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Cold War Essay, Research Paper

Cold War

In the post World War II era, a war arose between the Soviet Union and the

United States, but in reality there was never really any documented fighting between the

two nations, thus spawning the catch phrase Cold War. Even though both countries

were ready to go to war at the blink of an eye and almost did, the powers-that-be never

got the nerve to authorize a nuclear war that would have made World War II look like

child s play. This was a war fought in the political ring, and was also a war that did not

start at the end of World War II, this war started during the war against Hitler and lasted

for forty more years before peace became predominant over the crumbling Soviet Union.

Many events occurred in this political heavyweight bout, and both sides can be blamed

for the extremity the tensions escalated to, and this Cold War would have been tough to

avoid taking into account the political beliefs of the countries at hand.

During the war, once the Allied powers from the west joined forces with Stalin s

Red Army, trouble was inevitable. Luckily for the world, America had a great leader and

foreign diplomat in Franklin D. Roosevelt while England countered with Winston

Churchill. This duo created a steady working relationship with Stalin, thus creating the

Big Three and the Grand Alliance. Even though it was far from a perfect relationship, all

three diplomats realized the task at hand, the mandate of stopping Adolph Hitler and the

Nazi regime of Germany. Sadly, this priority overwhelmed the Big Three, and no

solution was ever conjured up on how to handle the Post-War situation in Europe and

Asia following an Allied victory. Understandably, stopping Hitler was far from

guaranteed, but any plan that was taken by the Allies in Europe never even considered

the implications of how to handle the war-torn countries of Eastern Europe afterwards,

an area that the Soviets had suffered many casualties and other losses to free from facist

control. The few problems with Churchill and Roosevelt is that they both tended to do

things their own way, sometimes leaving Stalin out to dry, and also relied heavily on their

own diplomatic skills, leaving other politicians out of the foreign policy matters for each

country. While many United States Government officials were not fans of Stalin, they all

realized the urgency in having him on their side of the fight. In reality, no one in the

government knew how to handle Stalin except for Roosevelt, which creates one of the

first major events of the Cold War: the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. With

Roosevelt dying, the foreign policy of the United States was about to do a complete 180

in reverse. Suddenly, all the cabinet and legislative members have a significant role in

the diplomatic world, a world they had previously been shut out of for over a decade. In

the middle lies a man who had not a clue about what he was getting himself into. Harry

Truman was about to get in way over his head, and absolutely being Roosevelt s fault,

Truman was about to get into a situation he was almost completely unfamiliar with. Poor

Truman had been briefed but only once in the matters involving the war, and the

decisions he was about to make would shape the world forever. With Roosevelt being a

pacifist with Stalin, a decent working relationship evolved between the two, and some

glimmer of hope can be seen to this day about what could have happened if Roosevelt

did not die and kept up the good standing with Russia. Imagining Stalin s reaction after

the Yalta Conference with Roosevelt to that of the Potsdam Conference just months after

Roosevelt s death with Truman at the helm being very aggressive towards Communism

in Eastern Europe is almost comical, if the severity of the situation is not understood.

This must be noted as one of the building blocks of the Cold War with Russia, because

this marks the official point where America s stance towards Stalin and Communism

changes drastically and the time where Truman begins his diplomatic journey with the

forces in the Soviet Union, one that will engulf him for the rest of his tenure in office.

This also must be noted as being America s fault. A country s attitudes cannot visually

and verbally change so radically so quickly. Roosevelt should have briefed Truman

heavily on dealing with Stalin. America could stay on Stalin s good side, leaving some

remote chance of having a settlement work itself out after the war. An angry Stalin is

much harder to reason with than a content Stalin, especially taking into consideration that

he was absolutely insane, something you can t play with carelessly.

The next event that shaped the world s history and marked the official beginning

of the Cold War was the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. After talking with

Russia and getting their consent on joining the war on Japan, the United States again acts

wrong and hastily by dropping a device that blew up the city of Hiroshima. The

agreement was with Russia that on August 8th, the Soviet Union would declare war on

Japan. Taking this into account, the United States went ahead and dropped the bomb on

August 6th, two days before. In another bold and careless move, the second bomb was

dropped on Nagasaki. This bomb was dropped before the Japanese even received an

ultimatum from the United States about an unconditional surrender before they will

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