The Cold War: Capitalism Vs Communism

With the world on the brink of possible Nuclear Armageddon, the tension created from the Cold War affected the whole world, let alone just the USA and Russia. Every nation was impacted in some way. The Cold War was an era that consisted of tension, panic, Nuclear rivalry, and proxy warfare. The US and Russia became superpowers in the absence of Germany, numerous conflicts broke out throughout the world, and the resulting tension escalating pushed many individuals in the world into a mindset of paranoia and panic. The possible future was looking grim for many who feared the war of Capitalism versus Communism. After the climax of World War two, there was a power vacuum created by the absence of Germany. Two superpowers were standing and they

The US and Russia never fought directly, but they were both involved in many situations. One of the primary examples on this topic can be considered the Vietnam war. The West had a persistent goal in stopping communism. They believed in the policy of "containment", "By the time World War II ended/most American officials agreed that the best defense against the soviet threat was a strategy called "containment" (Cold War history) (2014, March ). In efforts to follow up on this, the US entered Vietnam due to the expanding Soviet influence there and to aid South Vietnam against North Vietnamese attacks. Russia was funding and supplying the Viet Cong (North Vietnam guerilla fighters) and the US were fighting them. Russia and US fought each other, but not directly. That's why it is considered a Proxy war. This war cost many lives of the groups involved. The NATO allies suffered many casualties and so did the citizens of Vietnam. The abundance of loss caused many people who resided in Capitalist and Communist countries to outright despise those who believed in the opposite. The tension and fear created from the people of the nations in the Vietnam war extended to the government leaders as well. Creating even more tension between the US, Russia, and the world. The US was weary of the Soviet Union's "Iron Curtain" (Russia supported countries) expanding and eventually taking control of all of Europe.

The intensity and tension were at its highest during the Cuban Missile crisis. The US had missile silos in Italy and Turkey, while the Soviet Union were attempting to build them in Cuba. It was later released that they were successful in building them there. Russia was doing this in secret and when the US found they could have a possible Nuclear threat next to them, tensions reached an all time high. The US raised its Nuclear war proximity scale to DEFCON 2, which means Nuclear war is a strong possibility. For perspective, it normally is at DEFCON 5. Even propaganda was at full force between the two, distilling fear and paranoia in the people of both nations and others around the world. Nuclear war was depicted in movies and media; "The 1950s and 1960s saw an epidemic of popular films that horrified moviegoers with depictions of nuclear devastation and mutant creatures." (Cold War History) (2014, March 7). People were so terrified and tense that drill practices in school became the normal thing and people around the world were building bomb shelters underground. There was such an anti-communist atmosphere in the US at the time that people were actually paranoid of others being communist. With this fear so prevalent, people who even subtly hinted at having communist beliefs were fired from work, prosecuted, and were subject to an extreme amount of prejudice. These