What Effect Did The Cold War Have On American Culture

What effects did the Cold War have on the American politics and culture?

The Cold war was a very influential part of most all areas of American culture and politics in the 1950’s. It skyrocketed mainly because of the opposing values and conflicts that the United States and the Soviet Union had. Soviets wanting communism, so the elimination of private property and people working and receiving wages due to their capabilities of work, with the United States being completely against communism and wanting capitalism for their people, capitalism being the opposite of communism and encouraging private property within productions, manufacturing, and trading companies. The U.S. and S.U. being the two leading superpowers in the work after World War II ended, had considerably large disagreements between the two of them, and became a worldwide controversial topic, and not the peaceful kind. The Cold War had many attributions that differed from most other wars involving the U.S. This war in classification was basically a falsifying, convincing war, rather than a war that based its success on military action and combat. The Korean as well as the Vietnam Wars were two very convincing

instances of the military intrusion that took place by the Americans trying to stop the communists from taking over and forcing their wants of government. However, though these wars were traumatic and important, their impact on the Americans did not even come close to the aftermath that the Cold War had on us.
The encounters between the superpowers culturally has had a considerably large impact on the lives of most Americans, maybe most out of any other aspect of the Cold War. There were many bad aspects along with some constructive ones. At the time, the American culture was heavy on racial discrimination. Although they were freedman, they were still classified as second class citizens. The discrimination towards them began to change slowly. The Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court case in 1954 helped put an end to segregation in public schools. It also reversed the “separate but equal doctrine” that established over 50 years prior by an 1896 case, Plessy v. Fergusson, which basically required racial segregation in public areas.
The Americans encouraged the free market capitalism, and the Soviets advocated for communism. They both encouraged these politically as well as economically, spreading their beliefs of the benefits of each system and making others believe the opposing system was the wrong way to go, saying that their system would be better for their people.
When it came to the political side of things, the U.S.

and the S.U. were on complete opposite sides of the spectrum during the end of the Cold War, both trying to force new governments into their countries, Americans being democratic, and soviets being communistic. At the end of the War, the Soviets established a vast majority of Eastern Europe to prevent any future problems or attacks. However they did not want to be put in the spot to go to war with the United States, to they let the U.S. take control of the Western side of Europe. That is when the United States joined alliances with them and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). Afterwards the Soviets formed a pact with the eastern side. This made the tensions between the two superpowers even stronger, but has kept Europe from war

since.
The United States soon took the claim of being the largest expanded economic power in the world, and is still considered to be that today even. “Consumer culture demonstrated the superiority of the American way of life to communism and virtually redefined the nation’s historic mission to extend freedom to other countries” (Foner 935). They used their superiority to basically prove to the Soviets that they were better than them and show their strength during the Cold War. Then in the 80’s, economic growth skyrocketed due to Ronald Reagan’s deregulation and tax cuts, and the focus on military spending. So once the Soviet Union saw this, they decided to do the same, however their spending ended up pushing them to bankruptcy. Slowly the Soviet Empire faded and the Cold War ended.
The influence that the Cold War placed on Americans effected them in basically every aspect on society. The differences between these two superpowers had lead to both positive and negative responses.