Cold War Era Research Paper

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Recommended: US and Soviet relations during the Cold War

The Cold War Era The Cold War was a period of time where the United States and the United States were at great tension with one another. America had been opposed to Joseph Stalin’s communist rule of the country. This in turn was the reason that the Soviet Union was against America. The way that America dealt with the USSR was to treat them as if they were not a part of international politics. This engrained affinity for mutual distrust between the two nations and a palpable tension between emerging superpowers. The initial American policy against the feared Soviet Union’s takeover was containment. This policy was enacted due to the fundamental difference in ideology from the two countries. Communism could not succeed where democracy succeeded …show more content…

These new weapons of mass destruction were of major use against the Soviet Union when bargaining about international policies, and they were soon developing their own, more powerful nuclear weaponry. This lead to the nuclear arms race between America and the Soviet Union. This lead to the new development of Hydrogen bombs, a much more powerful variant of nuclear bombs. A bomb tested created a 25-square-mile fireball that had the power to vaporize at least half of Manhattan. It also was tested on an island, which did not exist anymore after the test as well as becoming one of the deeper areas of ocean that we have today. All of these tests lead to the threat of nuclear annihilation from both superpowers. This was prominent in the building of bunkers and nuclear bomb drills in schools and public places. This was also depicted in popular culture, which had nuclear annihilation depicted in movies, with mutant creatures from radioactive …show more content…

This was cause for widespread of fear in America. This primarily came from the stunning ability of the R-7 missile which seemed to be able to deliver a nuclear payload anywhere on earth from Russia. This was the catalyst for the beginning of the space race. America quickly launched the Explorer I in 1958. Shortly after this, President Dwight Eisenhower launched the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). This was an entire federal agency that was devoted to space travel and any goal relevant to space. This was not the only program placed to ensure America’s place in space, but the Soviet Union still put the first man into space in 1961. America put a man into space in the same year. Before John F. Kennedy’s assassination, he made a public claim that America would land a man on the moon before the end of the decade. The promise came true in 1969, when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon while participating in the Apollo 11 mission. This was the milestone that effectively won the space race for

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