Introduction
Most people understand that the cold war an era that was viewed as being a very traumatic time for the United States and other nations from all over the world. With the fear of communism increasing, it was very significant for the United States of America to make sure it did not expand further, but at the same time avoiding and unnecessary conflict with the Soviet Union. The United States main fear was what they called the “Domino Affect”. (Maus) This theory means that if countries start falling to communist powers, others would too. Because of this fear, United States entered in Wars for instance the Korean War and the Vietnam War (Cunningham). During the course of the Cold War era, the United States of America got rid of its old-style approaches of staying out people’s business, and worked on making peace. The United States assisted these nations in military and economic support. During 1947, the United States of America approved the Marshall plan, which provided nations of western and Eastern Europe 17 billion dollars. (Copilas) With that said, this essay will discuss the key successes and failures, during the 1950s & 1960s cold war.
How did it all start?
The start of the cold war has been discussed so many different times, however. There tons of historians which think it was when Winston Churchill, British Prime Minster, mentioned that the first parts of the cold war made its debut when Britain was not able to help Greece stay as democratic nation. This is when President Harry S. Truman requested congress for 500 million dollars to assist these nations, which finished the United States of America’s separation from the rest of world and turned the United States into a nation that was pro-active in fighting for democracy. With this help, Greece put an end to communism in their nation. (Schwartz, jerry pg 47)
American foreign policy successful in containing communism.
The United States was a remarkable attainment at covering communism after 1945, given that one considers achievement as not deteriorating to communism itself. Many make the point, however, that the amount of achievement we need to anticipate is the isolation of communism to its’ constituent early member, the Soviet Union. However, after World War II when president Nixon came to power, the US did failed to stop the growth of communism to any effectiveness. The entire of Eastern Europe collapsed to communism(Copilas). The greatest populated nation on the face of Earth, China, sunk into communism and taking N. Korea and Vietnam along with them, and making the nations of Laos and Cambodia quasi-communist(Maus). After that the United States even added a communist satellite some 100 miles out of its’ borders, Cuba. It is obvious that American was about to operate alone (Zeiler).
Successful Soviet aggression in Greece and Turkey
Soviet aggression in Turkey and Greece turned out to be the first major event that would push America to respond to Soviet action. Truman, in 1947, encountered this hostility with the Truman Doctrine(Cunningham). The Truman Doctrine, transported to a combined meeting of Congress, was essentially an open pact to any group eager to stand in contradiction of communism, assuring them military and economic help.
This was the start of American labors at containment, an idea cooked up by State Department. member George Frost Kennan. This is also the start of an awkward an unparalleled sequence of foreign policy bloopers on behalf of the United States(Copilas). The Truman Doctrine later on would be used to “defend” shady movements in Vietnam, Cuba, and Korea.
Future Success in Containment
American containment was supported by previous efforts to combine the Western democratic influences contrary to the extent of Red. America tried its best with containment but of course it was not easy, the beginning stages were simple because it was just after World War II. Winston gave a speech during 1946 heartening active actions to curb communism, and circumvent a third world war. He talked of an “Iron Curtain,” the dangerous parting of West and East Europe where no one was able to see in or out. This mentality donated significantly to the fear of the Cold War. The United States was likewise capable of endorsing and affiliaring with the NATO; this was looked at as big step in curbing communism (Copilas).
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, as talked about, was made up of the United States and the major W. European powers. The treaty distributed for communal defense of the associate countries, and looked at as an attack against. This likewise gave a presidential escape for military interference by America in any distant fight without Congress announcing war (Zeiler). Unluckily, this boomeranged, and in place of discouraging communist growth, forced a distrustful Soviet Union to stretch its’ democratic muscles. In 1955, to counteract the buildup of the NATO, the USSR put together a similarly multinational association with Eastern European states (Cunningham).
The Warsaw Pact, which it was known, basically shredded all of Eastern Europe in the Iron Curtain. Bulgaria, E. Germany, Poland, Romania, and numerous others were now simply puppet countries held by the Grand Puppeteer which is Russia (Cunningham). In one fell jump the Soviet Union increased nearly as much land as Hitler or Napoleon; nonetheless without there being a war. America’s impression of a joint exertion at the containment of Communism had rebounded into a joint growth of communism (Cooke).
The Re-Drawing of Boundaries
The U.S was successful at re-drawing of boundaries. All of this took place when the war ended, United States came on board with the idea with redrawing of boundaries all over the world. Korea, was one of those nations they were successful at when it came down to this because the nation was alienated at the 38th parallel then the Russians were able to have it the north and the United States would grab the south. The Soviets then pulled out of North Korea in 1950, and they became communist (Maus). Next, The United Nations led the United States) was successful with coming up with an army to get rid of the aggressors.
The “conflict” lasted for about three whole years and victory swapped hands twice before the bloodied United States recognized a fire zone where there would be no firing. A lot of people could say that communism in this situation was positively contained, on the other hand, the loss of 60,000 American lives in a unproductive effort to collapse a government is barely seen as a victory (Zeiler). Even currently, people look down on the United States for losing this war against communism for the reason that they believe it was useless in the first place.
Vietnam the Start of the Failures
A related nevertheless more upsetting failure of the United States would take place in Vietnam. Vietnam professed freedom from France in 1945, but the French did not identify it. For 8 years there was a huge war of fighting and then in 1954 a decision came to split the nation in two, South Vietnam led by the Vietnamese who sustained the the nation to become communist (Zeiler). In 1963, Diem, who was the South Vietnamese leader died, instigating the U.S. to begin their journey of sending over American troops and their job would to and put down communism. The U.S would be sent over and try to support the non-Communist administration that was going on in the South, in contract with the Truman Doctrine.
