Cold War
The Cold War was an important period in United States history. Beginning right after World War II ended, there was a continual sense of tension between the United States and Russia until the 1980's. The United States, along with other Western European nations, wanted to keep the Soviet Union from gaining any more territory in Eastern Europe. Many people felt that the United States, along with other nations, had already let the Russians go too far in their quest for expansion. Winston Churchill stated in his speech "The Sinews of Peace" that, "...an iron curtain has descended across the [European] Continent" (Churchill). Truman, the president of the United States during the beginnings of the Cold War, wanted to avoid another conflict that could lead to a global war, since the world was just recovering from World War II. Truman applied a policy of containment that allowed him to keep the Soviets from expanding any further across the European and Asian continents, but allowed Stalin, the leader of Soviet Russia, to keep the land that he had already acquired. According to one scholar, "The Cold War came to be seen as a process in which two rival powers were expanding, not by direct confrontation, but by subtle means, at differe
Even before World War II was over, the "Arms Race" began. General Douglas MacArthur was the commander of the United Nations forces in this region and he tried incredibly hard to keep the Communists out of South Korea. Communism already had infected North Korea, so the rest of the world thought that Russia had every intention to take over the rest of Korea too. This belief that Communism was a monolithic power was eventually dismissed, but not until much further into the Cold War. It was later found that Russia was not trying to take over the world, and that they did not endorse Communist revolutions in other countries such as in Vietnam, China, and North Korea. In the United States, missile silos were being secretly constructed in various parts of the country and the hydrogen bomb was secretly being developed. In addition, Sputnik, a Russian satellite, was put into orbit and many, if not all, Americans new that Sputnik had the capabilities to launch an atomic bomb at the United States from space. As one will see throughout many of the Cold War conflicts, Russia was not involved in the take over of Korea, thus proving that Russia did not want to conquer the world. Although there would not be any true military confrontations between the United States and the Soviet Union, both countries kept a watchful eye on one another. The United States was the first nation to uncover the secret of the atomic bomb, however the Russians eventually learned the secrets of the atomic bomb. However many of the Vietnamese people whom the United States were supposed to be protecting, did not want the United States there. The Vietnam War was not truly a war because there was never a declaration of war by Congress. They thought that Russia was trying to create communist revolutions in other countries around the globe in order to expand their empire.
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Acceptance Essays
