Amh2030

Cold War

20th Century American History – AMH2030-2

September 8, 2012

Cold War

As most of Europe and Asia lay in ruins, and the Axis powers had been ambushed, a new perilous warning arose on the horizon. Even though they defeated the enemy together, the mistrust and hostility between the Soviet Union and the West, resurfaced over the postwar world issues. The Western Allie’s stall in opening a second front in Western Europe enticed the Soviet Union’s suspicions during the war. After the war Stalin, Churchill and the U.S. had a meeting at Potsdam to discuss Europe post-war. Stalin wanted to make Germany pay to rebuild the Soviet economy, expand influence and to have amicable governments on the borders in Eastern Europe. Contrary, the U.S. rose from the war with a great multitude of capital and a monopoly on atomic weapons. In 1946, Truman and Churchill traveled to Missouri where the former prime minister blamed the defeat of the Soviet Union to England and Central Europe and stated the “iron curtain” has settled across the land.

The Cold War began somewhere around 1945-1948 and ended 1989. It started over a dispute about the division of Europe. The main enemies were the Soviet Union and the United States. However neither of them would fight each other because the risk was too great. They would risk losing everything due to nuclear weapons, so they chose to fight indirectly. They blackmailed and blamed each other and tried to make each other look ridiculous.

Containment formed American actions in foreign countries for nearly fifty years by what is called the “Iron Curtain”.  Which was the military, political, and idealistic boundary organized among the Soviet alliance and Western Europe from 1945 to 1990. In February 1946, a rationale comprehensive foreign policy of containment was created by Dr. George Keenan. It was observed that the social, political and economical aspects of the Soviet Union and had decided to issue the “Long Telegram from...