Tear Down This Wall: This book source is a recount of the events of the Cold War, focused on the question of President Reagan’s role in eliminating the conflict between Russia and the United States. It was written by Romesh Ratnesar, the deputy managing editor of Time magazine, and published in 2009. Its purpose was to follow Reagan’s presidency and the events leading up to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, emphasizing the ability of one person’s words to change the world. It is somewhat valuable due to its
During 1945-1990 the conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States completely dominated the United States’ foreign policy. The United States’ policymakers had to take care of places that were outside American territory, but relevant to the conflict. In order to compete with the Soviet Union after World War II, the US government decided to help the countries which were against Soviet Union. According to Document C, President Truman claimed to support people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or outside pressure.
Why Can’t We Be Friends?: The Rise of Tension between the US and USSR post-WWII Dating back to at least the start of communism, the world saw the gradual rise of the Cold War between the United States of America (USA) and the United Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR). Although the Cold War was may have been inevitable because of these countries differing visions of economic policy, governmental systems, and the postwar world in general, it was during the years 1941-1949 when it became imminent. In this time, suspicion and tension between the Superpowers increased due to the battle between communism and capitalism, as well as their different governmental systems.
The outcome of the Cuban Missile Crisis at first was not well. Our relationship with Cuba suffered greatly as we cut off all trade with them. It hasn’t been until recently that we reopened trade with them. Despite the fact that we have began to work with Cuba again, relations remain strained. With the Berlin Wall comes a resolution as well.
His criticism of Eisenhower’s New Look and Massive Retaliation strategies towards Soviet threats shows a progression of United States foreign policy from the 1950s to the early 1960s from a static policy to a more flexible one. As a response, both Taylor and Kennedy created Flexible Response in order to combat the Soviet Union more effectively and aggressively unlike Eisenhower’s more stagnant and dated New Look policy. In Taylor’s “Security Will Not
The second document highlights the National Security Council 68, a central document of the Cold War that laid out the strategic foundation for American foreign policy after the devastating decline of western European powers during World War II left the United States and Soviet Union as the dominant nations. The National Security Council argues that the Soviet Union poses a threat due to “being animated by a new fanatic faith” in communism to impose “absolute authority over the world” (Doc 2). This type of behavior is anti-ethical to the American values, so the fight between America and the Soviet Union was inevitable. The document outlined possible responses of isolation, diplomatic efforts to negotiate, or the rapid buildup of strength of
The actions during the Suez crisis showed how the rhetoric of Eisenhower and Dulles pointed in the opposite direction the British and French expected. The U.S. saw the crisis as an opportunity to keep their word as a moral and unbiased nation. Unfortunately, the U.S. did not comprehend how Suez was supposed to be a problem of containment and not colonialism. Kissinger brought up the point on how Suez was merely an exercise for the U.S. to act as the leader of the free world. (Kissinger 544).
To Mr. Reichow and his classmates in Los Angeles, the most tensed point of the Cold War for the American people was the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The Cuban Missile Crisis was really earth-shaking and almost started another world war. The Americans and Soviets came on the verge of firing their missiles at each other: the Soviets would have fired their missiles at the US from Cuba, and the Americans would have fired their missiles at the USSR from Turkey. For the Americans, Cuba was only ninety miles away from mainland US and the Soviet missiles could have easily targeted and destroyed major East Coast cities, such as New York City and Washington DC. American fear rose out of the possibility of the destruction of some of America’s major cities.
One can clearly see that the United States was the blame for the increasing tensions during the Cold War by taking drastic measures to protect themselves, forming alliances and being hypocritical towards the Soviet Union. The United States had installed a nuclear arsenal in Turkey, which was not looked on so lightly from the Soviet Union’s view point. Once USSR realized what was being taken place, they placed nuclear bombs in Cuba. As an act of defense, U.S.A decided to allow force if necessary in Cuba to protect themselves from USSR weapons.
The Cold War was a time when The United States not only secured it’s place as an influencer of international affairs, but explored its new standing as a rival to other world leaders. Immediately following World War 2, The USSR and America’s relationship began to dissolve as fundamental differences in basic beliefs for government and military organization became clear, and without a common enemy to unite the two, tension and conflict would separate the superpowers for almost 45 years. The policy of containment, The Truman Doctrine, and NSC-68 would each play a pivotal role in the Unites States stretching its hand of democracy into foreign lands, and using military force against the regimes that began to stand in freedom’s way. Beginning in 1946, the Policy of Containment was proposed by George Kennan in a document now titled, The Long Telegram. He presented his hopes that the United States would attempt to keep communism and regimes within their current borders.
The US blockade from the perspective of the Soviet Union was a violation of international law (Source A). As a result Khrushchev could not agree to the terms given out by the Kennedy. Instead, Khrushchev felt that he will be forced to on their part to take those measures they deem necessary and sufficient to defend their rights. Khrushchev took the same move as of Kennedy, which was to take action and wait for a reaction (Source B). Again, the instance of brinkmanship is evident as the Soviet Union used this policy to coerce the United States into backing down military or forms of aggressive force.
In terms of U.S. foreign policy, Reagan would now be questioned on how to apply a revitalized containment plan. When it came to dealing with the future relationship between the U.S. and the Soviets, Ambrose indicates how Reagan’s goals were not very different from any previous president. “Reagan’s goals were peace, limitations on the arms race, an actual reduction in the size of nuclear arsenals..” (Ambrose 320). The problem which Ambrose brought up were the means of attaining those goals.
The cold war like all wars had heavy costs, costs of life, costs of freedom,and economic costs. According to Stephen I. Schwartz of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, the United States of America spent a minimum of five and a half trillion dollars on nuclear weapons between nineteen forty to nineteen ninety six. This was one of the many costs of the cold war and the United States action against the threat of Communism. Both Truman and Eisenhower focused on economic and military aid to combat the threat of Communism, however Eisenhower also focused on an expansion of military forces which was continued under Kennedy with an added focus on diplomacy. In his textbook
This became one of the first of many international crisis of the Cold War, in which America responded well, not destroying the blockade or attacking the Soviets, but by delivering supplies through an alternate route until the USSR had no choice but to acknowledge their actions were futile and remove the blockade. Just before the Berlin Blockade and right before Harry Truman became president he said, “I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisted subjugation by armed or outside pressures.” (A) This concept surely followed him into the incident involving West Berlin and he stayed true to his ideas in helping the citizens living there obtain resources, despite the Soviets
Furthermore, proliferation of such ammunition and weapons would lead to the rise of a sizable power that could lead to rising tensions in the struggle for power dominance. Hence, the unipole will try to undermine and compromise these efforts so as to maintain the global status quo and as well ensure the survival of its citizenry from external attack. The years that followed the end of the cold war until the 2001 September terror attacks on the United States of America saw this current unipole undertake the defensive dominance strategy. It is generally proven by the series of events that came to lead to the Kosovo war of 1999 and the Persian gulf war of 1991.
