Some historians believe that the Cold War was inevitable, due to the aggression between The United States and The Soviet Union. Many say that neither party is to blame. Even though this war was one of political conflict rather than military, lives were still lost due to accidents, hostile forces, secret operations, and air crafts that were shot down. At least 400 American and about 400,000 Soviet Union lives were lost.
It all began in World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union were allies against the Axis powers. But their relationship was tense. America had been cautious of the Soviet communism and they were also concerned about Russia’s leader, Joseph Stalin. On the other hand, the Soviets did not like the Americans’ decades-long
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It mostly involved nuclear weapons. The United States had a select possession of nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union saw this as a planned threat. The Soviets detonated their own atomic bomb in 1948. The United States went on their own program to make the more powerful, H-bomb (hydrogen bomb). The H-bomb was made by: J. Robert Oppenheimer and chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commissions, David Lillienthal. When tested it created a 25-square-mile fireball that vaporized an island, blew a huge hole in the Ocean floor, and had the power to destroy half of Manhattan. These testing’s also emitted radioactive waste into the atmosphere. About a year after the initial testing of the H-bomb, the Soviet Union detonated one of their own. Throughout the 1950’s, the United States continued to hold a wide advantage in nuclear weapons. They produced greater weapons with the help of improvements in computers. For the next decade, both nations created more nuclear weapons. In the 1960’s, MIRVs (multiple targeted reentry vehicles) were …show more content…
The Treaty for the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was signed on July 1st, 1968. It was signed by the United States of America, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, and 59 other countries. There were two groups of nations: nuclear nations and non- nuclear nations. The nuclear nations had previously tested atomic bombs. They agreed not to help non- nuclear nations make nuclear weapons. The non-nuclear nations are obliged to open nuclear facilities for inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency. They also had to agree to safeguards that the nuclear knowledge and resources are not put for military use. Then President Richard Nixon made a policy of “détente”, or relaxation, towards the Soviet Union. In 1972, he and the Soviet premier, Leonid Brezhnev signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty. This banned the making of nuclear missiles by both sides. It was a step towards decreasing the decades-old risk of nuclear war. The Cold War got intense again under President Ronald Regan. In November of 1989, the Berlin Wall was taken down. This was two years after Regan said “Mr.Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” In 1991, the Soviet Union had collapsed. After that the Cold War came to an
middle of paper ... ... The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union began with mutual distrust in World War II, intense rivalry, and conflicting ideologies. Cold War was fought with four major weapons. The weapons were propaganda, economic and military aid to devastated nations after World War II, arms race, and the alliances.
Things began to roll when a US-based U2 sky plane took photos of some USSR intermediate ballistic missiles with the capability of transporting nuclear heads. The situation got worse when the USSR dispatched 42 medium range missiles and 24 other intermediate range missiles to the Cuban. After the United States threatened to attack Cuba, UUSR withdrew her weaponry. The Cold War gets to give a description of the US-USSR relationship during that phase. The Cold War intensified in the late 1940s and the early 1950s because of the hysteria that the US citizens developed.
The Cold War was a post-World War II struggle between the United States. and its allies and the group of nations led by the Soviet Union. Direct military conflict did not occur between the two superpowers, but intense economic and diplomatic struggles erupted in the country. Different interests led to mutual suspicion and hostility in a rising philosophy. The United States played a major role in the ending of the Cold War.
The war created a competition between the two countries. One one succeeded, the other needed to. Because of this, new technologies and discoveries were made, the first being space. The Cold War created the Space Race. While the USSR was first to reach space, the US was not far behind, ultimately placing the first man on the moon. The Cold War also led to the age of nuclear warfare. The US showed the world what technology it had created when it dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the USSR was not far behind. They developed their own atomic weapons, creating an arms race between the two countries. While the war was mainly between the US and USSR, it inspired other countries to start developing these weapons, or become allies with someone who had. Therefore, while Stalin was not alive for most of the Cold War, his previous actions and beliefs about communism helped cultivate this war. The tension he was partial responsible for creating with the US, led to both countries developing new technologies. He also led to the arms race, creating a new type of warfare throughout the entire world. This war helped change the path of the world. (Arms
... rule came to an end in a number of Eastern European countries, including Poland, Hungary, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia (Kennedy 1034). In addition, East Germany began to allow its people to pass freely to West Berlin through the Berlin Wall, and the East Germans soon began to tear the wall down. Germany was reunified in 1990, when East Germany united with West Germany (Walker 388). In 1991, the Soviet Communist Party lost control of the Soviet government. Later that year, the Soviet Union was dissolved, and the republics that made up the nation became independent states. Russia was by far the largest of these states. In 1992, Russian President Boris Yeltsin and U.S. President George Bush formally declared that their countries did not regard each other as potential enemies (Walker). These events marked the end of the Cold War and of communist threat as we know it.
