Cold War, the US and the Soviet Union - Case Study Example

Client’s 28 April Cold War Many think that Cold war refers to an actual war but this perception is wrong, cold war refers to a tensed situation which may culminate into a war. The world got divided into several different parts after the World Wars; these World Wars caused damage beyond repair. Cold war began after the end of the Second World War, the Second World War ended in the year 1945, The US and the Soviet Union were the ones directly involved in the cold war. Cold war was a situation in which countries did not fight directly; instead they choose to fight indirectly with each other. This paper will shed light upon when the cold war resumed? And who got affected the most because of the cold war. The US and the Soviet Union were the strongest countries once the Second World War ended and both wanted to dominate each other. To match each other stride for stride they started fighting indirectly. This indirect war had several repercussions upon the other countries and it also affected the US and the Soviet Union. Weapons weren’t used in this cold war, words were used as weapons and the main enemies involved in this war consistently tried to make each other look foolish. The leaders involved in the cold war consistently kept changing but the war still continued, this goes to show the desire to dominate each other and most of the wars occur because of this domination of one country over another. It is quite difficult to say when the cold war began and ended, some historians believe that the cold war ended when the Soviet Union dissolved in the year 1991 while others feel that the war ended when Berlin Wall was torn down in the year 1989. It is also very difficult to say when the war escalated and when it cooled down. The two countries who were actively involved in this Cold war were the US and the Soviet Union. This war became quite dangerous because each of the country involved directly in this cold war had nuclear weapons and this is exactly why they did not fight directly with each other. The cold war separated the world into groups. The US led the western part of the world, the Soviet Union led the eastern part of the world and the third part included countries that were neither a part of east nor west. In the mid 1970s the whole world was involved in arms race, each country strived hard to attain the best weapons that were available back then. Countries believed that these weapons would provide them with security and they can defend themselves well against all the intruders who tried to dominate them. The Cold war certainly escalated during this time, during this period the US and the Soviet Union were at parity. Even these countries tried really hard to become better than the other. They test fired several missiles that were capable of causing damage beyond repair. SS-4 and SS-5 missiles were replaced by the Soviet Union by better missiles namely SS-20. SS-20 was capable of being concealed and it was also capable of reaching an unprecedented distance. This Missile also had the capability of hitting any area in Western Europe. These new inventions made the relationship of countries very bitter, countries became in secured of each other. Each thought that the other would attack and this precarious situation escalated the cold war. Upon knowing the recent developments the US started test firing Pershing II missile and this agitated people all across Europe. They wanted the US not to test fire this missile and to end this arms race. At this point the relationship of the US and the Soviet Union was at its worst. The SALT II treaty was introduced to cool things between these two countries. According to this treaty each country was allowed to have a certain no of weapons, all the missiles were counted as weapons in this treaty. This treaty was introduced to make the relationship of the US and the Soviet Union better and to put an end to this ever continuing Cold war. “The SALT II treaty was signed by President Carter and Premier Brezhnev in Vienna on June 18, 1979, and was submitted to the U.S. Senate for ratification shortly thereafter. But renewed tensions between the superpowers prompted Carter to remove the treaty from consideration in January 1980, after the Soviet Unions invasion of Afghanistan. The era of détente was over.” (The Arms Race) Reagan became the President of the US and he took over the charge of the presidency in the year 1981. During his time at the helm, the US started spending a lot of money on making better missiles and other weapons that could be used in a war. This again agitated the Soviet Union and the cold war between the countries only got worse from here on in. The new MX missiles were tested during his presidency and he also spent a lot of money on new Poseidon nuclear submarines. These submarines were capable of fighting under water and were newly introduced under his reign. The Soviet Union was also spending a lot of money on arms during this time; both the countries were trying to outdo each other in terms of spending and in terms of acquiring better missiles. Reagan vowed to spend much more than the Soviet Union and this again made the relationship between the two countries very hostile. The Soviet Union could not match the spending capacity of the US so they tried to placate the hostility between the two countries. They pursued détente but it wasn’t of much use as the cold war kept continuing between these bitter rivals. People in the US suffered a lot because of this cold war between the two countries; on March 28 1979 a very big mishap took place in Pennsylvania. A small valve failed to close in the nuclear reactor plant subsequently a lot of undesirable changes took place. These changes were beyond the control of people controlling the power plant. The contaminated water released from this plant started flowing towards an adjoining building and it also started releasing harmful gases. As an inevitable result of which, the very first emergency meeting was declared in the country. Pregnant women and children in the area were advised to evacuate immediately. Were over 140,000 people living in that area fled to ensure that no damage was done to them and to their family. “Friday also brought a new, more terrifying revelation: a hydrogen bubble had formed above the reactor core. The bubble could prevent cooling and eventually lead to a meltdown. That afternoon, scientists finally determined that the hydrogen bubble posed no immediate threat, and that the reactor core had stabilized. Three years after the accident, a robotic camera was lowered into the Unit 2 core, providing the first look at what really had happened. Fifty percent of the core was destroyed or molten, and something on the order of 20 tons of uranium found its way to the bottom head of the pressure vessel.” (Three Mile Island) The Three Mile Island incident taught a lot of lessons to the US government, they shut that plans and no similar plane has been established in the US to date. This goes to show that the government of the US learned a lot of important things from the biggest mishap in the history of the country. Reagan proposed several unprecedented things; the “Star Wars” was perhaps one of the most popular things that were proposed by the president. Star Wars was nothing but to build an anti-missile tracking system in space. It was named “Star Wars” because it had direct link with the space. This whole mission was about building a strategic defense initiative. It was supported and well