The Truman Doctrine: The Causes Of The Cold War

The American War Against Fear World War II was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, in which it encompassed the major nations in the world, including the United States of America. The aftermath of the war, in which the United States and its allied powers emerged victorious, should have marked a period of political tranquility. However this supposition proved incorrect, as the American ethos was ravaged by a state of political and military tension between the United States and the Soviet Union. More than a military conflict, the Cold War was an ideological war in which democracy and communism clashed. The Cold War fears of the American people, reflected in the mass hysteria behind the Red Scare and McCarthyism, was entrenched in the

Russia’s gain of power throughout Eurasia showed off the USSR’s strength and abilities, threatening the Western Powers. The arms race caused tensions between the U.S. and USSR, bringing them closer to the brink

(History in Hiroshima) The meeting between them is very marked by the recriminations and the great suspicions between the Americans and the Soviets. The large Russian armies that were occupying most of Eastern Europe. “Truman and many of his advisers hoped that the United States atomic monopoly might offer diplomatic leverage with the Soviets.”(WWII Part 4) In this way, the explosion of the atomic bomb in Japan can be seen as the first of many shots of the Cold War. (The Hiroshima Bombing) If all US officials really believed that they could use their great atomic monopoly to gain more diplomatic advantage, they had very little time to put their plan into action and do it successfully. In 1949, the Soviets had developed their own atomic bomb and began the nuclear arms

Arthur Schlesinger Jr, states that ‘the Cold War in its original form was a presumably mortal antagonism, in the wake of the Second World War, between two rigidly hostile blocs (1967, 22).’ The quote embodies the power struggle that was played out between America and the Soviets during the post war era. Historians and theorists have been drawing from ideologies and different international world orders to help gain an accurate understanding of the origins of the Cold War. In a bipolar world, as described by Waltz, neither major power seeks approval with one another; they just have to cope with one another, however within great-power politics who is threatening who can create feelings of uncertainty between them and then a Cold War is born (1988, 622). The orthodox argument makes the claim that the United States was responding to the threatening nature of the USSR, despite trying to integrate

Many believed that communists were inciting rebellions in the form of labor unions in almost every state; focus shifted from the Red Scare when the need to focus on the war in Europe overpowered the supposed presence of a communist party. After World War II, tensions arose between Russia, then known as the USSR, and the United States. This tension and the events that followed came to be called the Cold War, one of its main events being the Second Red Scare. The Second Red Scare was more destructive than the first. During this Scare, the United States believed that it was constantly under attack from Communists, both from within and outside of the nation 's borders.

Communism in the Cold War "The seeds of totalitarian regimes are nurtured by misery and want, they spread and grow in the evil soil of the poverty and strife. They reach their full growth when the hope of a people for a better life has died. We must keep that hope alive." as said by Harry S. Truman on march 12, 1947 in The Truman Doctrine. While Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy all had the same same Cold War intention of ending communism, their ways of achieving their goal were different.The Cold War was an angry dispute between the United States and the Soviet Union about whether we should spread or contain communism (Ayres 817).

During the Cold War, hysteria in the U.S. ensued over the perceived threat of Communism. This mass hysteria became known as ‘The Red Scare’ due to Communist’s loyalty to the red flag. These fears were not totally unfounded, as the USSR had been spying inside America for a long time. The Red Scare became influential to world history by causing leaders to pass acts that would not have been passed otherwise that reduced the Communist Party to a shadow of its past self.. The Red Scare began after World War 2 had ended.

The United States entered the 20th century, as historian George C. Herring observed, “a great power, but not yet participant in the great-power system.” (Herring, 336) The United States began to assume a leading role in the great-power system when President Teddy Roosevelt offered to negotiate an end to the Russo-Japanese War. Beyond fulfilling Progressive Era visions of America’s role in the world, brokering the Treaty of Portsmouth allowed the United States to solidify its interests in the Pacific, and take a leading role in world affairs. Roosevelt welcomed a war between antagonists that each threatened U.S. interests in Asia and the Pacific. The United States feared Russian expansion into East Asia, and worried about Japanese interest in both Hawaii and the Philippines. The war served the dual purpose of checking Russian advances in East Asia, and redirecting Japanese expansion away from the Pacific region the U.S. hoped to dominate.

Furthermore, in “Day of Infamy”, Roosevelt states, “Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger” (Roosevelt 2), again making the listener believe that war is the only way to keep the United States safe from future attacks. In his “First Inaugural Address”, Roosevelt says, “Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen…” (Roosevelt 1). He states exactly what has happened to the American economy without providing his opinion, effectively using logos. However, this does not help to support his claim that the country is able to escape the

“The way we choose to see the world creates the world we see”(Barry Neil Kaufman). Different perspective lead humans to make decisions that lead to conflicts, such as the Cold War. The Cold War was a rivalry between the U.S.S.R (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) and the U.S.A(United States of America). Cold War had no direct military actions between the countries. Competing perspectives and human decisions led to violent conflicts throughout the 20th century.