The United States envisioned to avoid soviet expansion, but democratic idealism instead. The United States gave military aid to prevent soviet expansion. Each thought that their own language, views, and ideologies were the only valuable and worthy visions. Initially, the United States mistrusted the Soviet Union after World War I for taking Russia out of the war, opposed of a communist driven state, and did not trust the soviets as an ally of Nazi Germany. Soviets distrusted Americans because of the delayed attack on Germany.
The democratic countries did not want Communism to spread to their countries and threaten their democracy. NATO, was made to defend countries from the Soviet Union taking over their nation, and the Truman Doctrine, the United States would help other countries affected by the Soviet Union spreading Communism, were created to stop Communism, which also caused the Soviet Union to also be afraid. The Soviet Union is not advanced as the United States, since, “The technology of war had changed, and Stalin’s simple response was to want the USSR to stay abreast of the transformation… In foreign policy, he felt nervous about the USA’s ambitions” (Service 301). The Soviet Union is worried about what the United States are capable of and what they want, which is to stop Communism. USSR taking over Eastern Europe and spreading Communism allows them to get resources from the European countries and protect themselves from the Western front.
If the policy of containment was purely humanitarian, it would be expected that the actions of all US agencies would follow this ethos. However, this is not the case. Perhaps the best example of this would be the CIA’s assistance in a royalist coup in Iran resulting in the expulsion of its then Prime Minister. The coup was primarily organized in reaction to the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry as well as fear of Iran joining the Soviet Bloc. This is a clear example of the dubious nature of facets of the containment policy, after all, there is a strong argument that the coup was arranged in order to secure American access to resources as opposed to halt the advance of communist ideology.
The tensions between the U.S. and the USSR after WWII had gradually increased towards a Cold War period. This period without actual fighting had a significant impact on America’s attitude towards the situation in Vietnam. Losing Vietnam to communism would not only threaten the world it would also, maybe more importantly, expose America’s weakness. Whereas the orthodox interpretation praises America for its bravery in their fight to save the world from communism, revisionist’s historians see the Vietnam War as a futile small factor in the larger Cold War Context and criticize America’s actions as aggressive and acquisitive. (21)6America would have the desire to shape the world in its own ideal image.
Due to the U.S. worrying about the Soviets’ plans on spreading communism, they centered their foreign policy on the containment of communism, both home and abroad. By having this policy in control, the U.S. was determined that it would at least prevent communism from spreading in other parts of Asia since it already started a war in the
However, once the geopolitical intentions of the US and China were made clear, the USSR turned towards pursuing their own Cold War interests. The Indo-Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship, and Cooperation signed in August 1971, aimed to counter the Chinese influence in the region whilst spreading Soviet ideologies. This signing was a strategic tactic for the Soviets to achieve their Cold War goals. This pro-India tilt represents the fact that the USSR faced the inevitable compliance to pursue Cold War interests, dismissing the responsibility to act on the international norm. It was inevitable as This is why the conflict can be seen as a proxy war.
The realization of nuclear war, in many ways, was a wake up call for America, the Soviets and the world. Certainly, both countries contributed to the causes of the Cuban Missile crisis, but it is hard to argue that both superpowers anticipated such a crisis. The nationalization of American Companies, the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the discovery of suspected missiles in Cuba by US spy planes were the main contributors to the Cuban Missile crisis. Luckily for the two superpowers, they were able to come to an agreement in which Khrushchev proposed to destroy his nuclear capabilities if America withdrew their missiles from Turkey. If this had not been reached, the picture today would be bleak.
However, he had the other face of strong opponent of nuclear weapons. And he had a passion to grasp real Soviet Union because he believed mutual understanding will solve problems between United States and Soviet. However, for Soviet people, the former image was so strong that mutual understanding was difficult. What is more, Reagan was incoherent person. It deepened suspicion not only in Soviet Union president but also among the U.S. community.
The spread of communist ideals was the main cause of The Cold War; the political and economical differences between the Soviet Union and the United States of America created high tension between such countries. As a capitalist country, United States wanted to promote democracy and free markets, while communist USSR wanted to make sure that the communist ideals spread all over the world. After World War II ended, the Soviets created a sphere of influence in which they established communist governments in several other countries. This angered and worried a lot the United States so they created the Containment policy and formed NATO to try to stop the spread of Communism. In return, the USSR formed the Warsaw Pact to formalize military relations with its allies and spread communism in third-world countries.
A treacherous race of terror started soon after the decision was materialized. Some critics are of the opinion that Japanese were ready to surrender and that the decision of dropping atomic bombs was utterly pointless. Militarists view it as discrimination on the basis of ethnicity as no such violent act has ever been committed against white people. On the other hand, the diplomats of America had clandestine objectives. In order to contain the Soviets, the atomic bomb was used to deliver a message that they should not underestimate the Americans, who are capable of defending themselves and can go to any extent in order to preserve their sovereignty.