What came out of the post war era was a generation of suspicion and mistrust called the Cold War. This was a stalemate war between the US and USSR, or the global East and West. Both sides were sceptical of the other and the threat of war made society at the time harsh. There were many causes for the cold war; however the main beginnings were in the immediate aftermath of World War Two. The world was left in a bipolar power struggle between the two main superpowers, America and the Soviet Union.
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.
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. The tension eventually built, but no one wanted to go to actual war again after the colossal massacre of WWII, hence the term Cold War. 2. Describe and explain the ideological differences between the United Stated and the Soviet Union. In 1917, Russia became a communist country with an agenda of converting the world to communism.
The war had created the division of two superpowers; The Soviet Union and The United States. After 1945, the United States had become the leading power due to it’s military strength and economic advantages after the war and Soviet Union play it’s role to challenge the state’s power (Young & Kent: 2) due to it’s ideology of communism and wanted to expand their influence globally, in which the United States wanted to prevent this from happening because their idea was absolutely conflicted with the Soviet Union; capitalism (Young & Kent: 6). These two countries reshaped Europe and the world. In contrast, World War II also weakened Britain’s and France’s powers because both of these countries faced a devastated loss by the war especially Britain. Likewise, both of the powers had to dismantle their colonies and ended their overseas and territorial empire.
Who was to blame for The Cold War? The Cold War happened over a long period time, unraveling and developing after the horrors of the Second World War. Throughout the course of the years that have followed the Cold War, mixed opinions of who is to blame for the war have arisen. It was believed, before the 1960s, that Stalin and his Communist ideologies brought the war to the attention of the world. Soon after, various evaluations of the war dictated that USA and the “western” supporters (i.e.
Tensions of Post-World War II leading to the Cold War After World War II, there was an emergence of two superpowers that had once been allies, but ended up enemies due to very differing ideologies. A clash between the Soviet Union and the United States led to a period of conflict and tension known as the Cold War. This ideological clash between communism and capitalism heated up after the settlement of World War II, when each superpower set out to achieve its own goals as victors of the war. This led to the beginning of a long-lasting conflict that split Europe into two spheres of influence. Much of the tension between the Soviet Union and the United States was linked to the end of World War II and the negotiations for settlement that followed.
Two prominent dimensions of the cold war. Throughout the cold war, the geopolitical and international dimensions occupied a large part of both super powers’ leadership time and both devoted massive amounts of resources to prevail in both areas. Yet, with the fall of the USSR in the early 90’s, the newly formed Russian Federation and United States of America still clash over this cold war era rivalry in many ways, which begs to question whether the cold war truly ended. During the early decades of the cold war there was a fierce debate going on in America. The Hawks argued the USSR was a messianic, hegemonic empire that was built on expansion.
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.
In contrast the Tsar weakened the Duma and a progressive bloc was formed. This suggests that the Tsar is vulnerable to revolution whereas the Communist rule is repressive and very few ever speak out against it. Economically the Civil War had the greatest impact in shaping the Russian Government policies. This is because War Communism was introduced and later fine tuned into the New Economic Policy. War Communism was radical and involved the militarisation of Labour which was disliked by the people and made people focus purely on the needs of the war.
The Cold War was the result of underlying friction between the two superpowers of the day and their respective followers. It is seen by many today to have been the inevitable result of the tensions that had developed before, during and after the Second World War, between the East and the West. It was a conflict of Capitalism and Democracy as represented by the West and, on the other side, Communism as personified by the USSR and its satellite states The Cold War might not have been totally inevitable, but due to the background causes that I will examine and the ideological conflicts the occurrence of the Cold War was almost inevitable. The framework for the ideological conflict of the Cold War was in place by early 1918. When the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia in October 1917, communism came to the fore as an issue in international relations.