The Cold War

Essay by MethodmanepUniversity, Bachelor'sA+, March 2003

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The Cold War was the strong tension between the Soviet Union and the United States of America. It started in the mid 40?s after WWII had left Europe in shambles and Russia and the USA in superpower positions. The Cold War was a clash of these leaders in political, military, and economic values and ideas. Though military build up was great on both sides neither one ever directly fought each other.

Germany had been thwarted in its plans of total domination. It had been a combined effort by all the Western powers and a few eastern powers too. England was devastated, France had been literally burnt to the ground, and many small nations had suffered economic failure. To the East Russia had suffered many losses from the vain siege of the Nazi?s. But they were in better shape then Europe. They still had a military and a running economy.

In the late 1940?s through early 1950?s the Soviet Union started to spread the Lenin ideological as it started moving in the Westward position. In 1947 the US started funding the rebuilding of European infrastructure in a system called the Marshall Plan. Russia in turn brought forth its own funding called the Molotov Plan. Because of that, they were able to spread communism through many countries. Some of these nations were Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Eastern Germany, and numerous countries in Southeastern Asia. But on the US side we had the support from almost the entire Western Europe. So the tension started, between Western Europe or a republic society and Eastern Europe and communism.

There are many key events that happened throughout the entire duration of the Cold War. The first main events that led up to the tension were the foreign aid policies. These policies were able...