The Cold War

The Cold War

CaSondra Terry

SS310

11/22/11

Karen Lloyd

The Cold War

The United States and the Soviet Union was deadlocked in the most prolific standoff for more than forty six years known as the Cold war. Being the world’s most powerful countries these two superpowers had the world at a standstill, with every conference. How did the cold war start? Why was it started? And who were the leaders involved.

The United States wanted to encourage free trade throughout the world, the Soviets wanted to shield off their own sphere from international commerce. Russia feared that trade with the West would involve the risk of Russia being opened to Western ideas and would destroy their dictator government way of thinking; this caused tension between the two countries (US States History, 2011).

After the end of World War two it was clear that the United States and the Soviet Union were going to be the powerhouses of the world; tensions were already high. Stalin wanted full control of Eastern and Western Europe and influenced his regime to take these actions but the United States opposed it. In 1947 President Truman declared an anti-communist policy known as the Truman Doctrine stating that the United States would support Greece and Turkey with economic and military aid to prevent their falling into the Soviet sphere (US States History, 2011). Stalin and the Soviet Union took this as an act of aggression and built the infamous wall separating East and West Germany, thus starting the cold war (Essortment: Your Source for Knowledge, 2011).

The Tension between the U.S. and the Soviet Union came to a breaking point with the Cuban Missile Crisis (the closest the world ever came to nuclear war). Cuba already had an issue when the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista was ousted and anti- American Fidel Castro took over the Cuban government and collaborating with the Soviet Union became a Communist State (John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, 2011). In 1961 a...