Cold War and the Unification between America Britain and the USSR - Research Paper Example

?After the Second World War, the unification between America Britain and the USSR came to an end world was replaced by a bitter rivalry between the two countries that came to be the major world powers for the duration of the cold war and these were America and the USSR. Essentially, the notion of the cold war is enigmatic since the major counties in the center of it never actually took up arms against each other in “hot wars”. American and The USSR were embroiled in an ideological contention; American was democratic and capitalistic, whereas Russia was a communist country, this meant that it was led by a single dictator who exercised control all the economic aspects therein. Each tried to spread their ideologies to many countries as possible throughout the world, effectively dividing the free world between capitalism and communism. America was lending economic and military assistance to the nations that agreed with its Capitalist ideology, and Russia doing the same on the other side. This lead to division in, Korea which was split into North and South Korea, as well as Germany, which was divided into; East, for Russian and West for The US and its allies; the extent of the division was embodied in the construction of the Berlin wall. The 25 miles wall was put up to prevent citizens of the East side from escaping to the west side. Hot conflicts also resulted from the war with the effects and losses being escalated by the backing of the superpower for each side i.e. in Korea and Vietnam. The war was hence fought in a variety of ways such as the arms race, with each country trying to acquire the most advanced atomic weaponry, the space race, where each of the two countries tried to make the biggest steps in space exploration as well as arming and supporting countries engaged in fighting with the other side’s supporters. 1 Moreover, both America and Russia, tried to have as many powerful weapons as possible because, in case of war, each wanted to have the upper hand. The arms race started in earnest when America dropped an atomic bomb in japan effectively ending the Second World War in on fatal swoop. Russia was not happy knowing that America had developed the weapon in secret. The Americans then exploded the hydrogen bomb which was smaller but more destructive tan the Hiroshima bomb, after this, the Russians also exploded a hydrogen bomb in 1953. From this point onwards both countries endeavored to produce as many weapons of mass destruction as possible mainly missiles, fast planes and bombs. New weapons were experimented on and, by 1960, both nations were working on mobile controlled missiles it was estimated that, by 1961, enough bombs had been made to destroy the whole world most of them by the two rival nations. They had bombs that could cause about a hundred times more damage than the catastrophic Hiroshima bomb had caused in Japan. 2 This had considerable financial implications since both spent millions in the development of weapons although America had the edge since it had a stronger economy. This led to the theory of mutual assured destruction (MAD) which many claimed was the main reason the world saved from war, each of the two rival camps had so many weapons that if one attacked the other and the latter allies reiterated with nuclear weapons, there would be no winner, but both sides would suffer catastrophic losses. Around 1970, the two nations were cognizant of the need to deal with the issue more flexibly and talks on reduced armaments begun in Ernest. The death or Stalin, a hardliner was also instrumental in ending the war as he was replaced by Goberchev who was more willing to negotiate with America. Russia backed North Korea in its attempt to invade and take over the south, and the United Nations backed the South, China also joined in the war and, for several years, the two sides fought each other with the armies driving each other to and fro, until they agreed to negotiate. This was; however, one of the conflicts between Russia and the USA albeit by proxy. The Vietnam War was another hot war that culminated from the rivalry between capitalist America and communist Russia and china, as was the case in Korea; America backed the south while Russia backed the north. At first, the war was fought covertly with Truman sending “advisors” which was a euphemism for green berets and other military people to assist the south in war. However, later it became more overt as both sides sent more personnel and weaponry, training and sometimes even engaged each other in air battles. Congress authority allowed the American president Lloyd Jonson to launch military action in south East Asia without having to declare war, by so doing it authorized the American army to engage in further warfare. This war led to the deaths of thousands of infantry and air men form all the countries involved particularly Korea and china although Britain and America also suffered heavy losses. Possibly the closest the two countries ever came to war was when Cuba asked for military assistance from Russia, when they though America wanted to invade the. Russia sent them weapons and missiles to protect themselves; however America declared that to be an act of war against the united states threatening to retaliate in kind unless the Russians withdraws the weapons with immediate effect. Fortunately this was averted in time, and the Russians withdrew putting an end to what came to be known as the Cuban missile crisis. The cold war resulted in massive loss of life as well as destruction of property in the hot wars that were a part of the rivalry. Furthermore, it dethroned several of the traditional super powers like Britain and Germany replacing them with American and the USSR. Today, Korea is firmly divided into two parts the north and south a division which was strengthened by the cold war. The economies of Russia and America suffered considerable as a result of the war since both nations sacrificed much of their budgets so they could arm themselves, however; the cold war ended in the late 1980s with the fall of the Berlin wall and the shredding of the iron curtain. One of the main driving forces towards settling the crisis was Russia Prime Minister Mikhail Gorbachev who took a more flexible approach to the issue than his predecessors; thus he made sweeping changes that reformed the USSR considerably making it easier to negotiate with other nations and mitigate the effects of the cold war. Gorbarchev and Truman moved to reduce their respective arsenals so as to allay fears of military confrontation in the wake of failed talks and in 1987 they signed the intermediate range nuclear forces treaty at the white house in America (Suri 82).3 Ultimately, the collapse of the Soviet Union extremely weakened Russia as many countries in the soviet bloc such as Poland voted out communist dictators and replaced them with democratic leaders. As a result, there were no more resources with which to engage in external conflict especially in view of the fact that Russia was also embroiled in internal conflict that saw Gorbachev arrested but later released. In addition, Russia lost its position as a superpower, and that has been the monopoly of the United States since then. It is said that American won the cold war, but in essence, they only managed to retain their status as Russia lost its own. Both countries ultimately lost a great deal in lives and property especially America which spent trillions in preparation for a Russian offensive that never came. There is no doubt that the cold war was a close call, and it showed the world the folly of another war since it is very unlikely there would have been a sure winner, but unequivocal that millions of lives would have been lost. Bibliography Nissani, Moti. “Weapons Of The Cold War Lives in the Balance: Chapter 4. The Cold War and American Politics.1945-1991” Wakefield, N.H: Hollowbrook Publishing. 1992. http://www.is.wayne.edu/mnissani/PAGEPUB/CH4.html [Accessed 6 November 2012.] Jeremi, Suri. “Explaining the End of the Cold War:A New Historical Consensus?”. 2002. http://jeremisuri.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/journal-of-cold-war-studies-article-fall-2002.pdf [Accessed 6 November 2012.] Overfield, James. Sources of Twentieth-Century Global History. Boston, MA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2002.Print. Read More