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Employing strategy
Employing strategy
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The Cold War Three United States presidents changed the world forever. Without the influence of their individual plans, communism could have spread throughout nations worldwide. While President Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy had all brought different ideas to the table, President Truman had focused on economic aid. President Eisenhower had focused on military use with brinkmanship and massive retaliation and President Kennedy had focused more on flexible response. In Edward Ayers book “American Anthem,” it says that the Cold War lasted from 1947-1991. It was a long duration of strain between the Soviet Union and the United States. That followed the Totalitarian governments of World War II. This is what the era foreshadowed for the future, had communism not been stopped (Ayers 850). Democracies that were failing tended to look for aid in nations like the United States. Forms of military aid and economic aid were requested, along with support in getting their government …show more content…
The extensive ending of the Cold War had many Americans sick and tired of it. Kennedy had gave his Flexible Response before the Cuban Missile Crisis (Kennedy). In President Kennedy’s speech, he said that he thought that in order to keep the peace, Americans should face the possibilities of war. Kennedy had also added that Americans should work with nations that have a lack of freedom, in order to strengthen its cause. The United States’ weapons wouldn’t have been successful once they were up against the war tactics of the communists. Kennedy was convinced that America needed a new response to the undeclared war because the United States was not any longer higher-ranking to its enemies. Kennedy’s Flexible Response had lead new hope to American citizens that the threats would decrease. The new nudge brought change to the characteristics of the Cold War
1. In what ways were President Kennedy 's foreign policy decisions shaped by Cold War ideology?
The Cold War was a period of dark and melancholic times when the entire world lived in fear that the boiling pot may spill. The protectionist measures taken by Eisenhower kept the communists in check to suspend the progression of USSR’s radical ambitions and programs. From the suspenseful delirium from the Cold War, the United States often engaged in a dangerous policy of brinksmanship through the mid-1950s. Fortunately, these actions did not lead to a global nuclear disaster as both the US and USSR fully understood what the weapons of mass destruction were capable of.
One day, in the early 60s the US Government discovered that the Soviet Union had a nuclear missile on the island of Cuba. So, the US government asked the Soviets to get rid of them. It was a bold thing to do because anything could have happened. Things between the US and the Soviets were already tense because of the cold war. For fourteen days, tension grew between the nations. Not knowing if this missile aimed and ready to fire at the US. Kennedy decided to give this speech the “Cuban Missile Crisis Address”. The address was used was to announce there will be a naval blockade on Cuba until the crisis is solved. This address was very effective because Kennedy did not say he was going to start
The U.S. had just elected President Kennedy two years prior to this very threatening occasion, and every nation thought he was a weak leader who just craved attention. During this time, the Soviets and the U.S. were right in the middle of the Cold War (1947-1991): the period of time when both nations were trying to spread their type of government and become superior, making us enemies. Just a year before the Cuban Missile Crisis, the U.S. had made a failed attempt at invading Cuba at the Bay of Pigs to overthrow their communist dictator, Fidel Castro. Once Russia caught wind of this failed invasion, they quickly jumped at their chance at becoming allies with Castro, and started building nuclear bombs in Cuba. Kennedy had recently placed bombs in Turkey, Russia’s neighbor probably leading the soviets to place some of theirs in Cuba, because of how close it was to America; one nuclear bomb could reach Washington D.C. in 30 minutes.
The Cold War began in the mid 1940’s between the United States and the Soviet Union at the end of the Second World War. The Cold War was clearly marked between two former World War II allies. As the Cold War continued there were many self-serving propaganda. When John F. Kennedy was elected to the presidency in 1960, crises between USSR and the Cuban erupted.
& nbsp ; & nbsp ; & nbsp ; & nbsp ; & nbs The time period between 1945 and 1991 is considered to be the era of the Cold War. The Cold War, known as the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union, was known during this time as the “super powers”. This conflict consisted of the differing attitudes on the ideological, political, and military interests of these two states and their allies, extended around the globe.
Perhaps the most critical moment that had occurred to the United States and the world of the last century is the Cuban Missile Crisis. The significance of this event was that it had brought the world to the closest it could ever be to a nuclear war. Millions of lives, cultures and infrastructure would have been lost if it was not splendidly dealt with. Yet, a man was able to prevent this devastation, and he was none other than President John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK) of the United States. How was he significant to the event? This research paper will discuss it with the points that are based on JFK’s characteristics. Hence, to provide an overview of this paper; the outbreak of nuclear warfare was prevented in the Cuban Missile Crisis specifically by John F. Kennedy’s many distinguished characteristics.
