Who’s side are you on? the cold war

The Cold War
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The Cold War
Towards the end of World War II, American soldiers and their Soviet counterparts toasted to victory. This act, however, veiled an underlying rivalry precipitated by actions from the two sides. These were times when the world was undergoing massive technological advancement on all fronts. Computing, infrastructure, medicine and the aviation industry are some of the fields that saw development. Americans and Soviets stood out as the major players. However, there were ideological differences that, together with mutual temperaments, fostered a rift between the two. This in was in itself a visible side of the cold war. Of the various schools of thoughts on the cold war, there is some that trace it to the year 1917 when the Bolshevik’s rule saw a founding of a Marxist-Leninist system (Craig, & Logevall, 2012). This was a system aiming at dismantling capitalism, the American kind of economy, and replacing it with communism.
In 1945, the Second World War came to close. This was after Nazi Germany’s surrender. What followed was an apparently weak alliance with Britain and the United States, on the one hand, and Soviets on the other. During this time, fear of the USSR gaining permanent hold of Eastern European regions was escalating. This was perceived due to their propping of a communist idealist leadership and installation of leftist governments. In addition to this was the distrust amongst the two powers which led to misperceptions.

What followed was an arms race as one side sought to emerge more militarily superior to the other. Though none of the sides directly aggravated the other, a peak was reached when the Soviets unsuccessfully erected a blockade in the Western-backed regions of West Berlin. Shortly after this the US and its allies formed a common military body known as NATO to fight back Soviet influence. This is a period that saw a series of events as both sides sought to outmaneuver each other and emerge as a global leader.
During these years the relationships between Russia and the US were tense. The Americans were more concerned about the Russian leader Stalin and there were also worries over Soviet communism. The Russian leader Joseph Stalin was known to be a tyrant and as a result, the postwar Soviet expansion in part of East Europe presented a cause to worry to American. As American feared that Russians had the plan to control the world. To counter such move the US established military bases in other countries to be able to stop any possible attacks. In the year 1948, the Russians raised a red flag by blocking Berlin (Dodds, 2003). Berlin was in the middle of Russian area of Germany so the only way American could get there was to fly. There are such reasons that prompted the British and Americans to airlift supplies to people living in West Berlin. Even the Soviets lifted the blockade after one year such red flags raised by Russian triggered the cold war. The belief that democracy and freedom would perish under the rule of communism triggered the US to wage a conflict that could last for years. The root of this war was deeply rooted in noon-military policies for both the USSR and the US. This piece urges that the United States was responsible for triggering the cold war. This was through the US aggressive collective approach to security in Europe.
The US continuous engagement in aggressive collective approach to security in Europe directly resulted in the escalation of tension that caused the cold war. After World War II, the US adopted containment policies. These policies rejected all the previous ideas of seclusion in an attempt to maintain universal peace. Since World War II was perceived to be a “good war” it was then necessary to encourage the policymakers to continue enforcing collective security dictate in Europe. This was with little respect to the view and reactions of the surrounding countries and in particular the USSR (Craig, & Logevall, 2012). Even though the US did not openly anticipate the cold war to happen the Europe containment policies were not justifiable as they resulted in the rise of unnecessary tension. The US was too aggressive in providing political, economic as well as military aid to countries in Europe. To the USSR, this was a direct intimidation to their security. And this implies that the USSR was right in responding and hence the resultant was the cold war.
Economic aid programs in Europe also known as the Marshall plan was created intentionally to divide the west and east Europe. This was an aggressive move tailored against, the expansion of communist and this led to increasing tension that resulted into the cold war. This was the main aggressive action that the US effected against the Eastern Europe Soviet Communism. In implementing the plan Truman’s sole intention was to draw away Western countries from the power of the Soviet Union. This was an act that directly undermined the power of Soviet within the region. The fact that the US managed to have “Strings attached” to the package of financial aid that was provided to Europe. The US managed to garner substantial control over the foreign and domestic policies of countries in Western Europe. A considerable number of the strings dealt directly with implantation of collective security in west Europe. This was evident in the subsequent Mutual security Programs that were Marshall Plan extension which directly dealt security installation programs in Western Europe. It is the implementation of such policies that the US provoked the USSR to respond. This was evident through tightening of Soviet satellite control. And thus, rapidly all the previous free countries were under the USSR harsher rule. And as a result, the economic policies yielded poisoned environment that precipitated the establishment of the cold war.
The policies enacted by the US toward Germany of the Second World War were purposefully antagonistic against the economy of Russia as well as the development of the territories in the region. This unnecessarily attacked the claims of Russian. The conference of Potsdam yielded the idea of partitioning into four zones. These zones were to be split between France, the US, the USSR and the United Kingdom. The sole objective of such a move was to discourage Germany from raising as a superpower as nation’s power was a cause of worry to many. But, in the year 1947, the spread of global communism worried the western power that they feared the superior industrial skills of Germany (Craig, & Logevall, 2012). As a result, the US proposed a tactical plan to merge UK, US as well as France regions. The objective of the merger was to fight communism by manufacturing more goods. The plan was purposely aggressive and the primary objective of such a plan was to create supplies to be used against USSR. Besides, the plan never factored opinions from the Soviet side. And as a result, Stalin felt as if he was given a cold shoulder and thus Berlin Blockade and in fact, this was a reasonable reaction. Even though the US policies were not purposefully proactive to the disaster of the cold war the aggressive collective security as well as the tense geopolitical climate, provoked the USSR to respond.
References
Craig, C., & Logevall, F. (2012). America’s Cold War. Harvard University Press.
Dodds, K. (2003). Cold war geopolitics. A companion to political geography, 204-218.