What or Who Caused the Cold War - Assignment Example

What or Who Caused the Cold War? By the time the Second World War was coming to an end, the Soviet Union and the United s of America were allieswho had worked together to defeat a common enemy, the Germans. Just a few years later, the two wartime allies turned into mortal enemies who engaged each other in military, ideological, economic, and political proxy wars in what came to be known as the Cold War. Historians neither seem to concur on whom between the Americans and the Russians started the Cold War nor do they concur on the precise events that sparked off the Cold War. Perhaps an examination of the several theories that offer some explanation on the causes of the Cold War could provide answers to the uncertainty. For some historians such as Bacino (3), the tensions between the two nations may have started in 1917 when the US sought to promote social and economic reconstruction in Siberia. During the same period, the Russians also made some efforts to enforce a structural transformation of the international political economy. It is possible that differences in ideologies existed between the two nations and these may have sparked some tensions. Most historians however focus on 1939 and 1940, which are also the years that marked the beginning of the Second World War. The views of the later group of historians is supported by a series of events which began with the secret Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, and a supplementary accord that followed a month later and revealed the Soviets’ invention to integrate Estonia, Lithuania, Finland, eastern Poland, and Latvia into their territory (Elsuwege 29). The Russian Army occupied eastern Poland in the same month and by 1940, the Red Army had occupied Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Russia however failed in its invasion of Finland in 1939 and this forced the Russians to accept cession of Finnish territory which it hoped would protect Leningrad from future invasions. The Soviet army advances in 1939 and 1940 and the signal that the Soviets received from Hitler’s Germany to expand westward culminated in the pursuit of Hitler’s defeated army to almost 100 miles west of Berlin. This evidence illustrates that Stalin had, at an early date, resolved to bring eastern Poland, the Baltic States, and Bessarabia within the expanding Russian empire but most of his expansion plans had to be put on hold between 1941 and 1944 as Russia defended its homeland territory. As shall be demonstrated later in this paper, some of the western leaders were uncomfortable with the Soviet’s territorial expansion plans and this may have led to the tensions that led to the Cold War. In 1941 the Germans raided the Soviet Union in what set the stage for the most costly and fateful struggle of the Second World War given that it resulted in the loss of about 20 million lives, both German and Russian. Consequently, widening differences emerged between Roosevelt and Stalin over their plans to launch the second front, which Stalin felt was being delayed unnecessarily. Dunn (124) describes Stalin’s impatience as he called for an immediate establishment of the second front in Western Europe in order to set the stage for the establishment of diplomatic relations with the exiled Polish government in London without defining the Soviet-Polish border. Dunn (195) then notes that the US were keen on holding back the second front since this would give them more leverage with regards to their control over Europe. Consequently, Stalin perceived that the US regarded the heavy loss of Russian and German lives as serving American interests. Meanwhile, decisions which would have been made by leaders of Western countries to prevent the Cold War were sacrificed to the single goal of winning the war. In public, these leaders, responded to the growing popular liberal opinion and tended, whether from political or diplomatic reasons, to minimize the growing tensions and conflicts between Russia and the US. In private however, thoughts about the possibility of the Western powers having to one day confront the Soviets threat to the balance of power in the West appeared to linger in the minds of several western leaders such as Winston Churchill (n.a. 47). Churchill’s efforts to persuade the other Western leaders to invade Europe from the South East to thwart Russian expansion to the West were however opposed by the Americans on the grounds of military expediency. As the war continued to take its frightful toll, war-weariness reduced the capacity of the strongest leaders to examine any alternatives. For instance, some historians point out that towards the end of the war, Roosevelt and Churchill had initiated some important agreements which they could not review due to lack of time and strength (Kochavi 233). By 1943, the possibility of a peaceful world after the Second World War was undermined by the formation of an unstable equilibrium of power in Europe which then made it almost impossible to prevent the Cold War. Other historians view 1945 as the year when the Cold War was initiated because it was by this year that that the division in Europe had already been largely determined. The differences between the Russians’ objectives and American resistance then broke out in a public controversy. According to O’Neill (55), dissenting American voices emerged and expressed concerns over the Russian ideologies. Some Americans even started comparing the Russians to the Germans while stating that Russians were promoting imperialism. By 1944, the Soviets had already moved into eastern Poland and the Balkans just as the Americans crossed the Rhine. The desire by the Russians to expand their territory combined with the growing differences in ideologies made the Cold War inevitable. Another theory that offers some answers to origins and outbreak of the Cold War explores the impact of the actions of American leaders that may have sparked tensions and hastened the conflict. In 1945, President Truman signed a decree announcing a sharp curtailment of supplies destined for the allies. This cancellation resulted in some American ships turning mid-ocean back to American harbours therefore denying the allies critically needed supplies. As observed by Ringer (313), the Soviets were outraged by the cancelation of supplies and even saw it as a move that was meant to pressurize them to make a serious mistake in the war. The timing of the decree served to worsen the situation since it took place during the period when the Russians had requested the Americans for long term post-war credits but were not getting any answers. The outrage of the Russians played out in meeting Stalin held with Harry Hopkins in which Stalin insinuated that the actions of the Americans demonstrated a cooling down of the American attitude towards the Soviets. Stalin perceived the actions of the Americans to imply that the Americans no longer needed the Russians. There are indeed numerous occurrences that created tensions between the Soviets and the Americans and any of them, or all of them may have caused the Cold War. This paper has explored a few of the situations that created discomfort between the two nations and are believed to have set the stage for the Cold War tensions. Even with the myriad of explanations that explore the relationship between the US and Russia before the Cold War, the debate on what or who caused the Cold War may not be concluded any time soon. Works Cited Bacino, Leo. Reconstructing Russia: U.S. Policy in Revolutionary Russia, 1917-1922. Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1999. Print. Dunn, Dennis. Caught Between Roosevelt & Stalin: Americas Ambassadors to Moscow. Kentucky: University of Kentucky, 1998. Print. Elsuwege, Peter. From Soviet Republics to EU Member States: A Legal and Political Assessment of the Baltic States Accession to the EU. Massachusetts: BRILL, 2008. Print. Kochavi, Arieh. Prelude to Nuremberg: Allied War Crimes Policy and the Question of Punishment. North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. Print. No Author. Churchill Speaks To Oppose Russian Advance For US-British Alliance. New York: Time Incorporated, 1946. Print. O’Neill, William. American High: the Years of Confidence, 1945-1960. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989.Print. Ringer, Ronald. Excel HSC Modern History. Sydney: Pascal Press, 2006. Print. Read More