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Impacts of the cold war in third world nations
Communism and capitalism in the cold war
What was the impact of the cold war on american politics
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The Cold War of the 1900s impacted the world today. The way countries are governed today are outcomes of different battles fought during this time. Different tactics used in the Cold War affected the day-to-day lives of citizens and what they have access to. Several neutral nations were pressured to become politically involved whether they wanted to or not. Direct contact with people in third world countries changed the cultures and developments occurring at the time. Opposing ideologies of the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) affected political, cultural, and economic developments in the third world by enacting new foreign policies, plans, and actions taken by these superpower countries. The opposing ideologies of the US and …show more content…
Some of the capitalist policies and plans put forth by the US were the containment policy, the Marshall Plan, and the policy of brinkmanship. The Containment Policy by the US aimed to contain the Soviets in the hope that they would stop spreading communism to third world nations. The Marshall Plan had a similar goal, but a different process with the same solution. In this case, the US aided new nations in Western Europe by giving them supplies and building materials, which helped the economy. The policy of brinkmanship started in the 1960s, and it showed how close nations were to engaging in nuclear war. Communist relation changed over this time period happened in Korea, Iran, and Afghanistan. After the Korean Civil War, North Korea became communist and was backed by the Soviets. However, when they decided to invade South Korea, the rest of the world saw this as an attempt at taking more control of third world countries. During …show more content…
Citizens of capitalist nations grew to dislike communism. Winston Churchill’s term of “iron curtain” was in reference to the countries being divided as a result of the Cold War. The Berlin Wall was put up by the Germans, causing families to be separated from each other. Such large changes to many individuals’ lives changed how they carried out life in their developing lands. As a result of the unhappiness that separated families faced, Germans earned a bad reputation for what communist countries were doing, and this became incorporated to their culture. The US was helping Iran with westernizing their country. With all of the new developments, lifestyles changed drastically from what they were before. If the US had not helped out, the lives of Iranians would not have changed. The communists affected daily lives in situations such as the Cuban missile crisis. This caused many people to take action because of the prospect of nuclear war. In the USSR, new leaders such as Leonid Brezhnev made the country very communist. Citizens could no longer have the small amount of individuality they were allowed before. This also happened in China, where the strict communism did not allow the small amount of freedom that was given before the country changed. In brief, lives all over the world changed due to the consequences of the Cold
...elopment of the Cold War. Tensions between the East and West became worse as a result of these events and it would be years before relations between the United States and the Soviet Union improved. The Berlin Blockade/Airlift, China becoming Communist and the Korean War tested both Soviet and American policies and drove the two superpowers to further tension.
The alliance formed between the US and USSR during the second world war was not strong enough to overcome the decades of uneasiness which existed between the two ideologically polar opposite countries. With their German enemy defeated, the two emerging nuclear superpowers no longer had any common ground on which to base a political, economical, or any other type of relationship. Tensions ran high as the USSR sought to expand Soviet influence throughout Europe while the US and other Western European nations made their opposition to such actions well known. The Eastern countries already under Soviet rule yearned for their independence, while the Western countries were willing to go to great lengths to limit Soviet expansion. "Containment of 'world revolution' became the watchword of American foreign policy throughout the 1950s a...
To start off the Cold war, Russia had lost twenty-seven million soldiers in World War II. Stalin was not going to allow the Germany to attack Russia again . To make sure of this , Stalin made East Europe his buffer zone.The United states could not allow the this to contunie to happen. The first example was the Truman Doctrine, that declared the the Untited States would support “free people”. The Doctrine was followed by the Marshall Plan which gave 12 billion dollars in aid European democracies so that communist ideas would not be so attractive. These were some of the long term , patient policies the United States did to
In its efforts to defend democracy, the U.S. created the policy of containment. In this new policy, the United States would try to block Soviet influence by making alliances and supporting weaker nations. Winston Churchill described this strategy as an?iron curtain?, which became an invisible line separating the communist from the capitalist countries in Europe.... ... middle of paper ...
During 1940-1970, the USSR and the USA were the world’s leading superpowers. After WW2, it was the US money that helped rebuild nearly all of Western Europe, putting nearly half a dozen countries into debt. They opened trade and helped Europe’s ravaged economy to get back onto its feet. They did so by creating the ‘Marshall Plan’ on June the 5th, 1947. The plans aim was to reconstruct Western Europe and at the same time to stop Communism spreading to them – the Americans were avid believers in the Domino Theory, and believed that communism would take over all of Europe if they did not intervene. They also created other policies such as the Truman doctrine on March the 12th, 1947 (which is a set of principles that state that the US as the worlds ‘leading country’ will help out other democratic governments worldwide) and NATO, 4th of April 1949.
