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Long Term Effects Of The Cold War

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The Cold War, the second-longest war in US history, was a war between the US and the USSR, which was, ironically enough, caused somewhat by the end of World War II. At this point, the US and USSR had become two of the most significant world powers, with the USSR trying to spread communism, and the US trying to contain it. It was called the Cold War because neither side actually declared a state of war between the two sides, they just attempted to prevent the other from spreading their political influence around the globe. Each side tried to spread its power and assert dominance through the spread of nuclear weapons and proxy wars, which are wars between smaller territories or countries that represent the interests of larger world powers. One …show more content…

At the time, the US was under a policy of containment, which desired to contain the spread of communism. This meant that South Vietnam represented the best of their interests, while North Vietnam represented the best of the USSR’s interests.

The US policy of containment stated that communism would fall as long as it was prevented from spreading. After the loss of Russia and China to communism, the US feared the next country to fall would be Vietnam. The loss of countries fell under the principle of “falling dominos”, which President Dwight Eisenhower explained: “You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you could have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences” (Doc 1). This explained that after one domino, or country, fell, the others would fall very quickly, one after the other. This principle meant that the spread of communism would be very fast if the US didn’t do something about it, hence the US involvement in the Vietnam War. The US had been supporting South

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