Soon after, various evaluations of the war dictated that USA and the “western” supporters (i.e. Capitalist governments) were to blame. As far as Modern World History states, I am led to believe that both sides were “belligerents” of equal contribution to the war’s happening. Russia (USSR) and its Communist Allies have been frequently discarded with the blame of the Cold War’s development but is this harsh judgment really a correct interpretation of the events? Because of allegations leading up to the 1960s, the ordinary western resident would most probably blame the USSR for the war’s happening (obviously the element on pride and patriotism are to be taken into account) but to the more historically taught persons, further elements can be taken into account.
Soviet and US relations changed dramatically between 1945 and 1947, there were many reasons to explain why and how this happened. Firstly, one reason was the end of WW2. During the Second World War, America and the USSR were members of the Grand Alliance in order to oppose Hitler, but when this war finished there was nothing to bring the Communists and Capitalists together. Therefore, the two countries went from allies to progressing enemies after Germany was defeated. This developed until a confrontation, from Western and Eastern Europe, in a nuclear arms race.
Moreover this distrust would lead to long-term attitude problems between Truman and Stalin, and would follow up to plans such as the atomic bomb that would disrupt this relationship further. The second reason for change between the USA and Soviet Union relations was the atomic bomb. On July 16 1945, the USA successfully tested an atomic bomb at a desert site in the USA. This is an important factor because it meant that the USA had an extremely powerful weapon over the Soviet Union, and therefore would be able to use this in order to manipulate the Soviet Union, if Stalin were to ever try make any
This is demonstrated through the questionable policies such as Brinkmanship, Massive retaliation, and how the culture of paranoia and secrecy caused both sides to constantly create more nuclear weapons to feel protected against the other side. The role of each side reacting to the other during the nuclear arms race proved to be a threat to world peace. One crucial feature of the race was the difference between what each side perceived of the other, and what the actual reality was. It is clear that mutual over estimation of each side’s capabilities led to an environment in which the usual mood was to increase their own arsenal, based on the assumption that the opposing side was superior. This resulted in a reaction from the other side on the assumption that the opposing side was building up to gain a measure of superiority.
Fear of the other country laying influence of their ideology, as a means to gain power, tensions rose. These tensions were fueled by the truman doctrine, which requested 400 million from congress to help combat communism in greece and turkey. The purpose of the Truman doctrine was to provide American economic and military assistance to any nation threatened by communism. The US feared the encroaching soviet strength, which perpetually launched them into an arms race with the U.S.S.R. The Soviets broke the US nuclear monopoly, and that struck fear into all americans, there is now someone just as dangerous as you are.
Why did the cold war start? The cold war is the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union over ideologies, through other countries, without direct armed conflicts, which was first used by a English author and journalist called George Orwell at the end of The World War II. This essay is going to focus on main reasons for the beginning of the cold war. One major cause of the cold war was a distrust of the Soviets by the United States and the same distrust of the United States from the Soviet Union. Though the need to defeat the Germans had made USSR a partner in the Allied forces from 1941 onwards, Stalin had displayed the tendency that he wanted to dominate the world, and he used dictatorial powers and military powers towards people of his own country as well as others.
For instance, when Mother Russia overthrew its tsar, made a revolution, became the Soviet Union, unified itself under Lenin and created an ideological structure called communism, the United States could only react with fear and trepidation. The government could not accept the simple fact that a country could exist with economic and political principles so critically opposed to democracy and industrial capitalism. The first factor is that during World War Two, the USA and the western powers had worked together with the Soviet Union to defeat Nazi Germany and its allies. However, the alliance was based solely on the fact that they had a common enemy- Germany. Once that enemy was near defeat, disagreements began to emerge.
How far do you agree that the origins of the Cold War in 1945 and 1946 owed much to the ideological differences and little to personalities and conflicting national interests? The origins of the Cold War are undeniably due to the great ideological differences between the USSR’s communism and the USA’s capitalism. Their opposing beliefs over nationalisation and the system of government put massive tension on the leaders’ relationship. However, national interests such as the fight over Poland and the leaders’ personalities cannot be overlooked as each are important in the understanding of the growing hostilities between superpowers. The ideological differences are clearly some of the biggest underlying causes of the tensions between the superpowers of the world during the Cold War, especially the years 1945 to 1946; however the personalities of the leaders cannot be overlooked and were a huge contributing reason for the ever growing hostilities between them.
And most importantly, the economy of the Soviet Union was in ruins after the U.S.S.R had chose to spend massive amounts of money on wars and the arms race. The world saw many of the U.S.S.R's failures in Afghanistan and took immediate advantage of it. Although there could be many reasons behind the U.S.S.R invading Afghanistan, it was officially to support the government of Afghanistan against the Islamic Mujahideen Resistance. The Mujahideen were being supported by the United States, China, Saudi Arabia, and the Pakistan government and obviously the U.S.S.R would be conflicted. When the war started off, U.S.S.R didn't expect it to be a decade-long war.
1. Explain the origins of the Cold War. The United States and the Soviet Union were uneasy allies; their collaboration was really the result of a mutual fear that the Nazis would gain control over Europe, not based on any ideological commonality. Because of this, after the war was over and the restructuring of Europe began, a power struggle developed between the Soviet Union (who wanted Germany to be Communist) and the United States and Britain (who wanted democratic rule.) However, you shouldn't make the assumption that devotion to ideology was all that was behind Cold War animosity; countries tend to be more complaint trading partners with countries that share their political systems and both Stalin and the Cold War Era presidents in the US knew this.