The USA’s new weapon, the Hydrogen bomb, or H-bomb, was one of the most powerful weapons of the time. In 1950, the H-bomb was tested in the Eniwetok Atoll, Marshall Islands (Cold War History). The reaction was so fierce, the explosion wiped the island off the face of the earth, leaving a crater on the ocean floor. The explosion reached a range of 25 square miles and had a mushroom cloud which dropped radioactive fallout on the surrounding areas (The Cold War Museum). This new weapon scared the Soviet Union into creating their own bombs.
War. Humans have thrived from war for as long as we can remember. The United States has been fighting wars ever since we found the new country in North America that we now call the United States. We fought against our selves for the freedom of others. We fought in several world wars. We have always fought. But in the late 1940's “war” changed forever. This was well known as the Cold War. Why was this so different? “ The world had never experienced anything like it. The Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States was a half century of military build-up, political maneuvering for international support (Hanes, Sharon M., and Richard C. Hanes).” This means that the world has always seen war as either hand to hand combat or gun to gun combat. With soldiers and foot patrols, but this was basically an arms race. Who was to blame for this struggle? I believe that the Cold War was caused by both nations.
After World War II ended, there was still conflict between the United Sates and the Soviet Union. Their alliance broke down between 1945 and 1950. Both were trying to spread two competing views, economically and politically. The next 40 years were a constant battle that we know at the Cold War. The Cold War created new alliances, and new enemies because of the spread and destruction of their economic and political systems.
When President Truman authorized the use of two nuclear weapons in 1945 against the Japanese in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II, the nature of international security was changed irreversibly. At that time, the United States had what was said to have a monopoly of atomic bombs. Soon thereafter, the Soviet Union began working on atomic weaponry. In 1949, it had already detonated it first atomic bomb and tensions began to heat up between the two countries. With the information that the Soviets had tested their first bomb, the United States began work on more powerful weapons1, and a fight for nuclear superiority had begun.
There were many causes to the cold war and there was a lot of tension built because of nuclear bombs and weapons but the biggest was the lack of trust and tension between the United States and the Soviet union. The tension started to build between the US and the Soviet Union when we bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But when the US threatened to bomb russia with a nuclear bomb russia thought it was a bluff but after we did bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki they knew we were dead serious about bombing Russia. So then russia started to build its own nuclear weapons to challenge the United States. Then the tension grew hugely over the time but never actually lead to war between the two nations.
After that, Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) were built up into huge arsenals by the USSR and America. Both sides soon had the power to wipe out the not only the enemy, but the rest of the world as well. The United States exploded a hydrogen bomb in 1952, and the Soviets tested on year later. Both nations rushed to develop missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons.
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.
The world’s conflict over nuclear weapons all began with President Truman’s decision to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. World War II was coming to a close but Japan would not surrender. So, on August 6, 1945, the bomb Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima. It was triggered by a gun mechanism where a small piece of uranium-235 was fired down a barrel into a larger piece. This caused an explosion of 15 kilotons, or 15,000 tons of TNT, killing 90,000 to 166,000 people. Surprisingly, Japan did not surrender, so on August 9, 1945, the bomb Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki. It was triggered when shock waves from high explosives set off the plutonium-239 core. It caused an explosion of 20 kilotons, or 20,000 tons of TNT, and killed 60,000 to 80,000 people. This second attack really sent the message to Japan, and they finally surrendered on August 15, 1945. World War II was finally over, but the Cold War began with the reveal of the United States’ nuclear power. It is believed that dropping the bombs saved both Japanese and American lives by ending the w...
In 1962 nuclear war seemed inevitable to the world, it was the first time nuclear war was hanging on a thread. The Cuban Missile Crisis presented a threat to the world, in which the USSR planted nuclear missiles on Cuba. America’s response was to threaten launching nuclear missiles at the Russians. This incident launched the world into a new time, which presented nuclear weapons as a source of power.
...pons. They both had a large supply of ballistic missiles. The NATO and Warsaw Pact were formed. This war inevitably led to destructive conflicts like the Vietnam War and Korean War. The Soviet Union had collapsed due to its economic weakness. The Berlin was destroyed and the two German nations were unified. The Baltic States and some former Soviet Republics had gained independence. America became the sole superpower of the world. Communism was no more. Communism collapsed worldwide. The Cold War sketched the foreign policies for both the countries through the second half of the twentieth century as both countries fought for accomplices to uphold and widen their own realms of power around the world, but it did not escalate to an apocalyptic World War II. The decade- long standoff between American capitalists and Soviet communists ceased without causing any violence.