THE COLD WAR The Cold War was a very complex war. Many ideas, conflicts and emotions were going on. This was a major turning point in the world of war. War is a much more powerful word.
Immediately after World War II, Americans were as happy as ever; the unemployment rate was cut, families were expanding, and America became the most powerful country. However, after just a short time period, this all changed. With the outbreak of the Cold War, Americans began to grow paranoid and apprehensive, convinced that Soviets would eventually invade. It redefined what it meant to be an American because people started to worry that Communists lurked behind every corner, waiting to bounce. Even worse, people could no longer trust others, even their neighbors, because “it was not always easy to determine just who is a Communist” (Document 4). It simply became a way of life. However, shortly after, magazines such as LOOK were published, providing descriptive characteristics that Americans can use to identify communists.
The Cold War began in 1946, shortly after WWII, and ended more than four decades later in 1991. It began with the shifting struggle for power and prestige between the Western hemisphere and the Soviet Union. The U.S. and President Harry Truman fear of communist attack and the Soviet Union need for a secure western border led to America’s effort in providing economic stability and security to nations of the Western hemisphere. In addition, President Truman began his “Get Tough” policy that encouraged the development of nuclear weapons for America to be securely defensive and well armed. The document, “Secretary of Commerce Henry A. Wallace Questions the “Get Tough” Policy” written by Secretary Wallace described America’s actions, “the effort to secure air base spread over half the globe from which the other half of the globe can be bombed,” which he felt America during the Cold War went “far beyond the requirements of defense.”Although, President Truman was determined to resist aggression, moreover, stop the spread of communism and Soviet power, the document was written to make the public and particularly President Truman realize that he himself used aggressive diplomacy that failed to notice the Soviet Union purpose and policy, which if he did understood, might have made better approaches in achieving his goals.
On October 22, 1962, President John F. Kennedy reached out to America and the Cubans with his Cuban Missile Crisis Address to the Nation. During this time, the Cold War had occupied several countries of world. This war resulted from tensions, military and political, between Russia and its allies and America, its allies, and the Western Hemisphere. When President Kennedy gave his speech, Russia had occupied Cuba and began building military bases that contained nuclear warheads and other deadly missiles. People of America saw this as a threat to the freedom of the U.S. and the Western Hemisphere. In a time of great tension and fear, President Kennedy delivered his spectacular and reassuring speech that appealed to the citizens of American in several ways.
Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signified, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold but not clothed." There was never a war that this idea can be more correct applied to than the Cold War. According to noted author and Cold War historian Walter Lippman, the Cold War can be defined as a state of tension between states, which behave with great distrust and hostility towards each other, but do not resort to violence. The Cold War encompasses a period from the end of the Second World War (WWII), in 1945, to the fall of the Soviet Union, in 1989. It also encompassed the Korean and Vietnam Wars and other armed conflicts in the Middle East and Africa, that, essentially, were not wars for people but instead for territories and ideologies. "Nevertheless, like its predecessors, the Cold War has been a worldwide power contest in which one expanding power has threatened to make itself predominant, and in which other powers have banded together in a defensive coalition to frustrate it---as was the case before 1815, as was the case in 1914-1918 as was the case from 1939-1945" (Halle 9). From this power contest, the Cold War erupted.
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 Cuban Missile Crisis was a major event in U.S History that almost led to nuclear destruction. It was over a period of thirteen days in which diplomats from the U.S and the Soviet Union were trying to reach a peaceful resolution so that they wouldn’t have to engage in physical warfare. The crisis was the hallmark of the Cold War era which lasted from the 1950’s to the late 1980’s. The Cold War was a power struggle between the U.S and Soviet Union in which the two nations had a massive arms race to become the strongest military force. The U.S considered Communism to be an opposing political entity, and therefore branded them as enemies. Khrushchev’s antagonistic view of Americans also played a big role in the conflict. The Cold War tensions, coupled with a political shift in Cuba eventually lead to the military struggle known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Cuban Missile Crisis was the point of most tension and near collapse causing the Cold War to almost shift from a passive and underground struggle to a violent and catastrophic one.
By another account, the Cold War began in 1917 with the Bolshevik Revolution, and ended in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union, having been a conflict between Bolshevism and Democracy. The Cold War got its name because both sides were afraid of fighting each other in such a “hot war”, nuclear weapons might destroy everything. So, instead, they fought each other indirectly. They played havoc with conflicts in different parts of the world. They used words as weapons.