Was the cold war inevitable essay

Was the cold war inevitable essay

Crossing the Threshold: the Inevitability of the Cold War Cold War confrontation became inevitable at a.m. on August 29, However, before embarking on detailed examination as to the date at which the threshold of Cold War inevitability was crossed, it’s necessary to first solidify our understanding of why the threshold was crossed  · Ultimately, Cold War was inevitable to a moderate extent. The war was initiated by serious international conflict. However, much of the conflict was heightened as a result of miscommunication between countries. The Cold War was inevitable due to various factors, including post-war territorial conditions in Eastern Europe and respective Soviet and American blogger.comted Reading Time: 7 mins  · Nothing is inevitable, but the leaders of that period of time couldn’t predict the future, and thus they didn’t realize what consequences their actions would have. Judging from the way the two sides acted, the Cold War was inevitable. Both sides misunderstood

To What Extent Was the Cold War Inevitable? Example | Graduateway

Furthermore, this army had run out of replacements in Januaryso its combat strength could only go down. And, of course, the Soviet Union did not have the atom bomb. This means that while the Soviets were imposing and very scary to the West, they had weaknesses of which Stalin was largely aware. The Westerners understood that the Soviet military was flawed, but they also knew that the cost of fighting the Soviet Union would have been enormous.

Could the Soviet Union have won a war with a determined West in ? Absolutely not, but victory would have taken years and several more atom bombs. In fact, they had been paranoid about this threat for decades. Stalin and his cronies made some incorrect assumptions about the Western threat, though.

First of all, they lumped the Nazis in with the British and the Americans: Stalin always feared they would come to an accommodation. The United States produced an enormous amount of stuff, was the cold war inevitable essay it did so with deficit spending and its spending was devoted to war materials.

With the war coming to an end the US home front was going to be flooded with returning veterans for whom there were no jobs. Furthermore, there was practically no consumption at home was the cold war inevitable essay sustain spending, so American industries would collapse again from lack of demand.

This would open the door for communist success in the West and Stalin wanted to be ready for that. The solution was to keep them in uniform occupying Eastern Europe. They looted the land under the guise of reparations and also provided a useful buffer for the Soviet Union.

In the immediate aftermath of the War the West did suffer some bad recessions. Communist parties in Europe made lots of headway. What Stalin did not anticipate was the way in which America responded. First of all, the US was more prepared for returning servicemen than even they realized. The GI Bill was a stroke of genius. For one thing, was the cold war inevitable essay, it gave many servicemen the opportunity to go to college.

That meant that many servicemen ended up going to school instead of returning to the work force. This alone forced an expansion of the education sector which in turn drove domestic consumption. The educated folks who graduated years later provided the basis for the educated workforce the US needed. The GI Bill also allows for servicemen to get decent mortgage rates, etc.

This made it easier for employed servicemen to buy a house. Now, the construction industry had been moribund was the cold war inevitable essay much of the Depression and only returned to life during the War, was the cold war inevitable essay.

Well, the construction during the War was not for civilian use, so there was a huge pent up demand for housing. The construction industry actually expands. So, in the US there was a minor recession, but it was ameliorated in the long term by the GI Bill.

The GI Bill was not intended to save the US from economic ruin: it was just a bonus. But the Marshall Plan was intended to save the West from economic ruin. People forget how much money and aid the US was already sending overseas and they focus on the Marshall Plan.

This is for a very good reasons: the Marshall Plan was designed to jump start industry. It was all loan money, sure, but the US had rules on how it was to be spent. This, of course, drove the US economy even further. This was brilliant. The US was essentially writing a check to allow Western countries to deficit spend to rebuild their industrial sectors.

To Stalin this looks like a direct threat to him and the Soviet Union. Stalin knew that the Soviet Union and its satellite states were woefully behind in reconstruction. The idea here was to demonstrate to Europe that the Soviets were the only true power on the continent. Thus, we get recurring Berlin Crises, etc. Of course, the US did stand up to the Soviet Union which resulted in a hardening of the Western alliance.

Stalin was brutal and evil, but he was not an idiot. His calculations are rational, but his conclusions were all wrong. A few things happened. One of them is George Kennan. George Kennan articulated the theory of containment.

To this end, Kennan posited, the Soviet Union needed to push worldwide revolution: communism could only be successful when it achieved world domination.

He was right that economically a true communist state could only succeed if it had all means of production under its control. Stalin more likely wanted to neuter the major powers around him and to dominate Eurasia, was the cold war inevitable essay. In any case, Kennan argued that stopping the communist tide rested on a combination of approaches, diplomatic, cultural, economic, and military. Kennan lays out a policy, but it catches fire for many reasons. One is that many politicians in the US are already inclined to be anti-communist.

Plus, the sense is that giving the communists an inch anywhere would be appeasement, and that led to disaster with Hitler. There was certainly an uptick in Communist Party membership. The perception was that the Soviets controlled the foreign communist parties. At the very least the Soviet Union used was the cold war inevitable essay communists and their fellow travelers was the cold war inevitable essay a recruiting base for spies.

As spies were uncovered paranoia in the United States mounted. Toss in the fact that politicians were using the spy issue to undermine their political and cultural opponents, and no one wants to be seen as soft on communism. What we have here is a ratcheting process: The Soviet Union was trying to achieve its goals by frustrating the United States. The United States felt that the Soviet Union was trying to expand its power by any means necessary.

They ended up both raising the stakes, because neither one wanted to be humiliated. I think the Cold War could not have been avoided given what people knew at the time.

Both sides were rational but had totally different domestic pressures and ways of looking at the world. Neither could see a way out of confrontation without backing down. Only if the Soviets and the Americans gave up their lifelong preconceptions about the other, was the cold war inevitable essay, which would be incredibly unrealistic. Inevitable Cold War. com, Apr 12, Accessed May 31, comApr We will send an essay sample to you in 2 Hours. If you need help faster you can always use our custom writing service.

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The Cold War: Crash Course US History #37

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Inevitable Cold War - Free Essay Example | blogger.com

 · Some historians have argued that “Containment” was the wrong term for American/Western aims during the Cold War – the goal was in fact “the collapse and destruction of the Soviet state and system and its displacement by liberal democratic institutions, whatever the rhetoric about co-existence.” (Kimball, , ) Truman began this policy, marking a distinct break with the  · Inevitable Cold War - Free Essay Example | blogger.com Let's parse this and break down some of the reasons that the Cold War "broke out." First of all, at the end of the Second World War the Soviets were the dominant land force in Europe, but this force had some severe limitations. First of all, their logistical machinery was largely supplied by the Americans: they  · It can be argued that the Cold War was inevitable, and therefore no one's fault, due to the differences in the capitalist and communist ideologies. It was only the need for self-preservation that had caused the two countries to sink their differences temporarily during the Second World War