what was the cold war?

Answer 1

There are five main points to the Cold War:

For the purpose of simplification, the Soviet Union = Russia and Allies. Allies = U.S., U.K., France, ect...

The Cold War was not actually a war in which bullets were fired or bombs were dropped. It was more of a political and economic standoff between the U.S. and Soviet Union detailed below. Although the U.S. and Soviet Union never actually fought each other directly, they did so indirectly all over the world. The Soviet Union armed countries such as North Korea when they invaded South Korea, while the U.S. fought the North Koreans. Although we were not actually fighting Soviet Troops, we fought against their weapons. We did the same thing. The Soviets went to war in Afghanistan in the early 80's. The U.S. supplied their enemies in Afghanistan. These are only two examples of what happened repeatedly throughout the Cold War. Your five main points are outlined below.

1. The Cold War was a conflict in which the Soviet Union and United States competed for global hegemony. During World War II the Soviet Union and United States were allied against Nazi Germany (not because we liked each other, but because we both saw Hitler as the bigger threat). Following WWII Germany as we know it today was split in to East and West Germany. The Soviet Union occupied and controlled everything east of and including East Germany. Everything west of and including West Germany remained allied with the United States and remained free. Arguments over what Europe would look like after WWII was a large part of what the Cold War was about. The allies wanted a unified economically strong Germany as a trading partner. The Soviets wanted Germany to be fragmented and weak. If Germany became strong again, they might invade Russia again.

2. The Soviet Union transformed the countries in eastern Europe in to what are called "Satellite States." The Soviets had been invaded by western Europe numerous times in the past (Napoleon, WW1, WW2) and wanted to protect their borders. The Satellite States acted as a buffer zone. If someone decided they wanted to invade the Soviet Union, they would have to go through the Satellite states first, absorbing most of the attack and damage. In addition to the creation of Satellite States, the Soviets tried to export communism to other regions of the world. The U.S. obviously did not want communism to spread, because the U.S. was very anti-communist. Not only did communism not contain representative government, which was what we have always believed in, but it also took away basic freedoms of the people. The Soviets believed that communism would spread all over the world, therefore they supplied and aided communist revolutions, namely in Korea, China, Cuba, ect...

3. The United States wanted to contain communism. We did not want it to spread outside the Soviet Union. We provided economic aid in the form of the Marshall Plan to western Europe to keep their economies strong, and communism unattractive. In addition, we supplied Greece and Turkey against communist insurgents. We pledged to always help countries remain free of communism, no matter where they were in the world. This became known as the Truman Doctrine, otherwise known as containment. Containment meaning we wanted to "contain" communism and keep it from spreading. The Korean War is a good example of containment in action. When North Korea invaded South Korea, we aided South Korea in an effort to keep it free. We also had this theory known as "the domino theory." The domino theory stated that if one country fell to communism, one by one, other countries in the region would as well.

4. The U.S. wanted to keep the world free, so it would have markets for trade. (Make money). The Soviets wanted to export communism all over the world. This basic disagreement is the very essence of the Cold War.

5. The Arms Race. We got our first nuclear weapons in 1945. We had a Nuclear Monopoly and no one else dared stand up to the U.S. The Soviets got their Nukes in 1949. All of the sudden the U.S. and the Soviets had the ability to destroy each other. This idea became known as M.A.D. (Mutually Assured Destruction). If one country launched it's nukes at the other, the other would launch it's own nukes back. Both countries would be destroyed, so starting a nuclear war would be pointless because both countries would be destroyed. This is probably why nuclear war never occured (although it almost did several times, most notably during the Cuban Missile Crisis, in which the Soviets placed their own nuclear weapons in Cuba, 90 miles from the Florida coast). None the less, the U.S. and Soviets raced to build the biggest, best, and most weapons.

That's pretty much it. Hope it answered your question. I don't know of any good Cold War sites on the internet, but I would reccomend www.wikipedia.org. I wouldnt trust the actual facts in it, but to get a good idea about what the Cold War is about, it could help you out. Good luck.

Answer 2

The Cold War was the period of conflict, tension and competition between the United States and the Soviet Union and their allies from the mid 1940s until the early 1990s. Throughout the period, the rivalry between the two superpowers was played out in multiple arenas: military coalitions; ideology, psychology, and espionage; military, industrial, and technological developments, including the space race; costly defense spending; a massive conventional and nuclear arms race; and many proxy wars.

Answer 3

te Cold War was a bunch of middle aged men flapping their "man hood" around the globe in the hopes that everyone thought they were the biggest....

or in technical terms - the war between democracy and communism that never actually had a battle.