U.S Efforts to Win the Cold War - Essay Example

U.S Efforts to Win the Cold War The cold war is believed to have started in late 1940s and ended in 1980s. Cold war refers to the continued period characterized by political and military strain. It was rather a battle of intellect and wits between U.S and its NATO allies versus the communist region, which was spearheaded by Soviet Union. Both camps demonstrated concerted efforts to win the cold war by use different leadership, military, economic, and collaborative techniques with the aim of outwitting the others in the cold war.

However, there was not physical military contact between the two camps. This paper primarily discusses the efforts employed by U.S in the endeavor to win the cold war. It also looks at the success of the efforts in meeting the cold war objectives. One of the techniques used by U.S to win the cold war involved economic competition. The U.S entered in to a stiff economic competition with the Soviet Union. This was aimed at equipping the country with economic resources in preparation for any incidence of physical war.

For instance, the U.S, under the leadership of Ronald Reagan, spoilt the Soviet Union oil plans. This was an articulate economic approach since the Soviet Union heavily depended on oil for industrial evolution. Particularly, Reagan “ordered all U.S. firms to break any contracts involving the Siberian dual pipeline and not to enter any new ones” (Norquist 4). This move cost the Soviet Union approximately four billion dollars. Although there was no physical fight during the cold war, the parties involved sought to increase their military supremacy in order to have more authority in global security issues hence suppressing the enemy camps.

The Reagan leadership “decided to emphasize weapons that would make obsolete what the Soviets had built in quantity” (Norquist 2). This technique worked so well since the Soviet Union had already began experiencing the burden of heavy investment on military power. The effect of this technique was twofold. First, the Soviet Union became depressed economically. Secondly, the Soviet Union could not use their military technology on U.S due to the advanced use of technology by U.S defense system.

One of the least noted but very interesting efforts employed by the U.S to win the cold war was the interception of Soviet’s idea of stealing weapon technology. The Soviet were notorious in stealing technology and the U.S capitalized on this weakness. Accordingly, U.S. capitalized on these efforts by “hiring engineering firms to design defects into the technologies and products the Soviets were stealing. As attractive but false technology, defective parts spread across the USSR” (Norquist 4).

This made the Soviet Union to experience heavy losses in failed projects. Most of the research projects were termed as white elephants. It is undeniable that the U.S could not have won the cold war without great thinkers. One of the strategies used by U.S involved employing the best and most experienced psychological thinkers. Some of the first members to be endowed with the task of thinking about the cold war included James Webb, Robert, Lovett, and Bedell. The think tank was one of the greatest resources that U.

S ever employed towards the cold war. The members to psychological operations department contributed many ideas concerning the psychological effects of the decisions made by U.S leadership. It did not come by surprise that U.S always came out as the winner in most of the war strategies (Corke 120). One of the greatest efforts to win the cold war included strategic alliance. U.S sought to form alliance with all the stakeholders that were of benefit to the war. The alliance went beyond political alliances.

For instance, Reagan formed an alliance with Pope John Paul II in order to secure the interests of Poland against the Soviets. Indeed, the U.S benefited greatly from this alliance since it gained heightened population support in most of its containment policies. The political alliances were evident when U.S articulately decided to ally with specific territories. For instance, the detente approach used by U.S favored coalition with Soviet’s enemy camps. The U.S formed an alliance with emerging economies such as China.

This way, U.S was able to cement profound relationship with other countries. The NATO alliance was also an ingenious approach to combine forces against Soviet Union. Although the Soviet Union also formed alliances, their alliances were not as strong as the ones made by U.S. This secured victory for the U.S camp. Besides forming alliances, U.S provided “military and material support for indigenous resistance movements struggling to overthrow Soviet-sponsored tyrannies” (D'Souza web). This was partially the reason for forming alliance with Pope John Paul II.

By providing material support for indigenous resistance movements U.S expanded its alliance group and therefore secured more military and political support against Soviet Union. This made it difficult for the Soviets to wage war on U.S. Additionally, it made it difficult for the Soviets to maintain the war strategies since it was uneconomical for them to do so. Interestingly, U.S had it ears wide open across the globe as one of the cold war strategies. Casey, the CIA director, sought to deploy as many intelligent officers as possible across the globe.

The CIA officials were endowed with different responsibilities primarily focused on gathering important information concerning the cold war. Therefore, U.S was always informed in time and thus, took precautionary measures on time (Norquist 6). Certainly, there are so many strategies used by U.S to win the cold war. More certainly, U.S won the war since the war ended with collapse of the Soviet Union. The application of different containment strategies put immeasurable pressure on Soviet Union hence making it impossible to maintain the war.

The Soviet Union collapsed and mutual understanding principles were enacted. The losers suffered from economic depression while U.S recorded appreciable economic stability. Indeed, U.S emerged the strongest super power and therefore, had great influence over global politics (Gaddis 9-14). There is a great controversy as to whether the war was won due to prowess by U.S or failures by Soviet Union (Bradley 118). However, there is overwhelming evidence supporting that, U.S had indeed employed concerted efforts to win the war, especially with Reagan’s leadership.

Works Cited Bradley, Lightbody. “The Cold War.” London: Routledge, 1999. Print. Corke, Sarah. “US covert operations and Cold War strategy: Truman, secret warfare and the CIA, 1945-53.” London: Routledge, 2008. Print. D'Souza, Dinesh. “President Ronald Reagan: Winning the Cold War.” 2006. Web 6 March 2012. Gaddis, Lewis. “Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy during the Cold War.” London: Oxford University Press, 2005. Print. Norquist, Warren.

“How the United States Won the Cold War”. Intelligencer. Journal Of U.S. Intelligence Studies. 2003. Pdf.