The Cold War
The conflict in ideologies between capitalism and communism resulted in one of the greatest conflicts of the twentieth century. The belief that freedom and democracy would die under communist rule caused the United States to start a conflict that would last for decades. The decisions made by the United States in W.W.II caused tensions to rise between the U. S. and the Soviet Union. Fear of Communism in capitalist nations, caused the United states government to use propaganda to raise Cold War anxieties. Furthermore, the American media influenced the attitudes of Americans, making a hatred of communism spread though the nation. Thus, the United States caused the conflict known as the Cold War, through its political policy and propaganda. The political relations going on in Europe during and directly after World War II had an enormous effect on laying the foundation for the Cold War. War time conferences such as Yalta and Terhran harshened the relationship between the communists! and the capitalists. At the end of W.W.II American policy towards the Soviets changed drastically. The change in president in 1945 caused relations with Russia to worsen. Furthermore, other political contributions to the Cold War entailed the Truman Doctr
to stop the spread of communism in areas of the world very remote from them. America's next political actions further caused the Cold War to escalate. In 1947, George C. Marshall the Secretary of the state at the time gave a speech at Harvard university which reveled his plans for the an after war economy. Marshall asked that all of the countries of Europe communists and capitalists alike to draw up a plan for economic recovery from the war.(13) The Soviets refused to participate, because they saw it as America using money to buy its way into good terms with Europe. In the words of the Soviet foreign minister Molotov, the Marshall plan was "nothing but a vicious American scheme for using dollars to buy its way."(14) In the end, the United States sent 13 billion over to Western Europe to support economic recovery.(15) The Soviet Union saw this as an American attempt to keep any of these countries from turning to communism, which would close them off as US markets. Thus, the Mar! shall plan further contributed to a Soviet cause to continue waging a Cold War. In 1949 America helped to organize a treaty against communism. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO included the following nations : Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, the Netherlands, Luxemberg, Norway, Portugal , the United States. This treaty showed a clear division of Communism verses Capitalism, and it declared that an attack against one of these nations would be an attack on all of them.(16) Thus, the United States used this treaty to escalate the cold War by showing the Soviet Union that all of the NATO countries sided with the US in the Cold War. Finally, the United states waged hot wars through other nations; instead in actually declaring war against the Soviet Union. These hot wars in Korea and again in Vietnam. Both of these wars resulted from the United States trying to contain Communism from spreading throughout the world. (17) Thus, all of the United States' ! ine and the Marshall Plan. The division of Europe between the west and east drew physical borders which outlined that the war of misinformation that had began. Also treaties of the post war world further separated the two super powers of the world for the decades to follow. The waging of hot wars through other countries also strengthened Cold War hatred.(1) The first of the cold war tensions arose out of W.W.II conferences between the Soviet Union, America and, Great Britain. Tehran, the first major conference which lead America to start the Cold War, included all three of these nati
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Approximate Word count = 1720
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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