single country in the world. It was a global competition between the United States and the Soviet Union to see who could get more nuclear weapons and defense. It was also a war on two different political views, democracy and communism. Finally, President Ronald Reagan came into office in 1981 and brought the cold war to an end. Ronald Reagan is responsible for the end of the Cold war because through him the Berlin Wall fell, there was a great military build up, Reagan's willingness to challenge the soviet Union and his strict foreign policy.

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

The cold War was a stressful war and it was after World War II. The cold war abroad. The cold war was a fight against at home mirrored a growing concern with the soviet threat. In June 1950, the first military action of the cold war began when the soviet backed North Korean people’s army invaded its pro-western neighbor to the south. Many American officials feared this was the first step in a communist campaign to take over the world and deemed. Truman sent the American military into Korea, but the war dragged to a stalemate and ended in 1953. In early 1960s, President Kennedy faced a number of troubling situations in his own hemisphere. The Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961.

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 cold war was considered to be a geopolitical tension after World War II which involved the Soviet Union fighting against America and the NATO forces. One argument Historians have found to be a potential reason the cold war ended how it did, is that the cold war was won by economic power not military power. The United States of America won the cold war through President Ronald Reagan who introduced policies that overextended the financial resources of the Soviet Union. At the time of the cold war the United States had a much stronger economy than the Soviet Union which led to an increase in the funding of the military ultimately ending up spending an estimated $8 Trillion over the 44-year period in which the cold war took place. President Ronald Reagan could be considered one of the reasons the US won the cold war on economic power.

When discussing the Cold War, there are two questions that never fail to come up: When did it start? And, when did it end? While the latter is more difficult to pinpoint, there is a clear starting point for the Cold War. Most arguments for the beginning are in fact post WWII events and nothing more. As the Cold War progressed there is much blame to go around, but it started with President Truman. With fear of the United States falling back into the Depression, President Truman used post WWII fallout to justify the Soviets as and enemy and in turn start the Cold War. By looking at the progression of events, and Truman’s actions, it cannot be clearer that he manipulated his citizens to march forward into a war that would last for many years

After the Second World War America and the Soviet Union gained power in Europe. Though these to countries never fought one another, they waged a cold war of economic, military and ideological rivalry which last through the second half of the twentieth century.

After World War II, the USSR and United States engaged in an unprecedented conflict called the Cold War. Despite the armaments being produced, this war was not directly fought with thousands of soldiers or massive weapons. An enormous rise in tensions created a competition between the two countries for diplomatic, economic, cultural, and military dominance. Of course, nothing was official until President Harry Truman and Winston Churchill worked together to form a partnership of anti Soviet aggression. The Truman Doctrine and Iron Curtain Speech officially started the Cold War, initiated worldwide indirect fighting, and ended the United States’ well-established policy of isolationism.

The Cold War was a response to the perceived threat by the United States that Communism would interfere with national security and economic stakes in the world. It was a perceived threat by communist countries that the United States would take to the world. During the Cold War, the United States, Russia, and other countries made efforts to avoid another world war, while warring in proxy in other lands. The devastation caused by the hydrogen bombs exploded in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the next technological advancements became only deterrents to the public. Governments had their own agenda which would result in worsening the strain between nations. The United States hid behind a curtain of nationalism resulting in increased

The end of the Cold War brought about the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, paving the way for an unprecedented new paradigm – one characterised by the end of hostilities between the two dominant ideologies: Soviet communism and American liberal capitalism. This dominant new paradigm encouraged the homogenisation of ideas, in the form of exchanging ethos and values along former cultural, ideological and geographical divides. As such, this integration of world societies has earned the title ‘globalisation’, forcing the global community to appear so united as to warrant the metaphor of a global village. (Note: This paragraph pains me to read – I will eventually re-write it.)

2 years after World War 2 a new enemy was rising that was not just a country or person but communism. Following the end of WW2, the Soviets were spreading their new ideology to several small countries from Poland to north Korea. As communism gained in popularity the US became increasingly concerned about a potential fall in capitalism and democracy. This fear resulted in the Cold War: a social, political, economic conflict between the US and the USSR. The Cold War lasted 44 years and 9 different Presidencies. However, when looking at the US, the war can be broken down into 3 smaller time periods each with their own different methods to best the USSR. The first time period is now called the Containment Period and was introduced with Harry