Cold War

There are two main reasons for America and the Soviet Union for going into a Cold War, after they had been allies in the last world war. With advancements of technology in which only these two super powers of earth would possess for years tensions would be great and cause a cold war to come. On top of the weapons the both sides wanted to spread their government ideals to other nations. So between governments, and technology a cold war would develop between these two great nations America, and the Soviet Union.

With the fall of the German Third Reich as the allies barrowed in, the allies would set up new governments. For America we would with Britain aid spread, democracies to the people of western Europe. Meanwhile on the other side of Europe, eastern nations were being also liberated by a ally nation, the Soviet Union. The Soviets though were putting in a different type of government. They were installing communist governments. Also these governments were puppet governments. Meaning that the governments were for show, because the real people running the show was the government in Moscow. Well by the end of the war the Soviets would be putting up what Churchill would call the Iron Curtain in eastern Europe. This would cause tensions to start flaring up around the end of the war. Things would start to get worse rapidly. Soon after the war, all of eastern Europe would be under the control of the Soviets. Even half of Germany. This would become a last stand to save Europe. If Germany was to fall the fall of Europe would be sure to follow. So while Western Germany was getting a democratic government, eastern Germany was being ruled by communist. Then really started to heat up when the Soviets tried to cut off Berlin from the allies. This was meet with aid from America and Britain for almost a year none stop air lift to get the 2.2 million citizens of Berlin their supplies. So now the American government knew there was only one hope to stop the communist, containment. This was told by Kennan, that if we could just contain the communist for long enough that we could stall them out and things would fall into place. So would start the political war to contain the communist. Next would be problems in Turkey, and Greece, as the Soviets tried to spread communist to these nations so that they could had naval bases on the Medditterean. President Truman would get Congress to send 400 million dollars in aid to Turkey and Greece. This would become the Truman Doctrine. Where, we will help out any nation that is trying to fight off communism. So would go the fighting to contain the communist for years and years to come. A fight between types of governments would be the cause of the cold war.

With the fight for containment, we would end up going to little wars. With the fall of China to communism the domino effect was taking place in Asia, and we feared not to let this happen. We pushed to get Japan rebuilt and democratic. Then things really started to heat up when communist were trying to take over French Indochina. So we started to send out half a billion dollars in aid a year to the French defense. We did not want that area to fall to the communist. This would later be the Vietnam war that we would play a full role in, but for now giving money is all we did. We did not want to directly intervene. Then things would explode as North Korea, a communist nation would attack South Korea, and Truman would follow his Doctrine greatly. Within hours of the first attack on South Korea, America was sending aid. Also a United Nations resolution was put into place were a total of 16 nations would go in to help the South Koreans. So we would this time literally fight to stop the spread of communism. With the cost of 33,000 American soldiers lives and 106,000 would go home wounded. That is how bad things had gotten in just five years. We went from ally to enemy. After much fighting it would be a draw basically, and the 38^th parallel would be the new border. There was no turning back now, America and the Soviet Union were in a full blown cold war.

With the arm race between America and the Soviets, the cold war would surge to its fullest. In 1945, America was the first nation to have the atomic bomb, and we would only get to enjoy this monopoly for four years. Because in 1949, the Soviet Union would develop their first atomic bomb. With the aid of the Rosenberg’s in America, and some other people in Britain information on the atomic bomb would leak out to the Soviets. Well that year with the fall of China to communist, and the Soviets getting the bomb, Truman order the Hydrogen Bomb be made. This would be the next step to keep us in the upper hand in weapons against the Soviets. So that we could try and make them do what we want. With this we would have the upper hand on weapons for a while but eventually once again the Soviets would get the H bomb as well. Then in the year 1957, the Soviets would do something before us that would really put a scare in America, of what the Soviets might do. They launched the first man made orbital satellite called Sputnik. This would be the start of the next frontier race. The start to the race to be the first man in space, then on the moon. So some good would come from the cold war on technology wise, but while the space programs were developing the nuke race was containing. Eventually the early 60’s things got so bad that MAD would be put into place meaning that each of the two countries had enough nukes to kill everyone on the planet. So if one nation launches a nuke the world is over basically. Advancing in technology would play a major role in putting the cold war into place and keeping it so for many years.

The two supper powers of the world would be head to head to stop each other in a cold war. They were once allies but as soon as the world war was over, they were at each other for two reasons, governments, and technology. With the advent of the atomic bomb things would really get heated up. Also with completely opposite governments trying to be spread globally, there was no way around it. These two great nations would enter into a cold war.