Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Who Is To Blame For The Cold War?
The Cold War was started in equal parts by the US and the USSR. There was much contention on both ends even before World War II, having a lot to do with their opposing views. One factor to starting it on the US part was Containment. They blatantly opposed the communists, trying to keep communism from spreading, which could have rubbed the wrong way with Russia. Also, with the Marshall Plan, it gave aid to the European countries on the Western side of Europe, opposite of Russia. Then on the USSR's part, they tried to threaten Western Europe and the US with the Berlin Airlift of 1948-49. When the other nations wanted to unite Germany, they wanted to keep it separate, so they blocked off Berlin, and cut off all supply lines. The other nations stumped their attempt though, by flying in and giving supplies to the citizens, eventually causing Russia to end the blockade. Both the US and the USSR in equal parts were responsible for the beginning of the Cold War.
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I think that the Cold War was caused by the Soviet communist rule and their hunger for power. If Russia had stayed out of trouble after Nazi Germany had fallen then there would have not been anymore bloodshed in the country. But Stalins thirst for power forced him to spread communism among neighboring nations and gaining support from them. Although some of these nations failed to worship him as a leader, he still had enough power to take over anything. However, the US could have somehow been at fault for causing the Cold War because if they had accepted that communism could stand alone and not be stopped then none of the battles would have occurred. The whole "containment" plan triggered the Soviets to further spread the communism word and make it harder for the US to get stop them. So all in all Russia may have been about 75% at fault while the US would make the 25% left.
ReplyDeleteI think that an important question to raise is what would have happened if either side had not pushed the other into the Cold War? The Soviet Union was so fixed on protecting their homeland and spreading their ideas of communism that they eventually pushed the United States too far, which caused them to rebuttal these actions with a policy of containment. Would the Cold War have happened if the Soviets hadn't felt the need to expand in the first place? Or if America didn't feel inclined to carry out containment?
ReplyDeleteI feel like the Cold war was almost unavoidable and inevitable to happen. The US thought the USSR was trying to spread communism, and they couldn't let this happen, while the USSR thought the US was trying to rid the world of communism. Stalin also such a strict communist view that there was no way avoiding the USSR to try to expand communism and because of this, the US had to have used the policy of containment to stop Stalin. So even though there were many things the US and USSR could have done better, I think that because they had such different opinions the Cold War was bound to happen.
DeleteI agree that the two were equally responsible.
ReplyDeleteI think both countries are to blame for the cold war, its not all the Soviet Union, and not all the US, the USSR was trying to protect itself, yet it was the US who reacted to negatively to it, Megan brings up a good point: Would the Cold War have happened if the Soviets hadn't felt the need to expand in the first place? Or if America didn't feel inclined to carry out containment?
ReplyDeleteI think both countries were to blame for the war, but more in a 75% Soviet to 25% US ratio, rather than 50/50. The Soviet Union was more of an activist than the US. The US mainly worked to stop the Soviet Union's outbreak of communism while the Soviets were creating it.
ReplyDeletedefinitely both sides were to be blamed. They both didnt like each other and they both tried to either push communism or capitalism away. I could argue that the u.s. was very secretive and did try to maintain their power by being as powerful causing the soviets to become suspicious. However, the soviets were also too paranoid which led them to do actions that made the Americans displeased with them. The soviets were so afraid of being attacked again so they did do actions that they thought would give them safety. Both sides ultimately did have the same goal but they both didn't communicate well so they are both responsible.
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