American Involvement In The Cold War

When the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, shock waves were sent out to the world as everyone watched in horror of the destruction. The United States had developed a weapon that could give us control over the rest of the world. Other nations scrambled to catch up; specifically the Soviet Union. Eight years later, the ideological conflict between Communism and Capitalism solidified as the Soviets developed their atomic bomb. The sole principle preserving mankind from obliteration was the principle of the M.A.D. (Mutually Assured Destruction) doctrine. There is now increasing tension between the United States and the Middle East over chemical warfare and terrorism. Would the M.A.D. principle be as effective against nuclear-armed radical Islamists as it was against the Soviet Union during the Cold War? Throughout the Cold War, America used a defense strategy called “containment” against Russian expansive tendencies. This containment strategy stimulated the rationale for an exceptional arms buildup

President Truman sent American military personnel into South Korea, but the war drifted to a stalemate in 1953. International quarrels ensued with the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. However, the result from the Cold War was a stockpile of enough nuclear warheads to annihilate the rest of the world. With two nations at nuclear parity, the M.A.D. doctrine emerged. This doctrine was based upon the size of the nation’s nuclear arsenals as well as their reluctance to destroy civilization. Ironically, nuclear capability became the world’s ultimate deterrent against nuclear destruction as no country desired launching an attack tantamount to