causes of the cold war
H. W. Brands claims that, " the burden of responsibility for the cold war rested on the United States, the more powerful of the two countries, and the one with less to fear from the other." (The Devil We Knew: Americans and the Cold War, 1993) This statement stems from the idea that America had no evidential basis for a foreign policy that called for a containment of Soviet expansion. Brands is claiming that the US had less to fear because an aggressive foreign force did not surround them. However, America did have a sense of fear. A fear that America's way of life and prosperity was being challenged by a foreign power who's aim was to undermine all that America had worked for over the last 150 years. A fear that America's domestic economy would crumble without movement into foreign markets. I would ask Mr. Brands at what point is fear a justification for protecting one's own interests. A question I grant is open to debate. Now it is true that the Soviet Union, after four long years of fighting, could not sustain a costly economic push into the foreign markets of Eastern Europe without fully controlling those markets. It is true that America was far from falling under a grass roots socialist revolut
Moscow saw capitalism and the US as aggressive expansionists, who trample over the worker to gain wealth. The problem stemmed from two diametrically opposed economic and political theories. All these behind the scene workings proved to be deadly in the 1960's. Stalin also believed firmly in the balance-of-power theory that had ruled European diplomacy since the French revolution. Yet they continued a set of policies that was purely anti-Communist for it's own sake. The limited evidence they had access to did point to a Soviet expansionist threat. All this leads to a lessening in the public sphere of Cold War conflict. They saw a threat to their way of life as well. Despite their achievement as the first to reach space with Sputnik, they were well behind the west in improving domestic living standards, working conditions, and other non-military technology. His public allowing of Senator McCarthy to continue his domestic attacks on supposed Communist sympathizers led to an increased fear in the American psyche against Communism. In 1952 however, a major change in American policy toward the Cold War occurred. They were loosing ground in the Middle East and other areas.
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Acceptance Essays
