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Is Truman responsible for the cold war
How Truman’s decision started the Cold War
Is Truman responsible for the cold war
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Activity #4 – Essay
“Truman was more responsible for the Cold War than Stalin was.”
President Truman was convinced from the beginning that Stalin intended to take over countries based solely by the fact that there were communist parties present in them.
France, Italy and even China, are perfect examples of this. And in the Greek civil war it wasn’t the USSR that was giving aid to the communists, it was Yugoslavia. It was obvious that Stalin had no major plans for any kind of global communist domination. But nevertheless, Truman placed the blame for the growing popularity of communism’s ‘political poison’ on Stalin, and convinced the American people to share his outlook. Without even looking at the fact that no USSR troops were in Greece, Truman and his advisers jumped on the chance to put forward their ‘domino theory’. This was a theory that said that if the communists won the Greek civil war, the end result would be Russian control of the whole middle east. He used this theory to justify military intervention in Greece, and ultimately, his ‘Truman Doctrine’ telling the entire world that the US was ready for a war. He told the ‘free peoples’ of the world that the time had come to choose between alternative ways of life – the communist way, or the democratic way. Stalin did not do this.
President Truman worked with the British Prime Minister to introduce the Deutschmark into West Berlin. While it did eventually achieve his goal of creating an economically viable Germany, i...
After World War II, Europe emerged as a continent torn between two very different political ideologies, Communism and Democracy. As the two major superpowers, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States, struggled to defend their respective governmental policies, the European Continent was caught in an intrinsic struggle to preserve the autonomy which had taken so long to achieve. During the Cold War, Eastern European nations struggled to achieve autonomy with the help of the West's dedication to break the Soviet sphere of influence. After the disintegration of the USSR, the struggle for autonomy among nations shifted from an intense, inward, nationalistic struggle to break away from a superpower to a commitment of international unity and cooperation as nations began to take moral and political responsibility for their actions.
After the end of WW2, two major governmental institutions, the USA and the USSR, with conflicting political ideologies and agendas, set forth to dominate each other in international politics. This period of time, also known as the Cold War, initiated an era of crazed hysteria in the United States as these two governments frequently clashed and bitterly fought. As a result, the frightened public grew delirious as the world grew dangerously close to a calamitous nuclear war, which ultimately prompted the Eisenhower administration to hinder the spread of communism and encourage the U.S. population to rapidly pursue higher education for the future welfare of this nation.
After the war, the United States and the Soviet Union had very different ideas on how to rebuild. The United States, led by President Truman, wanted to form democracies in Europe and create a capitalistic society to build economically strong nations that would compliment the American economy through trade. In contrast, the Soviet Union, led by Joseph Stalin, wanted to rebuild itself and spread communism through Europe and Asia. In a desperate attempt to rebuild, many countries devastated by war fell under soviet influence and resorted to communism. The Soviet Union called these nations Satellite nations and hoped that they would serve as ?buffer? nations, preventing invasion from the west .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 and invisible line separating the communist from the capitalist countries in Europe. To help enforce the ideas of containment, President Truman create...
“When the people fear the government, there is tyranny;when the government fears the people,there is liberty” -Thomas Jefferson. The reason why I chose this quote is that the Northern Korean and South Korean civilians were afraid of the government so there was tyranny. Tyranny is cruel and oppressive government or rule.
“Was Truman Responsible for the Cold War”, well, according to author Arnold A. Offner, his simplistic answer is an obvious “yes.” “Taking Sides” is a controversial aspect of the author’s interpretation for justifying his position and perception of “Truman’s” actions. This political approach is situated around the “Cold War” era in which the author scrutinizes, delineates, and ridicules his opponents by claiming “I have an ace in the hole and one showing” (SoRelle 313). Both authors provide the readers with intuitive perceptions for their argumentative approaches in justifying whether or not “Truman” contributed to the onset of the “Cold War.” Thus far, it would be hard-pressed to blame one single individual, President or not, for the “Cold War” initiation/s. Information presented show the implications centered on the issues leading up to the Cold War”, presents different ideologies of two Presidents involving policy making, and a national relationship strained by uncooperative governments. However, evidence that is presented may indicate otherwise as Joseph Stalin provides adequate counter claims for discrediting the “simplicity” of “yes”.