One of these actions led to a near nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. This started with the CIA’s covert operations in the Bay of Pigs invasion and ended with the Cuban Missile Crisis between the United States and the Soviet Union. Although war was avoided, a communist regime (Fidel Castro) remains in power today. Another extreme transformation of the government was to focus federal spending on agriculture and infrastructure. These changes led to subsidizing farmers and developing infrastructure programs like the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act and The National Defense Education Act (NDEA).
The political ideologies of the USA and of the Soviet Union were of profound significance in the development of the Cold War. Problems between the two power nations arose when America refused to accept the Soviet Union in the international community. The relationship between the USA and the Soviet Union was filled with mutual distrust and hostility. Many historians believe the cold war was “inevitable” between a democratic, capitalist nation and a communist Union. Winston Churchill called the cold war “The balance of terror” (1). Cold war anxieties began to build up with America and the Soviet Union advancing in the arms race for world dominance and supremacy. America feared the spread of Communism
Odd Arne Westad, Director of the Cold War Studies Centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science, explains how the Cold War “shaped the world we live in today — its politics, economics, and military affairs“ (Westad, The Global Cold War, 1). Furthermore, Westad continues, “ the globalization of the Cold War during the last century created foundations” for most of the historic conflicts we see today. The Cold War, asserts Westad, centers on how the Third World policies of the two twentieth-century superpowers — the United States and the Soviet Union — escalates to antipathy and conflict that in the end helped oust one world power while challenging the other. This supplies a universal understanding on the Cold War (Westad, The Global Cold War, 1). After World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union opposed each other over the expansion of their power.
In February 1946, George F. Kennan, an American diplomat in Moscow, proposed a policy of containment. Containment is the blocking of another nation’s attempts to spread its influence. During the late 1940s and early 1950s the United States used this policy against the Soviets. The United States wanted to take measures to prevent any extension of communist rule to other countries. The conflicting U.S. and Soviet aims in Eastern Europe led to the Cold War. The Berlin airlift, formation of NATO, and the Truman Doctrine all relate to this policy of containment.
America’s Policy of Containment was introduced by George Kennan in 1947. This policy had a few good points but many more bad points.Kennan's depiction of communism as a "malignant parasite" that had to be contained by all possible measures became the basis of the Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, and National Security Act in 1947. In his Inaugural Address of January 20, 1949, Truman made four points about his "program for peace and freedom": to support the UN, the European Recovery Program, the collective defence of the North Atlantic, and a “bold new program” for technical aid to poor nations. Because of his programs, "the future of mankind will be assured in a world of justice, harmony and peace." Containment was not just a policy. It was a way of life.
With the shock of two destructive world wars and then the creation of the United Nations, whose aim is to preserve peace, it is unconceivable for these two nations to fight directly in order to promote their own ideology. But the US and the USSR end up to be in competition in numerous ways, particularly in technological and industrial fields. In the same time they start to spread their influence over their former allies. This phenomenon have led to the creation of a bipolar world, divided in two powerful blocs surrounded by buffer zones, and to the beginning of what we call the Cold War because of the absence of direct conflicts between the two nations.
After World War Two, the United States and Soviet Union quickly became enemies due to different ideals. The Soviet Union supported communism, while the United States supported capitalism and democracy. Communism was an economic system where the state owned all means of production, and goods and services were shared. Under communist rule, free elections were prohibited and media was censored. The United States did not agree with this system of government.
... middle of paper ... ...fought on a global scale. The Cold War triggered many events that truly have changed many aspects of the world, the global impact is undeniable.
The Iron Curtain is a Western term referring to an imaginary boundary which divided Europe into two separate areas of political influence and ideology from the end of World War II until the end of the Cold War.
The collapse of the Berlin Wall changed Western Europe as we know it today. The Iron Curtain which had split Europe had ascended and the once divided germans were reunited under one common nation. The causal factors which resulted in the fall of the Berlin Wall were internal — communism imploded upon itself—. Gorbachev attempted to reform communism through Glasnost and Perestroika, which were supposed to incorporate economic reforms and transparency, however, history illustrates that increased liberty is incompatible with communism. Dr. Schmidtke argued that structural deficiencies led along with poor economic growth which led to the collapse of communism in Europe, and consequently the collapse of the Berlin Wall. The alienation of intellectuals and the authoritative nature of communist regimes further contributed to the failure of communism in Europe. However, the collapse of the Berlin Wall would not have occurred had it not been for Gorbachev’s Glasnost, Perestroika, and the end of the Brezhnev Doctrine. Along with German official Schabowski whose actions were the catalyst for the mass exodus of persons from the GDR into West Germany. The Collapse of the Berlin Wall would not have occurred so swiftly had Gorbachev not tried to implement reforms to communism.