The Cold War

The Cold War
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Introduction
The Cold War referred to a state of military and political tension after the Second World War between powers in the Eastern Bloc (the Soviet Union and its allies) and the Western Bloc (the United States and its NATO allies including others). The dates that The Cold War occurred was estimated to be 1947-1991. The war was called “cold war” because direct large-scale fighting was not there between the two sides. However, there were main regional wars termed as proxy wars in Afghanistan, Vietnam and Korea, which the two sides influenced and supported. United States and Soviet Union became two main superpowers in the world. They had intense political and economic differences; Soviet Union was a communist state while United States was a capitalist state. The two superpowers did not directly fight in full-scale, although they armed themselves heavily to prepare for a possible nuclear world war. This paper aims to examine what caused the cold war and how it occurred into its conclusion.
Conflicting countries
The superpowers had many nations as allies. Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand, West Germany, Britain and France were allies on the American side. Poland, Romania, East Germany, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, Mongolia, Korea and Cuba were allies on the soviet side.
Superpowers at war
The superpowers had different ideologies regarding politics and economics. They did not agree on many issues and each system believed that its ideology was better than the other. They therefore engaged in war of ideas, which was termed as the cold war. Being a communist nation, the government of the Soviet Union controlled resources and production. US was a capitalist nation, and in capitalism, businesses and citizens controlled the production of goods. In such a capitalist state, it was upon people’s choice to decide where to work and live.
United States and Soviet Union were allies during the Second World War since both nations were fighting against Nazi Germany. Even prior the war, Soviet Union and US were against policies and ideology of the Nazi Germany. Although Soviet Union and US thought it was more significant to fight against the Nazi Germany, they did not agree with one another’s ideologies. Cold war started in Europe after the Second World War. After the end of Second World War, Germany was ruined completely, and was partitioned into four parts. Soviet Union had full control of the Eastern Europe. Especially, it controlled half of Berlin (Germany’s capital) and half of Germany. France, Britain and United States controlled West Berlin and half of Germany. During 1948, Soviet Union decided to block railroads and roads which passed to West Berlin. Consequently, France, Britain and United States used air flights to fly in goods; this was termed as the Berlin Airlift.
Cold war fights
In 1950s, nations were spying on other nations; this was a great aspect of the cold war. Soviet Union created its spy organs (the KGB) after its successful achievements in the Manhattan Project. On the other hand, United States created the Central Intelligence Agency to monitor foreign spies. The functions of the Soviet’...