What Were The Key Of The Cold War? Essay

DBQ Outline Intro Paragraph · Background/Context: The Cold War was a state of political tension after World War II between the Eastern bloc countries and Western bloc countries. Cold War took a significant place in between 1947 to 1991 which the two most powerful countries, United States of America and Soviet Union, were competing with each other over spreading the rule and showing off their arms without killing people. After the World War II, people in different countries started to think about who bears more responsibility for starting the Cold War, United States or USSR. · Three-point thesis: The United States of America bears more responsibility for starting the Cold War because it built up military powers and prepared for

The orthodox view regarding the cause of the Cold War, formed the standard interpretation between the 1940s and early-1960s. The breakdown of the wartime alliance and the expansion of Soviet

There are many opinions on who started the Cold War, whether it be the USSR’s fault or the United States. With old trust issues rising up again, the next forty years resulted in constant tension and aggression between the two rival powers. But, when it’s time to place the blame for this tedious conflict, it is clear the United States can be blamed, for they were constantly imposing their greater power, and led the USSR to lose their trust due to international acts of aggression from the US. From 1945-1991 the US took action abroad to stop the USSR from gaining more global power, they misinterpreted Soviet motives, and threatened the USSR with acts of aggression through major bomb threats. With both nations having different motives after WWII,

Characterized by the ideological divergence of Communism and Capitalism as well as the intense economic rivalry when World War II came to an end, the political tension between the only two world’s superpowers, United States and Soviet Union, was inevitable. While both of these two nations were motivated by the ambition to expand their worldwide influence, Soviet Union carries more responsibility for instigating the Cold War and exacerbating its discord with United States. While critics argued that America initiated the war by carrying out the Marshall plan when there was no solid evidence about the threat of Communism posed on the United States, it is unassailable that Soviet’s aggression and expansionism prior to the Cold War led to America’s mindset about the nature and potential danger of Communism. The Telegram from Moscow clarified the

By 1945, the end of World War II was soon arriving and the tension between the United States and the Soviet Union had grew stronger(Britannica). Because of the hostility between the United States and the Soviet Union, the Soviets had created a “left-wing” government, in which politicians support social equality in contrast to social hierarchy. Americans and British had feared Soviet’s dominating all eastern European. In contrast, the Soviets wanted to maintain their control of eastern Europe to keep them safe from any threats from Germany and to spread communism worldwide. However, the main difference between the United States and the Soviet Union was how they chose to govern their states. While the United States held a democratic

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.

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

The final conclusion of the Cold war has created dubiety in historians which they have stayed with their doubt on viewing the perspective if president Ronald Reagan actually won the Cold War. Some historians have came upon to conclude that it was Reagan’s policies help with the war.While on the other hand, historians may say that it was the actions of Gorbachev that held lead to the end of the Cold War. During 1940-1991 the Soviet Union was already facing economic problems, in which once Reagan raised the amount of money for the arms race, the Soviet union began to struggle.Not only that but, “The conflict was a geopolitical and ideological struggle, which not only involved armies and resources, but ideas and values”(Gurney pg.1).The Cold

With this book, a major element of American history was analyzed. The Cold War is rampant with American foreign policy and influential in shaping the modern world. Strategies of Containment outlines American policy from the end of World War II until present day. Gaddis outlines the policies of presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, including policies influenced by others such as George Kennan, John Dulles, and Henry Kissinger. The author, John Lewis Gaddis has written many books on the Cold War and is an avid researcher in the field. Some of his other works include: The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941-1947, The Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the Cold War, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War

The Cold War: A New History written by John Lewis Gaddis (a professor at Yale University who wrote other books such as The United States and the Origins of the Cold War and Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security) delivers a summarized, yet skewed interpretation of what had happened during the era known as the Cold War. Throughout the book, the author attempts to provide history of the Cold War, while adding in generalizations, incomplete facts, as well as flat out bias.

The orthodox view of the Cold War elucidates its inevitability due to the great ideological differences that existed between the Soviet Union and United States. On the other hand, the revisionists argued that it happened due to the actions that Soviets took and the consequential responses made by the United States as a result of their inflexible, single-sided interpretations of Soviet action. Yet, even with the backdrop of the early Bolshevik conflict in 1918 as well

There have been many attempts to explain the origins of the Cold War that developed between the capitalist West and the communist East after the Second World War. Indeed, there is great disagreement in explaining the source for the Cold War; some explanations draw on events pre-1945; some draw only on issues of ideology; others look to economics; security concerns dominate some arguments; personalities are seen as the root cause for some historians. So wide is the range of the historiography of the origins of the Cold War that is has been said "the Cold War has also spawned a war among historians, a controversy over how the Cold War got started, whether or not it was inevitable, and

The ‘Cold War’ is one of the most interesting ‘wars’ fought in world history. The sheer number of countries both directly and indirectly involved is enough to pose the question – To what extent was the Cold War a truly Global War? This essay will examine this idea. It will identify two main areas of argument, focusing on the earlier part of the conflict (1945-1963). Firstly it will examine the growing US and Soviet influence in the world post 1945. Secondly it will examine three main conflicts, the Berlin Blockade, the Korean War and the Cuban Missile Crisis that these two super powers were involved in. Overall this essay will argue that the Cold War was no doubt a truly global war.

The historian’s belonging to this school see the Truman doctrine from 1947 as the point when the Cold War started. They put the responsibility for the Cold War on the Soviet Union and its expansionist policy. According to them, this is the reason, why Soviets broke promises from the negotiations during the World War II, especially the Yalta agreement. On the other hand, the U.S. politicians wanted to continue the cooperation between the Allies even after the defeat of the Axis. They put a lot of hope to the newly created organization – United Nations – and the principle of collective security. However, the U.S. needed to react to the Soviet aggression in Europe. They adopted the policy of containment. The orthodox scholars view this policy as necessity because without it “the Soviet Union would have become the master of all Europe, instead of only the eastern Europe” .