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The Second World War destroyed the old diplomatic system of "great powers" and replaced it with a polarized world of two superpowers. Germany, Japan, and Italy were occupied and demilitarized. France, Britain, and China had all suffered heavy losses, and their economies were in shambles. Although the Soviets had suffered over 15 million casualties during WW II and witnessed the burning and bombing of much of European Russia, the USSR still possessed the most powerful infantry in the world. The US undoubtedly emerged from the war as the world's most powerful nation.
The US had the largest navy and air force, and its economy had grown massively during the war. Employment in the US for women had risen from about 20 % in 1939 to 60 % in 1945 (May 50). Perhaps most importantly, the US had a monopoly on the atom bomb. Both these countries, the US and the USSR, once allies had a different agenda on their mind. The United States was looking for stabilizing themselves and help out those countries that were destroyed after the war. On the other hand, the USSR was seeking to spread communism around and wanted to become a force to reckon with.
The United States had feared the global spread of communism and sought to fight it, the Cold War began. With the beginning of the Cold War in effect, a set of policies was established to contain the spread of communism, both internally and externally, in the United States. These policies would prove to contain foreign affairs more effectively than to help with domestic ones. In the home front all that could be seen is fear of what was happening around them. The idea that at any given moment nuclear and atomic warfare could occur lead many people to think differently about the way they should live. Indeed, containment had its effect on shaping roles of women, how men should react to situations and brought about a sexual revolution to our nation, but they would have no real positive effect on the actual Cold War and their reactions were fired up by hostility.
Americas Policy of Containment was introduced by George Kennan in 1947. This policy had a few good points but many more bad points. Kennan's depiction of communism as a "malignant parasite" that had to be contained by all possible measures became the basis of the Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, and National Security Act in 1947. In his Inaugural Address of January 20, 1949, Truman made four points about his "program for peace and freedom": support the UN, the European Recovery Program, the collective defense of the North Atlantic, and a bold new program for technical aid to poor nations. Because of his programs, "the future of mankind will be assured in a world of justice, harmony and peace" (Nash, 716 - 719). Containment was not just a policy.
It was a way of life. In 1945 the United States saw the Soviet Union as its principal ally. By 1947, it saw the Soviet Union as its principal opponent. The United States misunderstood the Soviet regime. Despite much pretense, national security had not been a major concern of US planners and elected officials. historical records reveal this clearly.
Few serious analysts took issue with George Kennan's position that it is not Russian military power which is threatening us, it is Russian political power. With President Eisenhower's consistent view that the Russians intended no military conquest of Western Europe and that the major role of NATO was to convey a feeling of confidence to exposed populations, which was supposed to make them sturdier, politically, in their opposition to Communist inroads, the US dismissed possibilities for peaceful resolution of the Cold War conflict, which would have left the " political threat" intact. It was always the "political" threat of so-called Communism" that was the primary concern. Of course, both the US and USSR would have preferred that the other simply disappear. But since this would obviously have involved mutual annihilation, the Cold War was established. According to the conventional Western view, the Cold War was a conflict between two superpowers, caused by Soviet aggression, in which the U.
S. tried to contain the Soviet Union and protect the world from it. If this view is a doctrine of theology, there's no need to discuss it. If it is intended to shed some light on history, we can easily put it to the test, bearing in mind a very simple point: if you want to understand the Cold War, you should look at the events. If you do so, a very different picture emerges. On the Soviet side, the events of the Cold War were repeated interventions in Eastern Europe: tanks in East Berlin and Budapest and Prague.
These interventions took place along the route that was used to attack and virtually destroy Russia three times in this century alone. On the US side, intervention was worldwide, reflecting the status attained by the US as the first truly global power in history. No matter how outlandish the idea that the Soviet Union and its tentacles were strangling the West, the "Evil Empire" was in fact evil, was an empire and was brutal. Each superpower controlled its primary enemy its own population by terrifying it with the crimes of the other. In crucial respects, then, the Cold War was a kind of tacit arrangement between the Soviet Union and the United States under which the US conducted its wars against the Third World and controlled its allies in Europe, while the Soviet rulers kept an iron grip on their own internal empire and their satellites in Eastern Europe -- each side using the other to justify repression and violence in its own domains. The space race was the direct result of the Policy of Containment.
The Americans simply had to beat the Russians to the moon. The Russians had beaten the Americans into space with Sputnik and put the first man, Yuri Gregorian. The Americans increased funding for research, education in science programs. Mr. Kennedy announced that they would put a man on the moon within ten years; they did it in eight years. Technology grew by leaps and bounds because of the Cold War.
Because of the Arms Race and the Space Race, the States amassed a huge debt. They had to pump lots of money into science and research. The Cold War also almost brought about the destruction of the world several times. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy was prepared to take the world into World War III so he could get another term in office. The Russians claimed that they were attempting to install purely defensive missiles. A defensive missile was, in fact, a nuclear missile which would be used when the Russian felt that Cuban independence was threatened.
It should be noted that the Americans had missiles bases in Turkey, Britain, and Italy; all aimed at the Soviet Union. In 1950, McArthyism swept the country. McCarthy was a senator who frequently went to the senate drunk. One day, he stood up and claimed that he had a list of one hundred and fifty names of known communists operating in the United States. Although, when he was asked, he was never able to produce the list. He had his own House formed, ...
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Research essay sample on Spread Of Communism Policy Of Containment