Russia, as a communist state, wanted to spread communism. This is seen through Document 6, where Stalin is portrayed asking the question- who should be freed from freedom next? In other words, who should the Russians free from democracy, or spread communism to? America felt a communist world is dangerous, and thus stood obstacle in the Soviet Union’s path to spread communism. Just as the Soviets wanted to spread communism, the United States wanted to contain communism. Document 4 effectively portrays this policy. The Document is the speech where President Truman is explaining the Truman Doctrine in which the US is to protect any nation battling communist pressures. The speech splits the world into communist and democratic camps, intensifying the nations’ thirsts for more power and stifling the other’s power. Within Document 3, Kennan states that the only way to influence the Soviet Union is through force. One way this force took form was through international organizations. The democracies of the world, fearful of communism’s spread, created the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Those who made up the organization were to aid each other if attacked. In this way, they could fight the spread of communism through force, in turn, influence the Soviets. The US, as a part of NATO, was now taking direct steps against the Soviet Union, and thus steps toward the Cold War. To counter NATO, the communists formed the Warsaw Pact. This had same purpose as NATO, and hence was also a step toward the Cold War. The different beliefs of the Soviet Union and the United States incited the Cold
During 1945 and early in 1946, the Soviet Union cut off nearly all contacts between the West and the occupied territories of Eastern Europe. In March 1946, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill warned that "an iron curtain has descended across the Continent" of Europe. He made popular the phrase Iron Curtain to refer to Soviet barriers against the West (Kennedy 1034). Behind these barriers, the U.S.S.R. steadily expanded its power. In 1946, the U.S.S.R. organized Communist governments in Bulgaria and Romania. In 1947, Communists took control of Hungary and Poland. Communists seized full power in Czechoslovakia early in 1948. These countries became Soviet satellite nations controlled by the U.S.S.R. Albania already had turned to Communism. Yugoslavia also joined the Communist bloc. The Communist Party of Yugoslavia had helped drive out the Germans near the end of the war. Communists led by Josip Broz Tito then took over the government (Cold War). East and West opposed each other in the United Nations. In 1946, the U.S.S.R. rejected a U.S. proposal for an international agency to control nuclear energy production and research. The Soviet Union believed the United States had a lead in nuclear weapons and would have a monopoly if controls were approved. The Soviet Union pictured itself as a defender of peace and accused the United States of planning a third world war.
President Harry Truman came into office right at the end of World War II, after the death of President Franklin Roosevelt. Almost immediately after becoming president, Truman learned of the Manhattan Project, and had to decide whether or not to use the atomic bomb. With the advice of James Byrnes, Secretary of State, Truman decided to drop two atomic bombs on Japan, in part to demonstrate America’s power to the world and gain a political advantage in Europe (Offner 294). After World War II ended, there were negotiations about Germany, and it was decided that Germany would be split into two halves; the western half would be controlled by the United States and its allies, while the eastern half would be controlled by the Soviet Union. This situation led to increased tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union because of the two nations’ different political and economic systems. The Soviet Union began to view the United States as a threat to communism, and the United States began to view the Soviet Union as a threat to democracy. On March 12, 1947, Truman gave a speech in which he argued that the United States should support nations trying to resist Soviet imperialism. Truman and his advisors created a foreign policy that consisted of giving reconstruction aid to Europe, and preventing Russian expansionism. These foreign policy decisions, as well as his involvement in the usage of the atomic bomb, raises the question of whether or not the Cold War can be blamed on Truman.
