The cold war resulted in very many results. Little is appreciated of all the spy movies, great novels independence movements among other things that came about as a result of the cold war. The one thing that people know for sure about the cold war was that it gave us a greater understanding and awareness that the greatest threat to humans is ourselves. The cold war changed the way people imagined the world and what role humanity played in it. In his noble prize acceptance speech, William Faulkner said' our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit, the is only the question when will I be blown up.'
After world war two, we and the USSR were the only two nations with any power left. The United States was far much more superior in terms of strength compared to the USSR partly because they had atomic weapons and also because the Soviets had lost more than 20 million people in the war led by Joseph Stalin. Us however still had worries. they needed a strong free-market-oriented Europe and to a lesser extent Asia. This was particularly important as they were proper markets for manufactured goods as well as other market products from u sites states. the Soviets were however concerned with something more immediate and this was Germany invading them. Germany was very slow to learn the central lesson of world history that Russia should not be invaded. at the end of the second world war, the USSR, therefore, encouraged the creation of pro-communist governments in Bulgaria, Romania, and Poland which happened to be something easy to encourage because these countries were occupied by Soviet troops. The idea behind this was to create a buffer between them and Germany but to the United states the threat of communist expanding was seeming more and more viable. This was not supported by the Americans as it would mean major negative effects on the industrial goods market. America, therefore, responded with the policy of containment as introduced in diplomat George f Kennedy's long telegram. Communism could stay where it was but it was not allowed to spread and ultimately this is what led to. The United States fighting wars in Korea as well as Vietnam. A 1950 report stated that there were three main goals of containment and these were; prevent any more expansion of the Soviet power then expose the pretense and lies and finally to induce a retraction of the Kremlin's control and influence. the main agenda behind it, however, was to ensure that the Soviet system ultimately crumbles.
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Harry Truman, who became president in the year 1945 after Franklin Roosevelt died supported containment. The first real test of this policy came in Greece and Turkey in 1947. this was a strategically valuable region because it was near the middle east which was of interest to the United States because of oil. Truman, therefore, announced the Truman doctrine in which he pledged to support any freedom-loving people against the threat of communism. The United States, therefore, sent $400 million in aid to Greece and Turkey and this was some of the first things that propelled the world into the cold war. The Truman doctrine created a way in which America would view the world, with America as free and communist as tyrannical. According to Eric former ', the speech set a precedent for American assistance to anti-communist regimes through the world, no matter how undemocratic, and for the creation of a set of global military alliances directed against the Soviet Union.' It also led to the creation of a new security apparatus- the national security council, the central intelligence agency, the atomic energy commission, all of which were immune from government oversight and not democratically elected the containment policy along with the Truman doctrine also laid the foundations for a military build-up and arms race which would become one of the key features of the cold war.
The cold war was however not about the military. The Marshall Plan was first introduced at the Harvard commencement address in June 1947 by George Marshall. This turned out to be one of the most important commencement addresses in all of American history. The Marshall plan was a response to economic chaos in Europe brought o by a harsh winter that strengthened support for communism in France and Italy. the plan looked to use our aid to combat the economic instability that provided for fertile fields for communism. Marshall said' our policy is not directed towards any country or doctrine, but against hunger, poverty, desperation. and chaos. this was a new deal for Europe and it worked well such that by 1950, production levels in industries had eclipsed pre-war level and Europe was on it's way to us style capitalist mass consumer society which it.still.is. Japan, although not technically part of the Marshall plan, would also rebuild. General Douglass MacArthur was the dictator there and forced Japan to adopt a new constitution giving women the vote and pledging that Japan would forswear war in exchange for which the United States effecting became Japan's defense force. This allowed Japan to spend money on other things such as industries which turned out to be positive.
during this time Germany was experiencing the first Berlin crisis. At the end of the war, Germany was decided into east and west, and eve. Though the capital, Berlin was entirely in the east, it was also decided into east and west. This meant that west Berlin was dependent o. Shipments of goods from West Germany through East Germany. And then in 1948, Stalin cut off the roads to West Berlin. The Americans responded by going on an 11-month long airlift of supplies that eventually led to Stalin lifting g the blockade in 1948. in 1949 Germany was officially decided into. The west and the east and this is the time that the Soviets also detonated their first atomic bomb, NATO was also established at this time and the Chinese revolution ended in communist victory. By the end of 1950, the contours of the cold war had been established, west versus east, capitalist freedom versus communist totalitarianism
As the NSC-68 shows, us government cast the cold war as an epic struggle between freedom and tyranny, which led to remarkable political consensus. both Democrats and Republicans supported most aspects of the cold war policy, especially the military build-up. some critics such as Walter Lippmann worried that casting foreign policy in such stark ideological terms would result in the United States getting on the wrong side of many conflicts, especially as former colonies sought to remove the bonds of empire and become independent nations. these interventions were however important as the goal was to stop. The spread of communism which a lot of people feared. the communist also shaped internal policies such as preventing Truman from extending the social policies of the new deal. A program that he called the fair deal would have increased minimum wage and extended national health insurance as well as increase public housing, social security, and educational aids. The American medical association, however, lobbied against Truman's plan for national health insurance by calling it ' socialized' medicine.
the government did, however, make some investments as a result of the cold war. Because of social security, the government spent money on education, research in science, technology such as computers and even transportation infrastructure. Not many people know that they largely have the cold war to thank for the interstate system which in real sense was build to enable easy evacuations in the event of a nuclear war.
A big part of the reason the Soviets were able to develop nuclear weapons so quickly was because of espionage. An instance of this was what physicist and spy Klaus Fuchs did. He worked in the Manhattan project and leaked information to the Soviet Union and then later helped the Chinese to build their first bomb. Julius Rosenberg also sold secrets to the Soviets which eventually led to his demise alongside his wife. this was one of the reasons that the Americans were paranoid and feared that the communist was among them. This began in 1947 with Truman's loyalty review system which required government employees to prove their patriotism when accused of disloyalty. this all culminated with the red scare and which helped some leaders rise to power such as senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin who became powerful in February 1950 after claiming that he had a list of over 200 communists who worked in the state department something which was a lie.
The fear of communism, however, continues past this and In the 1951s case Dennis versus the United States, the supreme court upheld the notion that being a communist leader itself was a crime. This fear of communism allowed the government to also control the people as they feared that without to government protecting them they would be consumed by the communists. The cold war changed America profoundly, the United States has remained a leader of the world stage and continues to build a large, powerful and expensive national state. But it also changed what people imagined to be free and be safe.
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