America and Russia had different Aims for Germany. Stalin wanted to destroy Germany, and was stripping East Germany of its wealth. Britain and America wanted to rebuild Germany’s industry in January 1947, they joined their two zones together into Bizonia. This had a big impact on both Sides sphere of influence because the USSR’s way of protecting their sphere of influence is to make Russia more powerful, by stripping Germany from their industrial resources, they are leaving Germany helpless while Russia can expand its industrial dominance. But when America interfered with the USSR’s plans they tried to help Germany by occupying Western Germany, this helped America’s sphere of influence because not only did they have control over germany, but they were able to convert West Germany to become a democratic country.
So United States had to change their policy in to Mutual Deterrence. This variation is representable one, because this one is a main policy during the rest of Cold War. This variation as known as ‘Mutually Assured Destruction’. This variation appeared with incensement of Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons. This variation’s definition is ‘Military theory of nuclear deterrence holding that neither side will attack the other if both sides are guaranteed to be totally destroyed in the conflict’.
For many years, The Cold War was the issue of a fierce debate regarding who or what exactly was the reason that caused it. On this subject, there are three schools of thought: the traditionalists, the revisionists and the post-revisionists. The traditionalists blame Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union’s expansionist and violent diplomacy for being the starters of the war. “Besides violating the agreements made at the Yalta Conference in February 1945, Stalin completely disregarded the United Nations because he intended to expand and dominate his sphere of influence in Eastern Europe.” (Nye 118). The revisionists kept insisting on blaming the American expansionism rather than the Soviet Union’s wish to spread communism into Eastern Europe.
To examine the Cold War consensus, one must discuss the Cold War. The Cold war was the tension between the United States, standing for capitalism, and the USSR, standing for totalitarianism and socialism, following World War II. Although it was not a physical war between the two superpowers, many proxy wars had came out of it as way to spread or combat communism throughout the Free World. The Free World, as the U.S. came to define it, did not necessarily mean free as countries were being ruled by military regimes and dictatorships, but free from communism(70). During the Cold War, the spread of communism frighted the American People.
Government officials agreed with the Espionage and Seditions Acts. The Acts were passed so that people could not say any statements that could interfere with the success of winning the war. People in the United States wanted to win the war, so they were willing to give up some of their rights. In 1918, Charles T. Schenck was convicted because he violated the Espionage Act. The Supreme Court said that “When a nation is at war many things which might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its efforts that their utterance will not be endured as long as men fight.” They upheld his conviction and sent him to prison.
Although Truman’s actions and the new ‘policies’ that he introduced were a major factor to the deterioration of America-Soviet relations, it is important to understand the pre-1945 factors that affected these relations. After World War I, European countries adopted an appeasement ideology: The world was horrified by what the war had done to Europe, and a war like that must never happen again, so peace must be protected at all costs. This led to many attempts to preserve peace in Europe, which ultimately failed as Germany invaded Poland and the world realized that another war was about to begin. However, one of the last agreements that the western countries signed with the Nazis might have been the start of the bad Soviet relations with these countries: the Munich agreement. This agreement said that Hitler was free to invade a portion of Czechoslovakia, as long as he went no further.
The reason why realism can only really be used as an explanation for war is that the growth of another state’s power can only be perceived as threatening, even if it is done so defensively. States in this international system bound by the constructs of realism are unable to take a passive approach towards the balance of power, and are therefore encouraged to seize opportunistically what they can when the opportunity arises. Moreover, in the climate of the Cold War this system created powerful incentives for aggression . In 1951 Morgenthau stated that the United States and Russia were at a point where they “Can advance and meet in what is likely to be combat, or they can retreat and allow the other side to advance into what to them is precious ground.” Indeed this is what happened in Europe during the Cold War, deadlock and a status quo maintained a peace whereby war was avoided at all costs. However in the Middle East wars between the US and Soviet Union were fought by proxy and influence was to be gained via alliances.
People in Germany were outraged. They did not believe that they should be treated inhumanely. They thought it was unfair to be responsible for the all stuff. The anger mood accumulated, many uprisings arose continuously. Adolf Hitler seized the opportunity to fix the demand of the public about emergence of a nation.
Overall realism offers two main arguments in its defence. First, realism predicts nations seeking to balance against the importance of another state that may develop nuclear capabilities to secure their own survival (Schweller, 2004). Few years back, North Korea had claimed that it holds nuclear weapons which may signal to another nation not to consider an attack against their authority (Schweller, 2004). Robert Jervis states, “Whatever these weapons can do, they can deter all out invasion, thus rendering them attractive to any state that fears it might be in the pentagons gun sights.” (Jervis, 2003) Realism’s emphasis on military power in this content is practical and realistic. Secondly, realists argue the inability or reluctance of states to balance against US hegemony is because states are either not in the position to balance or do not see the importance of balancing (Jervis, 2003) (Schweller, 2004).
For instance, Riddle reports, “…no one really knew how it would affect the people or the environment.” The US didn’t know what the atomic bomb could do, just that it would cause mass destruction. They could have been condemning the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to a hideous fate, but they dropped the bomb anyways. For a country that says they’re saving people, many of those people stilled ended up dying because of the US. In addition, “…almost 3,800 people (of 10,412) who had died from the blast or related to the blast, were found to have developed lung cancers” (Riddle). 3,800 people developed lung cancer because of the bomb.