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Why Did The Cold War End Australia

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The end of the Cold War marked the conclusion of a great geopolitical and ideological struggle between the United States of America and the Soviet Union. The manner in which the war ended was historically unusual and unlike any other before it. The bipolar nature of the international system - which had defined the war - ended peacefully. Furthermore, unlike after previous wars, the international system - or, at least, the main pillars of that system - were not overturned. In fact, as I will argue in this essay, the world system that the United States of America created after the Second World War remained in place throughout the 1990s. In other words, the end of the Cold War only served to consolidate and expand the core principles of this system …show more content…

When the Cold War ended, the logic of the American system was extended to the larger global system. The system aimed to encourage globalisation, integration and democratisation. The founding of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) are evidence of the attempt to normalise these concepts internationally. Moreover, the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the reaffirmation of American alliances in East Asia also served to consolidate the post-war liberal international system. Nuclear weapons ensured stability within this expanding system by making war between the major states unlikely. Few observers expected the end of the Cold War to facilitate the continuation and expansion of a pre-existing international system. Perhaps this explains, in part, why Hobsbawm (1994) describes the international landscape of the 1990s as 'unclear ' and akin to 'global …show more content…

After the sudden conclusion of the Cold War, this international order led by the United States survived and provided the organisational logic of the post-Cold War system. International liberalism was escalating rapidly. Democracy and markets flourished throughout the world, globalisation was acknowledged as a progressive historical force, whilst the incidence of ideological and nationalist sentiment fell. Existing institutions were strengthened and new ones, such as the European Union, were founded. Newly market-oriented developing countries - or 'emerging markets ' - became increasingly incorporated into the

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1. Identification and evaluation of sources This investigation, examining certain events of the Cold War, will answer the question: To what extent did President Ronald Reagan’s actions aid in the end of the Cold War? The Cold War was a war between the United States and the Soviet Union that took place from 1947 to 1991. During that time several United States presidents took office, one of the last being Ronald Reagan whose actions have been argued to have been more influential than the rest and impactful toward the downfall of the ongoing war with the Soviet Union.

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During the 1950’s, Australia had experienced its very own cold war drama, which came to be known as the Petrov affair. An event shrouded in a veil of secrecy along with a convoluted romanticism that painted a picture of democracy being triumphant over the evils of communism. This affair provides a platform to examine Australia’s cold War Psyche, revealing a level of existing paranoia that was further intensified by these revelations of spy rings infiltrating the annals of the Australian political system. However, the extent of Soviet espionage activities within Australia during this period becomes arguable, when considering that the communist hysteria was being driven by the Menzies government, fervently pushing the ‘Red’s Under the Bed’ wheelbarrow

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When World War II ended, the world became chaotic in the struggle between democracy and communism. It is directly connected to the Cold War, in which the United States and the Soviet Union fought over what ideology was the best for the world. The Cold War era was marked by the most significant tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, with both sides competing with each other for global influence. From the world’s perspective, the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union left a great legacy including economic growth, technological advancement, and social stability during the Cold War. However, the Cold War certainly hurt other countries with proxy wars, such as the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

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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.

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Do you ever wonder find yourself wondering how we lived in a world without the internet, smartphones, and televisions? This new world of technology that we live in today is do to the globalization “super story”, which enables us to put things in ways we, individually, can comprehend. Thomas Friedman, an American journalist and three time Pulitzer Prize winner, suggest in his article “Globalization: The Super Story”, that the world has shifted from the international Cold War system to the new international system of Globalization. In other words, the world has adapted to a system of integration rather than divide. Overall, I perceived the article to be terrifying convincing, yet, upon further review I discovered to issues and lack of empathy from Friedman 's point of view.

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The end of the Second World War brought dramatic changes to the world, including the role of the United States. In an effort to maintain a global position of dominance, the nation engaged in a Cold War with the Soviet Union. While Americans supported a capitalistic model of society, the Soviets supported a Communist one. These two world powers fought to exchange socioeconomic models for alliance and support from third-world countries. The US was frightened by the spread of Communism, especially to their own nation.

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To examine the Cold War consensus, one must discuss the Cold War. The Cold war was the tension between the United States, standing for capitalism, and the USSR, standing for totalitarianism and socialism, following World War II. Although it was not a physical war between the two superpowers, many proxy wars had came out of it as way to spread or combat communism throughout the Free World. The Free World, as the U.S. came to define it, did not necessarily mean free as countries were being ruled by military regimes and dictatorships, but free from communism(70). During the Cold War, the spread of communism frighted the American People.

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The unveiling of the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe set the motion for the end of the Soviet Union. As the Soviet Union withdrew its military from Eastern Europe, a wave of free elections ousted communist rule in the region, leading to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Finally, in the eve of 1992, the Soviet Union dissolved itself, officially ending the cold war. Following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, many in the West felt a sense of optimism for the future. This sentiment is well embodied by President George H.W. Bush when he proclaimed the “creation of ’a new world order that would emerge in the wake of communism” (Kaufman 130).

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In the aftermath of 9/11, countries have now elevated domestic threats as being an equal consideration to the engagements of other countries, supporting international diplomacy. However, it could as be argued that 9/11 had not represented a paradigm shift in international politics due to the fact that a lot of the pre-existing debates within IR were hardly affected by the September 11th attacks. Most certainly, the 9/11 terrorist attacks had shocked the entire world and triggered a paradigm shift in every country. However, it did not represent a paradigm shift in international politics as that of the Cold War era in which the United States’s paradigm was the model on which other states were patterned, which could then be argued as not representing a paradigm shift in international

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August, 1945, the world saw a terrible tragedy. The tragedy was happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Then Japan surrender to Allied Powers and the war finished. Right after World War II, the world divided into two, one is Western Bloc, represented by NATO and the other is Eastern Bloc, represented by WTO. And the age well known as ‘Cold War’ lasted to early1990’s.

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