Cold War Analysis

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In his book Cold War: The American Crusade against World Communism, James Warren discusses the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union, its causes, its consequences, and its future. Warren also analyzes why the United States was so afraid of communism and how this fear controlled both U.S. domestic and foreign policy. In George Washington’s Farewell Address, he warned future leaders to avoid foreign entanglements. However, the United States strayed away from this policy in 1941 after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. From then on, the United States realized that with its great power came great responsibility. The U.S. felt the responsibility to develop a strategy to combat the spread of world communism, which was viewed as the “Red menace.” The U.S. believed that communism would spread from the Soviet Union, across all of Europe; the U.S. understood that the spread of communism would not be very difficult because the destruction caused by World War II left many nations vulnerable to communism. Also, the Soviet Union had a highly-trained army, a ruthless leader, and a nation committed to Marxist-Leninism, which was a belief that human progress is the destruction of Western democracy and capitalism. The Cold War was a military, diplomatic, economic, and scientific struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States. The rivalry between these two nations also affected places such as Korea, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, Malaya, and Vietnam. The Cold War controlled many of the crises that occurred the last half of the 20th century. The major conflict of course was the threat of nuclear weapons. Thomas Larson wrote that “the vulnerability to weapons that could destroy entire countries...heightened fears and antagonisms and made th... ... middle of paper ... ...he reader to put concepts like war spending into perspective. Warren convinces the reader of his argument that the Cold War was not only a nuclear arms race, but a military, diplomatic, economic, and scientific struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States that had effects on the home front and international affairs. He does this by addressing the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, the Berlin Airlift, the loss of China, the Korean War, the Cold War at the homefront, Eisenhower’s presidency, Kennedy and the New Frontier and his reaction to Cuba, the Vietnam War, presidential action from Nixon to Carter, and how all of these things heightened the Cold War. Warren not only convinces the reader of this argument, but through it he also communicates the importance of learning from this event so that future generations can prevent it from happening again.

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