When Stalin agreed to join a partnership with the Americans, officials were having second thoughts. Stalin was considered a troublesome ally. When news of the successful Alamogordo test reached Potsdam, top American officials began to view the atomic bomb as a way to avoid the need for Soviet involvement in the Pacific War, rather than viewing Soviet involvement as a way to avoid the need for the Bomb. Secretary of State James Byrnes was eager to “get the Japanese affair over before the Russians got in” and felt that knowledge of America’s new weapon would make the Soviets more manageable. Ways to avoid dropping the atomic bomb were never really a matter of discussion.
The Resumption of the Cold War 1. What were the “Ace cards” that the USSR and the United States each had with regard to the Cold War? The US had the atomic bomb, the Soviets had the Red Army in Europe. 2. What changed the balance of power in the Cold War in August 1949?
His nuclear deterrent foreign policy played a very large role in the Cold War, and is still effective today. Nuclear deterrent means if a country launches nuclear weapons against the United States, The United States would retaliate with its own nuclear strike (“Dwight D. Eisenhower” 304). In the end there would be no real winner, just total destruction. Eisenhower demonstrated this when he said “I would say a preventive war, if the words mean anything, is to wage some sort of quick police action in order that you might avoid a terrific cataclysm of destruction later.” (“Dwight D Eisenhower” 136). Knowing this, other countries will try to avoid total destruction instead of starting a nuclear war.
NSC-68 provided the doctrinal justification for US intervention in Korea. Some would argue that the US desire to contain Communism came from the idea that Stalin was behind the invasion of South Korea in the first place. During a secret visit to Moscow in April 1950, Kim II Sung was given permission to launch a war of reunification in Korea from Stalin. Stalin also agreed to provide additional Soviet military assistance. Therefore, it is possible to argue that the US desire to contain Communism contributed to their involvement in the Korean War due to NSC-68 providing a more aggressive tack and because some Americans were led to believe that Stalin was behind the invasion of South Korea.
Russia opposed the others’ capitalism. The installment of the Soviet puppet government, Lublin Poles, brought about tension among the big three. The Truman administration’s anti-Soviet attitude deepened the tension, and Truman unofficially told Stalin about the atomic bomb in Potsdam Conference. Also, George Kennan, the US Ambassador in Moscow in 1946, warned his mother nation of USSR’s
Revisionism is one of the three main approaches to the Cold War and its origins and significance of events. It originated in mid-sixties, while USA was involved in the Vietnam War. The revisionist approach puts blame for the cold War on the USA and its policies towards USSR. It also proposes the view that it was President Truman’s actions that caused the conflict. Revisionism contradicts the proposals of the traditionalism and its blame of the Soviet Union.
The focus after the Korean war was the nuclear arms race and to stop the spread of communism mainly. But they also wanted to avoid a nuclear war. The US and NATO forces were placed in countries near Eastern Europe to protect the spread of communism. Each power wanted more nuclear bombs than the other but as long as they were equal no nuclear war would break out. This was the balance of terror.
And also to make the situation better which USA had big nuclear bases and land on West Germany and Turkey. He had make a really clever decision to make USSR better through the struggle between each other. He make a proposal on source D to Kennedy. To said that they would be willing to remove the nuclear sort of weapons on Cuba if the USA would remove these kind of harmful weapons on Turkey as
Until the Czech coup, the emphasis in Washington had been on economic containment of Communism, primarily through the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan and a heavy reliance on atomic power as a shield to support it. Truman did not intervene with the coup as they saw it as internal affairs and the west may have of resented it because they could not of done too much with containment. Another reason why the USA may not have of been involved was to avoid war with Russia. Truman responded to the crisis
President Dwight Eisenhower's military plan relied on nuclear stockpiles rather than land forces. He hoped the threat of nuclear destruction would restrain the Soviets. Increasing American fears was the development of the hydrogen bomb, many times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.