The Cold War

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Recommended: Historiography on the Origins of the Cold War

Many people argue that the USA was the pre-eminent superpower throughout the Cold War and since this time the only true global power. While it is seen that the USA was the pre-eminent superpower during this period the USSR’s power cannot be denied. The Cold War is defined as a battle of ideologies with communism and capitalism battling to become the dominating world view.

The Cold War stretched out from 1945 to 1990 and commenced during the time when Truman was the leader of the USA and Stalin the leader of the USSR. The USSR and the USA never went to war on their own soil but fought ‘proxy wars’ through allied countries. The first of these was in Korea. After the end of World War II both countries were keen to establish their strength in Europe and Asia. Both were interested in maintaining their markets and controlling the military might of the other side. Both were also committed to winning the battle of ideas: communism vs. capitalism. In an attempt to prevent communism taking hold in Korea general McArthur quadrupled his forces there. The USSR responded by sending over 1 million soldiers. Today Korea is still divided into the communist north and capitalist south. . Further proxy wars were fought in Angola, Nicaragua and Afghanistan. This was particularly shown during the USSR’s occupation of Afghanistan. This occurred in 1979. In response the USA supported the Mujahedeen or Afghani ‘freedom fighters’ dragging out the war. What would have been a fairly easy takeover for the USSR became a long and protracted war due to the USA involvement. The USSR was finally defeated by the Afghanis ten years later.

This period was also when the accumulation of nuclear weapons was occurring. The two superpowers competed to have the most p...

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...en as a super-power it would appear they still do not match the USA in their cultural influence on the rest of the world.

In conclusion while it is clear that both the USA and the USSR were super-powers during the 45 year Cold War I believe that it can be argued that the USA was the pre-eminent super-power. This is primarily because they were able to outspend the USSR so effectively at crucial points such as during the USSR invasion of Afghanistan and during the later “Star Wars” period. The amount that President Reagan proposed to spend on this nuclear defence system just could not be matched by the USSR. In more recent times China is considered a possibility for reaching super-power status. While economically this may be the case as far as the influence of their culture and way of life goes it would appear that China has still not quite made super-power status.

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