Miss Harris "Concluding the Cold War"

Concluding the Cold War
There are many questions associated with the Cold War, and for the most part, these questions can’t be answered. The Cold War participants are listed as only Russia and The United States, and if one was to look at what the citizens and leaders of both countries were enduring during 1919-1939, it makes no logical sense to focus an entire country on stopping another country from spreading or preventing Communism, respectively. The United States was suffering the Great Depression, and the people were not going to want to pay for another war and the building up of arms because they had no money. The entire act of building up arms at that point would have not done much without an army behind it, as there were no nuclear weapons yet. Russia was recovering from the war too, but Russia had had war fought on its land, something America did not. Logically speaking, the Cold War was not started in those twenty years.
If one was to look in any American history text book, one will find that Joseph Stalin, the leader of Russia, is referred to as a totalitarian dictator, and is usually put into the same category as Adolf Hitler. In a Russian history book, Stalin is probably not portrayed in quite the same way, but any alliance has to do strongly with how the citizens of a country saw the other, and propaganda put on a whole new set of glasses for them to look out into. The Red Scare and the threat of Communism had not really ever gone away, and the citizens of the United States were absolutely terrified of it. If they were even accused of being associated with Communism, it could very well ruin their lives, thus many Americans had a foul view on Russia, especially after siding with Germany in the middle of World War One. At the beginning of World War Two, Stalin and Hitler even signed a Non-Agression Pact with one another, and mutually attacked Poland, a country that America had sworn to protect.
Even the alliance between Germany and Russia was strained, as Hitler broke the pact and turned on Stalin and Russia, leaving Russia to need help from the United States. While the Russians were losing more men then they could afford fighting Germany, America had sent its troops to help. However, the Russians felt that the United States was only trying to weaken their army because of how long they were alone before the Americans had come to help and the fact that in one battle Russia lost more men then America would the entire war.
As the Cold War never had any fighting actually take place, the question of who caused it is a tricky question to answer with one hundred percent certainty. The accepted definition of the Cold War basically says that no fighting went on between Russia and The United States, only moves to block the other side’s advances. Using that definition, it seems that the time when the Cold War was unofficially declared would be at the first attempt at stopping the other’s advancements, so whichever side started would probably be safely assumed as the side that caused the Cold War.
The problem with finding which side started it all is that it begs the question of when the Cold War started. Most likely, our thoughts of stopping the other side was largely due to the fact that Russia is a Communist country, and especially after World War One, we as Americans, have a fear of Communism, if not a complete intolerance. World War One ended in 1918, so at the very least the tensions were increased. It did not help any that Russia had remained unloyal in World War One and had switched sides. The Cold War was mainly about tensions, threats, and tact, and between the two sides there was plenty of the first two, but as far as tact went, the confidentiality and secrecy that was due to tensions and threats left us lacking.
Unlike most wars, the Cold War can not be wrapped up in a nice, neat package with bullet points and a timeline mainly because most of the important things that influenced what actions were taken were explained and written in confidential notes and letters. Most of the questions about the Cold War that ask for a specific yes or no answer, or a person, party, or country can be answered both ways because it did not have an offical declaration of war or anything of the sort. It can be said though that both sides saw the other side as a major threat to their own advancements, and respected them enough to not want to go into combat with one another. This led to a race to win over other countries, again, not for combat, but for politics. Mostly, the tactic for the war for both Russia and the United States was to simply support the enemy of the other. Russia had broken its promise to let Poland have free elections, and was making its way down to China to get them to become another Communist country, which they did. During all of Russia’s attempts, the United States tried to give whatever country Russia was focusing on a chance of free elections and not being underneath another country’s control, which was slightly ironic, as that was the United States was doing in a way.
The United States had always taken pride in being revolutionary in a sense and a free country with democracy for one and all. When the United States came onto the nuclear warfare scene first, war would never be the same from that point forward. From there there was just the anticipation and waiting to see who would be the next country to join the ranks of the United States, and we were a little distressed when it was Russia who had caught up. So immediately following, we made a thermonuclear Hydrogen bomb which is far more detremental than an atom bomb, but by the early 1960s, Russia had a thermonuclear Hydrogen bomb too. As soon as one side nourished its technology to the point where they were at the top, the other side had caught up. By the mid 1960s, the deadliest, seemingly impossible to detect weapon was a submarine launched missle, of which both sides had. As each side built up its stock of nuclear weapons more and more, it was clear that it wasn’t protecting its country by show of aggression, but rather by show of defensiveness. This tactic followed along the main lines of the Cold War, as neither side was aggressive enough to fully attack the other country, and that was probably due to the fact that the other side had an incredibly strong retalitory attack that was well known. If a country has any doubt about its biggest weapon’s functionality, it does make sense for them to tell any other country that they even have a weapon, for fear that if they entered a war and had all their money on that big item and it failed, they would be sitting ducks. Therefore, if the United States knew about a weapon Russia possessed, or vice versa, one could be certain that the weapon worked.
In conclusion, America and Russia were similar to oil and water in that they avoided one another and were too different to work together. However, they both followed the rushing rapids of nuclear discovery and the collecting of better and better weapons. Neither country felt like they could allow the other to continue on the path it was going and felt the need to interfere with the other’s power and influence over smaller countries. It was the build-up of bad feelings, distrust, and tensions with one another that led to the beginning of the Cold War, and cannot truly be blamed on either country. This political war was the right to run a country - Russia was Communist and was trying to recruit more countries into its camp, whereas America was not, and very much feared the takeover of Communism, trying to free as many countries as it could and make them independant.