Cold War Essay, Research Paper

Cold War

The cold war was something that grew out from the breakdown of the

western-soviet coalition against Hitler’s Germany and the countries allies during World

War 2. The cold war was a nonmilitary conflict between the group of nations led by the

USSR and the other side led by the United States. The Soviet Union calling for political

self-determination proceeded to impose communist regimes on the nations of Eastern

Europe. The major parts of the situation lasted from the end of World War 2 in 1945

until the late 1950s or the early ’60s. Over time there were a lot of different turning points

of the cold war that finally total ceased almost all major tensions in1989.

The cold war situation slowly went out over time rather than totally ending at one

particular date. When Stalin’s finally died in 1953, the country of the Soviet Union

showed some willingness to compromise their ideological goals. But, United States was

mistrustful of the Soviet intentions and preserved it’s attitudes somewhat. This mistrust

put the stem of the worldwide threat of communism in the spotlight.

The major turning points were caused by some major things that happened over

the Cold War time line. One thing was the North Atlantic Treaty Organization

(N.A.T.O.) were it united many counties to have the power to dissuade the Soviet Union

from attempting direct assault on Western Europe. The first countries that joined

N.A.T.O. on April 4, 1949 were Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Great Britain,

Iceland, Italy Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Norway. and United States. After

that turning point a whole new situation arose in the cold war. The communists were

winning a civil war in Greece and at the same time applied pressure on Turkey in 1974.

By the Soviets doing this it caused the U.S. to get involved and start up a policy of

containment. This policy turned into the Truman Doctrine and it affirmed American

intent to oppose communism by any force if necessary. From this an organized policy

was setup called the Marshall Plan and aimed at internal recovery of Western Europe as

the major protection against the expansion. These actions increased tensions but later

brought ideas that were opposed to the entire cold war, and also it weakened Soviet

control and gave us the power to put this thing to a end.

Over this time frame everything started to come to a end, so then the relationship

between the superpowers started to come together. One reason was the rising costs of the

arms race and another was domestic pressures that brought the U.S. and the Soviets

leaders to the negotiating table. . The two power blocs decided to set arms controls on

limitations on weapons and later caused some weapons to be disarmed. These talks led

in December 1997, to the signing of a treaty to eliminate intermediate-range nuclear

forces. In time a major symbol of the cold war, which was the Berlin wall, fell down in

1989 and marked a true ending to the cold war.

Stalin setup a bad situation for Europe and the entire planet, and with his thoughts

he got his people and the world into a cold war that went on far pasted his years.

Without the ideas, plans, peace talks, and treaties that happened the cold war could have

turn into the end of world instead of it disappearing in time.