what were the causes of the cold war?
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what were the causes of the cold war?
Cold War, the open yet restricted rivalry that developed after World War II between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies. The Cold War was waged on political, economic, and propaganda fronts and had only limited recourse to weapons. The term was first used by the English writer George Orwell in an article published in 1945 to refer to what he predicted would be a nuclear stalemate between “two or three monstrous super-states, each possessed of a weapon by which millions of people can be wiped out in a few seconds.” It was first used in the United States by the American financier and presidential adviser Bernard Baruch in a speech at the State House in Columbia, South Carolina, in 1947.
A brief treatment of the Cold war follows. For full treatment, see international relations.
Causes of the Cold War
A number of geopolitical factors that emerged in the wake of the Second World War, pitting Russia against the U.S. World War II ended with the Soviet Union and United States as allies that triumphed over Nazi Germany. But how did two countries that used to fight on the same
side end up a couple of years later as mortal enemies in a Cold War of distrust that prevailed for years to come?Possible Causes for the Cold WarAlthough The U.S. and Soviet Union were allies during WWII, there were many tensions early on and once the common threat of Germany and Japan were removed, it was only a matter of time for the shaky relationship to fall apart.
Here are some possible factors that contributed to the Cold War:
- The Soviet Union refused to become part of the UN for a long time
- Stalin felt that America and Britain were delaying D-Day, causing more Soviet losses in a plot to weaken the Soviet army. Almost sixty times more Soviets died in the war than the Americans.
- The “Big Three” clashed during the Tehran Conference about Poland and other Eastern European countries that bordered with Germany. Stalin felt independent countries were a security threat to Russia because they have been weak enough to let Germany attack the Soviet Union through them several times. Britain and America wanted these countries to be independent, not under communist rule.
- The Soviets and Germans had a non-aggression pact in the first two years of the war with a secret protocol
- The support of the Western allies of the Atlantic Charter
- The Eastern Bloc of Soviet satellite states that was created
- The Allies allowing Germany to rebuild an industry and army, scrapping the Marshall and Morgenthau plans
- The Allies allowing Germany to join NATO
- American and British fears of communist attacks and the Soviet Union’s dislike of capitalism
- The Soviet Union’s fear of America’s nuclear weapons and refusal to share their nuclear secrets
- The Soviet Union’s actions in Eastern Germany, in the Soviet zone
- The USSR’s aim to promote communism across the world and their expansion into Eastern Europe
What Are Two Causes Of The Cold War?
Historians have identified several causes that led to the outbreak of the Cold War, including: tensions between the two nations at the end of World War II, the ideological conflict between both the United States and the Soviet Union, the emergence of nuclear weapons, and the fear of communism in the United States.
What are the main causes of Cold War?
Historians have identified several causes that led to the outbreak of the Cold War, including: tensions between the two nations at the end of World War II, the ideological conflict between both the United States and the Soviet Union, the emergence of nuclear weapons, and the fear of communism in the United States.
1945–1952: The Early Cold War
The United States emerged from World War II as one of the foremost economic, political, and military powers in the world. Wartime production pulled the economy out of depression and propelled it to great profits. In the interest of avoiding another global war, for the first time the United States began to use economic assistance as a strategic element of its foreign policy and offered significant assistance to countries in Europe and Asia struggling to rebuild their shattered economies.
In contrast to American unwillingness to politically or militarily entangle itself in the League of Nations, the United States became one of the first members of the international organization designed to promote international security, commerce, and law, the United Nations. The United States also took an active interest in the fate of the colonies the European powers were having difficulty maintaining.
In addition to these challenges, the United States faced increasing resistance from the Soviet Union which had rescinded on a number of wartime promises. As the Soviets demonstrated a keen interest in dominating Eastern Europe, the United States took the lead in forming a Western alliance to counterbalance the communist superpower to contain the spread of communism. At the same time, the United States restructured its military and intelligence forces, both of which would have a significant influence in U.S. Cold War policy.
The Arms Race
As an ideological “Iron Curtain” cut the Soviet Union and its satellite states off from the rest of Europe, the U.S. and U.S.S.R. engaged in an arms race, pouring trillions of dollars into accumulating nuclear arsenals and racing to explore space. By 1962, both countries had missile defenses pointed at one another. That year, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought both countries closer to actual conflict than any other event in the Cold War.
Multiple proxy wars stood in for actual conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Korean War, Vietnam War, and a number of other armed conflicts, during which both sides either funded one side of the war or fought directly against a communist or capitalist force, are all considered Cold War proxies. Both sides also funded revolutions, insurgencies, and political assassinations in Central America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
Though the Cold War ended with the dissolution of the Soviet bloc in the 1980s and the fall
of the Soviet Union in 1991, it still affects modern geopolitics. As the last remaining superpower, the U.S. retains wide-reaching alliances, high weapons investments, and international military outposts. NATO, an alliance between the U.S. and Western European countries brokered at the outset of the Cold War,
still wields political power. Today, increased tensions between Russia and the West have been referred to as a second Cold War.
Origins of the Cold War
The Cold War developed as differences about the shape of the postwar world created
suspicion and distrust between the United States and the Soviet Union. The first – and most difficult – test case was Poland, the eastern half of which had been invaded and occupied by the USSR in 1939. Moscow demanded a government subject to Soviet influence; Washington wanted a more independent, representative government following the Western model. The Yalta Conference of February 1945 had produced an agreement on Eastern Europe open to different interpretations. It included a promise of “free and unfettered” elections.
Meeting with Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs Vyacheslav Molotov less than two weeks after becoming president,
Truman stood firm on Polish self-determination, lecturing the Soviet diplomat about the need to implement the Yalta accords. When Molotov protested,
“I have never been talked to like that in my life,” Truman retorted, ”
Carry out your agreements and you won’t get talked to like that.” Relations deteriorated from that point onward.
Origins
During the closing months of World War II, Soviet military forces occupied all of Central and Eastern Europe. Moscow used its military power to support the efforts of the Communist parties in Eastern Europe and crush the democratic parties. Communists took over one nation after another. The process concluded with a shocking coup d’etat in Czechoslovakia in 1948.
Public statements defined the beginning of the Cold War. In 1946 Stalin declared that
international peace was impossible “under the present capitalist development of the world economy.” Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivered a dramatic speech in
Fulton, Missouri, with Truman sitting on the platform.As a result, “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic,
” Churchill said, “an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.” Britain and the United
States, he declared, had to work together to counter the Soviet threat.
