cold war Essay -- essays research papers

The cold War The Cold War was a response to the perceived threat by the United States that Communism would interfere with national security and economic stakes in the world. It was a perceived threat by communist countries that the United States would take to the world. During the Cold War, the United States, Russia, and other countries made efforts to avoid another world war, while warring in proxy in other lands. The devastation caused by the hydrogen bombs exploded in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the next technological advancements became only deterrents to the public. Governments had their own agenda which would result in worsening the strain between nations. The United States hid behind a curtain of nationalism resulting in increased hatred and mistrust between the people of the United States and Russia. Noam Chomsky reminds us that Communism is a broad term that includes those with the ability to get control of mass movements. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles once stated that, â€Å"The poor people are the ones they appeal to and they have always wanted to plunder the rich.† So, in one view, the U.S. felt they must be overcome, to protect our doctrine that the rich should ravage the poor. This became another motivation for the Cold War. In his historical account of the events leading to the Cold War, Jacob Heilbrunn reports that after World War II, â€Å"realists†¦ agreed that Soviet aggrandizement was responsible for the cold war.† (Heilbrunn) They felt the reason, rather than Communism, Heilbrunn notes, was that â€Å"Stalin was pursuing Russian national interests that dated back to the czars.† Others, however, accused the president and Congress â€Å"of following a consistent policy of economic imperialism, â€Å" tracing it back to the â€Å"Open Door Diplomacy of the nineteenth century, which outlined â€Å"an insatiable American appetite for new [economic] markets.† (Heilbrunn) Heilbrunn says that Gabriel Kolko also felt th at Roosevelt’s anti-Russia stance was formed to create dominance by the United States in world economic markets. (Heilbrunn) Heilbrunn says that Leffler’s A Preponderance of Power, has become the â€Å"sacred text of the neo-revisionists.† (Heilbrunn) Leffler claims that U.S. security policy was established between 1940 and 1946 based on geopolitics, not economics. Truman was far from fearing a Soviet military attack and was defending American economic stability... ...not easy accomplishments but were satisfied by the constant insistence of the threat of the great enemy. This phase has ended, but conflicts continue. The Soviet Union may have called off the war, but the U.S. is continuing as before, even more freely with Soviet obstruction a thing of the past. George Bush celebrated the symbolic end of the Cold War, the fall of the Berlin Wall, by immediately invading Panama and announcing that the U.S. would overturn Nicaragua’s election by maintaining its economic stranglehold and military attack unless â€Å"our side† won. With the threat of the Soviet Union no longer existing the U.S. is now free to use unlimited force against almost anyone it may choose. The end of the Cold War has caused its problems too as new enemies have needed to be invented. This problem has been solved quite easily if you were to look at the United States’ current international footing. A new and possibly better convincing enemy has been found i n the likes of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. The U.S. government has continued a policy of convincing the American public of the great evil existing elsewhere to achieve their economic, technological and defensive objectives.