appreciated by the fellow members in the cabinet. This mission primarily, aimed at defending the US from any missiles launched by the Soviet Union. It was a proactive reaction of the US; they anticipated that the Soviet Union might launch a scathing attack on them because of the recent developments that had taken place. This was a very interesting phase of the Cold war, the precariousness was better than ever before during this time. “Air-based missile platforms and ground-based missiles using other non-nuclear killing mechanisms would constitute the rear echelon of defense and would be concentrated around such major targets as U.S. ICBM silos. The sensors to detect attacks would be based on the ground, in the air, and in space, and would use radar, optical and infrared threat-detection systems.” (Reagan’s Star Wars) The nuclear balance shifted to the US when this system was being developed, the Soviet feared that after the development of this system the US would surely launch a strike on them. This phase of uncertainty kept fueling the Cold war and the relationship kept worsening between the two countries. This anti-missile system proved to be very complex and difficult to establish, hence it went on the back burner. It resurfaced again when the administration changed hands in the US. This time around it was planned to be called the National Missile Defense and not “Star Wars”. The Soviet have had their fare share of catastrophes as well, he drive to outdo the US took a toll on the people in the Soviet. On 26th of April 1986 the biggest mishap in the history of the Soviet took place. It was later also called as the world’s worst nuclear –power accident. A poorly designed experiment was being executed by the scientists when chain reactor in the core started behaving erratically. “Several explosions triggered a large fireball and blew off the heavy steel and concrete lid of the reactor. This and the ensuing fire in the graphite reactor core released large amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere. A partial meltdown of the core also occurred. A cover-up was attempted, but on April 28, Swedish monitoring stations reported abnormally high levels of wind-transported radioactivity and pressed for an explanation. The Soviet Union finally acknowledged that the accident had occurred.” (Chernobyl) 100 to 150 million curies were released into the atmosphere as a result of this catastrophe, these curies were later carried to France, Italy, and it also spread in some parts of Russia causing lot of trouble to the people. Sometime later the workers constructed a huge steel cover over the reactor to ensure that the radioactive waves do not spread to other areas. Well over 32 people lost their lives initially because of this debacle but later countless people contracted radioactive sickness as the radiations kept spreading to several countries. In addition to this, several acres of forest and other resources were contaminated and had to be dealt with because of this catastrophe. In an endeavor to outdo each other countless people lost their lives when experiments like these took place. This goes to show that the cold war brought about several undesirable changes in many countries. Chain reactions took place like the one described above, the radio activity kept spreading and several countries had direct impact of the same on them. Countless people were evacuated because of this debacle; livestock were born deformed as a result of this reaction. The damage also caused life threatening diseases like skin cancer and other forms of cancer. People who had no money kept residing in contaminated areas and as a result of which died later on. In the year 2000 all the reactors in Chernobyl were shut down. It took a lot of time for the authorities to shut the reactors. It should have been shut soon after the debacle occurred. Mikhail Gorbachev took over the reign as a Soviet Leader and he brought about a lot of changes in the Soviet Union. Several Soviet leaders had passed away and this was why he took over the reign. An era of restructuring began under him as he made some very critical changes in the Soviet Union. “U.S.-Soviet relations improved considerably during the middle 1980s. At a dramatic summit meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland, in October 1986, Gorbachev proposed a 50-percent reduction in the nuclear arsenals of each side, and for a time it seemed as though a historic agreement would be reached. The summit ended in failure, owing to differences over SDI. However, on December 8, 1987, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty was signed in Washington, eliminating an entire class of nuclear weapons. The INF Treaty was the first arms-control pact to require an actual reduction in nuclear arsenals rather than merely restricting their proliferation.” (The End of the Cold War) The Eastern Bloc began to tear apart as the decade came to an end; the Hungarian Government took off the barbed wire on its border which was shared with Australia. The Soviet did absolutely nothing about this change. The collapse of the Berlin Wall almost signaled the end of the Cold war. On December 8th 1991 the Soviet Union was dissolved and the cold war which continued for over 45 long years had come to an end. The damage had already been done, several people lost their lives when the war escalated and so many resources were contaminated as a result of extensive testing and experimentation. With the collapse of the Soviet Union everyone thought that the nuclear trouble that the world was facing would reduce but this was anything but the truth. India considered to be a very peace loving country conducted nuclear tests of two missiles in the year 1998; these tests were substantially increased later on. Pakistan could not have been far behind, the country five back to back nuclear tests in the same year. Pakistan has had the desire to develop nuclear weapons since 1972 and these tests were rumored to have been supported by the Chinese. Even the cold war between the Soviet and the US was over, a new type of Cold war between these neighboring countries initiated. The hunger to develop superior weapons otherwise known as arms race is the biggest factor behind a cold war. Each country these days wants security and the only way of securing is by developing better weapons than other countries so that even if a neighboring country launches an attack, the defending country can use those developed weapons and can secure itself. Several treaties have been signed by several countries, these treaties restrict the development of nuclear weapons but in spite of signing these treaties, several countries still engage in developing superior weapons that would keep an attack of another country at bay. As a matter of fact the Cold war ended but it still continues between several neighboring countries. Classic examples are India and Pakistan, North Korea and South Korea, there are so many more countries that have always been at loggerheads and that are waiting for an opportunity to strike. So to conclude it is very fair to say that even after the end of the cold war between the Soviet and US, several other similar cold wars keep continuing between neighboring countries. References Chernobyl (2008). Atomic Archive. Retrieved from: Reagan’s Star Wars (2008). Atomic Archive. Retrieved from: The Arms Race (2008). Atomic Archive. Retrieved from: Three Mile Island (2008). Atomic Archive. Retrieved from: The End of the Cold War. Atomic Archive. Retrieved from: Read More