Cold War

Cold War

Introduction

From 1940 to the early 1990s, the United States and the Soviet Union fiercely competed to prove that they were the superior nation. The two rivals tried to out-do each other in terms of technology, military, and economy in a period known as the cold war, a war between capitalism and communism. The war was never engaged directly, due to the fact that both sides had enormous amount of nuclear weapons. After 50 years, the cold war came to a close in the 1990s with the Soviet Union's downfall. This resulted in the U.S being the only superpower in the world(Gaddis, 2000).

Causes

Many believed that the start of the cold war was shortly after the period following World War II, when Soviet Union became a communist country rising from the Russian revolution. The Russian Revolution was a series of events in Russia. The revolutions had the effect of completely changing the society of the Russian Empire and transforming the Russian state. It led to the replacement of the Russian dictatorship with the Soviet Union. During this time, Americans were going through the Red Scare. They feared that communists would do a nuclear attack or spread communism to other countries (Crapol, 1987).

Tensions in the Cold War eased a little after Nikita Khrushchev visited Dwight Eisenhower at his holiday home. Both parties became friendly toward each other after the visit. But this pseudo-friendliness was a very short one. In reality, both parties were still very provoked. Shortly after the visit, An American U-2 spy plane was shot down over in the Soviet Union. The pilot Gary powers survived, but the incident became an embarrassment for the United States. Although the public was shocked at this incident, Eisenhower publicly admitted that such planes had been spying on the Soviets for years (Crapol, 1987).

Presidents Policies

After Eisenhower's presidency, John F. Kennedy was elected as the new president in 1961. He was quickly introduced to a problem that threatened Americans. Cuban exiles planned to invade Cuba. They wanted to oust the communist government of Fidel Castro. These exiles had been trained by America's Central Intelligence Agency. However, due to the poor planning of The United States, the invasion was a failure. The United States did not send military planes to protect them during the invasion, and as a result, almost all the exiles were killed or taken prisoner (Gaddis, 2000)

During ...