Roosevelt's Responsibility for the Cold War Certainly Roosevelt’s naive attempt to foster diplomacy with his World War II ally allowed Stalin to quickly secure the Eastern front of Russia placing the nation in a position of power in Europe. However in the context of the post-war period this policy of appeasement and gratuitous diplomacy during the Yalta conference was not significant in starting the Cold War because it produced no immediate results that would have triggered such a dispute. Truman on the other hand, created an ideological discord between communism and capitalism that was unprecedented at the time and pursued this policy with great ardor during the Potsdam conference and during the closing stages of World War II. It is a fallacious to assume that Roosevelt’s naïve foreign policy with the U.S.S.R was significantly responsible for the Cold War when it was clearly Truman’s belligerent approach to foreign affairs that ignited the conflict.
" With opposition from not only the American public but also from Congress, President Truman had to take action in order to convince Americans of the reality of the Soviet threat, in addition to the threat of communism in general. In fact, Truman was even told that he would need “to scare the hell out of the American people.” He did just that with the Truman Doctrine.
In addition to the prevention of communism, President Truman’s decision was also influenced by the apprehensive environment during the Cold War. The Soviet Union was able to ruin the United States as the monopoly of nuclear bombs in 1949 when they successfully detonated their first atomic bomb (“The Cold War Museum”).... ... middle of paper ... ...
The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 precipitated the Reunification of Germany in 1990. Negotiations and talks between East German’s Lothar de Maiziere and West German’s Helmut Kohl and the four occupying powers of United States, United Kingdom, France, and Soviet Union resulted in the Unification Treaty or the “Two plus Four Treaty” recognizing the sovereignty of the newly unified German state. The five states of German Democratic Republic or East Germany united with Federal Republic of Germany or West Germany and Berlin became a unified city on October 3, 1990 marking the die wende or Turning Point. “By early 1991, however, not much more than a year after the barricade surrounding the Brandenburg Gate was actually removed, most Germans, East and West, were asking themselves whether the Wall’s absence was, by itself sufficient to bring the nation together again” (McAdams 199).” Zealous attempts to restructure East Germany’s economy after reunification in 1990 led to massive debt and high taxation, sparking disillusionment and frustration among German citizens, which resulted in a divided and unequal economy.
From when World War II ended in 1945, all the way up to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Cold War was the center of attention of international affairs. It was a struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union. From an American view the Cold War was a mostly a war on communism. The US caused and maintained the Cold War, the US is to blame for the Cold War for disparish of the communist Soviet Union in support of the political and economic systems.
The Berlin Crisis reached its height in the fall of 1961. Between August and October of that year, the world watched as the United States and the Soviet Union faced off across a new Cold War barrier, the Berlin Wall. In some ways, the Wall was Khrushchev’s response to Kennedy’s conventional buildup at the end of July, and there were some in the West who saw it that way. However, as Hope Harrison has clearly shown, Khrushchev was not the dominant actor in the decision to raise the Wall, but rather acquiesced to pressure from East German leader Walter Ulbricht, who regarded the Wall as the first step to resolving East Germany’s political and economic difficulties. The most pressing of these difficulties was the refugee problem, which was at its height in the summer of 1961 as thousands of East Germans reacted to the increased tensions by fleeing westward. But Ulbricht also saw the Wall as a way to assert East German primacy in Berlin, and thus as a way to increase the pressure on the West to accept East German sovereignty over all of Berlin.
The Cold War (1945-1991) was a substantial war that was fought on an. economic, philosophical, cultural, social and political level. This impacted globally and changed the majority of the world’s societies to a. liberated fashion, rather than the archaic and conservative ways. Global war is a war engaged in by all if not most of the principle nations of the world, a prime example of such would be of the two great wars. Therefore the cold war can’t be classified as a global war in terms of the military and actual warfare’s, as the two superpowers (Soviet Union and USA) fought indirectly with each other, however to an extent the cold war can be said it’s a global war in terms of its politics and economics. The The effects of the Cold War were definitely felt globally and had an aftermath.