Ss310 Unit 2 Assignment

Webster Perkins III

Unit 2 Assignment

SS310-09

Professor Tonya Lindsey

November 26, 2011

I would like to write an essay reviewing the Cold War era and showing two threats to American families. I would also like to include a paragraph stating what I would do to protect my family in case of an attack. Finally, I will leave everyone with one question for further study on the Cold War era. After reading this essay, I hope that you will be able to understand the different aspects that I am going to discuss about The Cold War even better.

First, I would like to give you a brief overview of the Cold War. The Cold War (1945-1991) was a very complex, and vast war! In fact, it is the longest war to date. There were many ideas, conflicts and emotions that were going on during that time. As soon as World War II came to an end, the United States and Soviet Union started gaining the reputation as being the two main superpowers of the world. The world ideologies came down to which was a better governing tactic: democracy or communism. By 1947, the communist governmental threat had grown so much that Winston Churchill described it as "an iron curtain" because it was causing a division of the European continent. By the time the 40s ended, the Soviet Union had tested their first nuclear weapon, and this signaled the beginning of the arms race. Once again the world split off into alliances; Western Democracies faced off against the Soviet Union. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was signed in 1949 only to be counteracted with the Warsaw Pact a few years later. The governments of these great nations pledged that if any war broke out between two nations there would almost certainly be another world war as each side pledged to back their member states up.

Furthermore, I would like to discuss two threats that American families were afraid of. The most obvious threat to American families was the threat of nuclear war due to the fact that the United States and the Soviet...