The resulting brawl would show to be the most excruciating and long overthrow of the American armed forces in history. Battling a traditional war in a rebel situation and the resolve that we could win the war without widespread establishment of the South Vietnamese were two significant origins of their failure. During this war, the causality for the United States had lost a lot of men in this war. The United Stated suffered a loss of something like 68,000 dead along with 400,000 that were causality from the S. Vietnamese allies (Kim). It was during 1973, when the United States first begins pulling out their troops. They started to withdraw their troops, because basically they were not doing well in the war. By the time it had reached 1976, every part of Vietnam fell up under the rule by the Communist North. Later, Vietnam would inhabit Cambodia and Laos to become part of an Asian Soviet bloc.
Failed at Stopping Expansion
The United States did not do a very good job of stopping the expansion. The increase of communism to the disgrace of the United States did not go away, even when the Korean Conflict was over. It also did not even mean much about the establishment of the Warsaw Pact because it did not stop expansion. However, in 1959, the government of Cuba began going in the direction of communism which would be led by Fidel Castro and his government. The formation of communism which was just not more than 100 miles outside of the United States was attained by a huge cluster of guerrilla soldiers (Zeiler). The American mechanism of democracy was reluctant in trying to do much in helping the matter, either for dread that communism would spread to the United States or they would not have enough power to stop the spread of it to other Cubans. Either way, this apparently would eventually come back to haunt them, in both the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Bay of Pigs fiasco (Copilas).
The United States government, understanding the issue Castro’s Cuba could be, premeditated a verbatim application of the Truman Doctrine. The Bay of Pigs was presented and “equipped” by the Eisenhower administration. When John F. Kennedy came to power, the plan appeared rather an eye-catching display of inspiration to the new administration. Even though the plans themselves were not entirely prearranged and the timeframe was awful, JFK throughout the CIA structured the implementation of the process. On Apr. 17, 1961, a private army of around 2000 Cuban émigrés landed in the Bay of Pigs(Maus). The strategy boomeranged as the émigrés were trapped and gunned down cruelly; American air support never reached. Containment was once again ruined (Zeiler).
Failure at stopping Cold War from Breaking Out
There was other unfortunate failure that United Sates got caught up in. About a year later, the “chilliest” time of the Cold War broke out, once more in communist Cuba. The Soviet Union was working with Fidel to come up with a plan to station nuclear weapons on the island of Cuba(Kim). The plan was to get the missiles in Cuba so that they could position them against the United States in case of an attack. The assortment of these missiles was about 3,000 miles, enough to annihilate every part of the eastern coast of the United States, Washington DC, Miami, Houston and Dallas (Cunningham).
It was only after there had been a U2 flight that went over the island that apprehended the Soviets in the middle of building storage tower was the United States as a final point became aware of what was going on. However, on October 22, JFK made an announcement that involved what was called at the time “quarantine” (blockade) of Cuba (Zeiler). The president went on to explain that any further efforts to try and arm Cuba would be considered to be an act of war necessitating a full reciprocal strike of the United States nuclear store.
However, research shows that this was the nearest the world had ever come to the much-wondered Dooms Day. It was obvious that the United States had failed at trying to keep peace with Cuba. They had failed at trying to get any type of relations going to even negotiate. However, the “Assured Mutual Annihilation,” as it was recognized officially by the Pentagon, was some say merely 6 minutes from arrival at the altitude of the Crisis. Now, on October 28, the Soviet dictator named Nikita Khrushchev decided that it would probably be Bes to “back down” from the chaos and then go ahead and remove the silos from Cuba(Kim). Later on, by revelation it would be revealed that Khrushchev did not really do any kind of backing down like it might have been played out in the media. Many are not even aware of the mysterious meetings that occurred behind closed doors that involved this hidden plan. The world was unaware that they had already come up with a huge plan.
The United States covertly made the arrangement to take out similarly linked Jupiter missiles from Turkey for the exchanged removal of Cuban stations. However, the United States was successful when it came down to the Cuban Missile Crisis because it did turn out to be a publicity triumph for the United States and a hidden setback to containment. So it can probably be looked at as a double edge sword. It worked to the benefit of them in one way and then again it kind of backfired in another.
Conclusion
In the end, it is clear that there were some achievements and some failures during the cold war. It could be mentioned that the failures probably outweighed the achievements. With everything being said and done, the United States appeared to have emerged victorious in the end regardless, with the Soviet Union collapsing and the containment of Communism. It was actually vital for the United States to assist nations in defending democracy and the doing things like helping then to stand up to the powerful and intimidating Soviet Union. For the reason that the United States took such a strong standpoint on communism, nations like South Korea were capable to relish the liberties of living in a democracy.
Work Cited
Cooke, B. (2006). The cold war origin of action research as managerialism cooptation. Human Relations, 59(5), 665-693.
Copilas, E. (2009). Within and after the cold war: Europe's struggling role and position inside the global security matrix. Studia Universities Babes-Bolyai.Studia Europaea, 54(1), 5-26.
Cunningham, J. (2009). Warming up to the cold war. International Journal, 64(4), 1150-1153.
Kim, S. (2012). The other cold war. Journal of World History, 23(2), 485-487.
Maus, D. C. (2011). Cinematic cold war: The American and soviet struggle for hearts and minds. Choice, 48(6), 1088-1088.
Zeiler, T. W. (2010). College football and American culture in the cold war era. The Journal of Southern History, 76(4), 1068-1069.
