Berlin Airlift Dbq

The time period labeled as the Cold War could be described as one of great tension and fear. At the end of World War II the United States and the Soviet Union met head to head in a clash between democracy and communism. The conflict was born out of a conflict of ideals; the Soviet Union believed that democracy was a failing system and communism would spread throughout the world, and at the opposite end of that the United States hoped to contain the spread of communism. This direct conflict of ideals lead several policies and alliances, namely; the Truman Doctrine which stated the U.S. would get involved to help nations threatened by communism and the U.S.S.R.’s policy of expansion of communism. These conflicts of interest resulted in the fifty

year period known as the Cold War, and within it several minor conflicts; the Berlin Conflict, the Korean War, and the Cuban Missile Crisis which would bring this stalemate to the near brink of full out nuclear war.
The Berlin Conflict was the first notable aggressive action between the United States and the Soviet Union.

The conflict began as a result of the Soviet Union setting up blockades to attempt to halt further support from western nations of the democratic sub-state known as West Berlin. The United States and other western European countries responded in the well known Berlin Airlift, which by name, they airlifted in food and other materials necessary for the survival of those within West Berlin. The overall efforts of the U.S. and other western nations was a success; after a year of effort (1948-1949) Joseph Stalin decided to remove the blockade of West Berlin, however many question as to whether the actions took were truly correct. Many debate to this day as to whether or not if the U.S. had taken direct military action against the Soviet Union at this time while we still had the advantage of being the only nation to develop the Atomic Bomb as to whether or not the war would have ended

there.
The next conflict between the communist and democratic world powers became apparent in the Korean Civil War. Northern Korea, a newly found communist nation began its invasion of South Korea, the democratic nation. This was the first and only time that the United Nations became involved and issued war against North Korea, which stopped the total fall of democratic South Korea. After American involvement under General MacArthur the democratic nations were able to push the communist forces all the way back to China, but after they got involved as a reaction the democratic Korean state was pushed all the way back to the 38th parallel; very close to where the battle had begun as shown in Document C. While this displayed a successful attempt in containment; there was no realistic spread in communism, the overall conflict was a tie and many believed resulted with a largely unnecessary amount of loss of American lives.
The final notable conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union was the Cuban Missile Crisis.

This event was in all senses of it a true crisis and was the closest to nuclear war the two nations had ever been. After the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion by the U.S. the Soviet Union got involved and began sending military support to Cuba, a nation merely 90 miles away from the coast of Florida. The U.S.S.R. armed Cuba with nuclear launch pads and enough nuclear missiles to completely annihilate the east coast of the United States within their 1.1 thousand mile radius as displayed in Document D. Any wrong turn could have resulted in the total destruction of both the United States and Soviet Union. The U.S.’s one failure to contain communism in a nation so close to home resulted in one of the most tense situations throughout the entirety of the Cold War and almost the mutual destruction of both involved

nations.
The largest question when it comes to the Cold War is whether or not the strategy and policy of containment was actually successful, and to this day there are debates as to whether or not different militaristic strategies could have resulted in a much shorter less potentially devastating war. The first conflict, known as the Berlin Conflict was a success for the causes of the United States and United Nations, however, this success was merely allowing West Berlin hold on by a string, rather than any actual meaningful attack on communism. This passive take on approaching the conflicts of the war would only allow it to escalate and further conflicts to arise, leading to the Korean War, another mere slight success for the cause of containment at the cost of countless American lives. As time passed and the United States and the Soviet Union only created more atomic bombs, enough even to destroy both nations several times over, more conflict was inevitable. The final and closest conflict to actual war breaking out was the Cuban Missile Crisis; in a complete failure to contain communism 90 miles off the cost of the U.S. we were left in a stalemate of mutually assured destruction, and it is here that many people believe that the U.S. should have take more aggressive action earlier. Although no actual official war between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. broke out in the 50 year period known as the Cold War if the U.S. has asserted control over the situation of communism in it’s earlier stages the many conflicts throughout the war could have been avoided, along with evading the possibility of the destruction of nearly half the planet.