The Soviet Union and the United States served as Allies during World War II. At the end of the war however each side wanted to deal with the aftermath differently. The United States was in favor of a peaceful and cooperative relationship with Germany and their Allies. The Soviet Union wanted revenge on the crimes and atrocities that were committed against them. The United States wanted to push democracy in Eastern Europe yet the Soviets countered this by saying the United States was hypocritical, since at that time the United States supported the Latin countries that were governed by dictatorships. The Soviets were under the impression that this was an effort to boost the UNITED STATES economy. One of the main reasons the Soviets wanted their revenge is because they lost over twenty million citizens in the war. Even though the United States lost 405, 000, this was not as great as the loss suffered by the Soviet Union. Just like when one person gets mad they have to have it their way or no way at all and the Soviets felt this way. They wanted revenge on Germany and did not want to take no for an answer. As a result of World War II the United States came out the most powerful nation in the world, they had learned from their mistakes, as well as the knowledge of how the war could have been prevented. Therefore the United States believed they knew best and ignored the previous isolation policy. Their attitude toward the Soviets was very cocky because they believed they knew what was best. The United States needed to access raw materials, markets for their goods, and security for investments overseas that could only be met in countries with governments like their own. This is another reason the United States wanted to push for democracies overseas. President Truman wanted to have a cooperative relationship with the Soviet Union as long as they did what the United States wanted them to do. He wanted to restrain their expansionist impulses and allow the United States to rebuild Germany and their Allies. Truman knew that he could get away with this because American had a nuclear monopoly which attributed to the United State’s power. Josef Stalin the leader of the Soviet Union wanted to force communism on surrounding nations.
Both Truman’s and Eisenhower’s governments were engaged in the Cold War, and contributed to increased tensions with Russia. Truman was the initiator of the containment policy, which was implemented throughout the duration of the Cold War. This policy was put into effect in order to prevent the spread of communism.
The United States and The Soviet Union were originally joined together by the want to defeat The Nazi army, in 1941-1945. The alliance remained, and strengthened, among the two until the end of World War II. At the end of World War II, a rupture between the two occurred. The differences began earlier, but there was a straw that broke the camels back. The reason The United States and The Soviet Union’s alliance did not work out is because The Soviet Union and The United States were complete opposites, The Soviet Union proved to be faulty, and they were never truly allies.
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...
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 complement 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?buffers? nations, preventing invasion from the West.
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
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. During the late 1940's and the 1950's, the Cold War became increasingly tense. Each side accused the other of wanting to rule the world (Walker 388).
...e fight against communism placed a great responsibility on United States and its European allies. In order to back their beliefs, they were responsible to help in the fight against communism. Each country believed strongly in their individual views concerning communism and they were willing to do anything to stop the advancement of this particular form of government. This eventually led to the deaths of thousands of U.S. troops in a war that was being fought for controversial reasons.
After World War 2, two opposing powers emerged, both holding viewpoints which dramatically opposed the other. The US was in favor of capitalism, while the USSR had been in favor of communism since the Russian Revolution. Capitalism provided its’ followers a sense of independence and freedom to compete with other businesses, while communism proposed equal pay for all citizens, regardless of their education or job occupation. This limited the capabilities of those who abided by communist governments, which is why the US decided to start a new policy of containment. The United States’ policy of containment was to stop the spread of communism because of the USSR’s beliefs, actions on impressionable countries, and the direct and indirect threats they posed upon the world.
The United States felt that Soviet Union was a threat and that the spread of communism threaten capitalism and democracy. The Soviet Union felt that capitalism threaten communism because it led to imperialism and greed, which eventually would lead to war. This tension between the two nations maintained the Cold War and provided the reasoning for all foreign policy maneuvers from President Harry Truman to President Ronald Reagan. “The stability of this relationship, however, depended upon a certain balance of forces which could not last for ever.” (Cox p.32) ” Concretely, the ability of the United States to sustain its chosen postwar strategy rested upon six key factors: Military superiority; domestic support for its international role; a reasonable degree of success in the implementation of its foreign policy abroad; loyal and dependent allies; an economy that could bear the costs of the Unit...
Tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union had risen fast since the end of World War II, were spurred on by the Space Race and the Arms Race, and peaked dangerously
During World War II, the U.S. and the Soviet Union were allies. However, by the end of the Second World War their relations greatly deteriorated due to two important factors. One of these factors is the Yalta Conference and greatly impacted American-Soviet relations in a negative way in the decade following the War. The second factor is the Korean War between South Korea and North Korea that placed the Soviet Union and the United States on opposite sides.
At the same time, the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics were involved in the Cold War. They were competing against one another, constantly trying to show that their country (and therefore their form of government and ideals) was the better choice. They were competing for influence over the rest of the world. Eventually the USSR and Communism lost, but far more important results came out of this competition instead.
One of the main reasons for conflict and mistrust between the United States and, the Soviet Union was their conflicting political beliefs. The Soviet Union was a communist country and the United States is a democratic nation. Communism is a type of government in which the government controls the economy in its entirety while democracy is a form of government in which power is held by the people. Just based on that it is extremely apparent that there would be a conflict between these two powers. However, once you factor in World War II it becomes obvious that some sort of conflict was going to be produced from this relationship. When World War II ended, the Soviet Union and the United States were clearly going to be the two strongest countries
Following the ending of the second world war in 1945, another conflict arose between the united states and communist russia, where America and its allies struggled to keep the communist Soviet Union from expanding into Europe, Asia, and Africa. This war had many long-term causes which were the Western democracies became scared of communism, America refused to recognize the USSR after the bolshevik takeover for 16 years, WWII enraged stalin because America and the British had waited so long to open a front in France, which would have relieved pressure on the Soviet Union from the attacking Germans, and The United States terminated Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union before the war was complete. In order to protect his country from another
During World War 2 (1939-1945), the Soviet Union and the USA were allies fighting towards the same enemy, Nazi Germany. At the end of World War 2, it could have been assumed that the two countries would have a firm relationship, however, soon after the war, enmity developed between the two, which resulted in the Cold War. Once Germany surrendered in 1945, the U.S openly formulated a policy of ‘Containment’, and at the beginning of 1948 the Cold War had escalated. Containment was the plan to diminish the rise of Soviet influence in the Western nations. The two countries had opposing economic and political beliefs and ideologies. The Soviet Union espoused Socialism and the USA feared this ideology spreading and Western Capitalist systems losing