Question about the Cold War?

Question

If the US during the Cold War joined forces with Russia - How would the world be different today ? Would there be a World Government ? Would there be only one leader ? Afterall its not like any country could pose a challenge to a unifed America and Russia at there highest .

No not homework . I finished college a year ago , this is just a question I ponder .

Answer 1

The United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics were the only two nations in the world that were based on an ideology. Not on a common ancestry, not fealty to a king or potentate, not affiiliated with a single religion. The basis of their difference lay in their economic models. That difference is what led to the Cold War in the first place. We invaded Soviet Russia in early 1918 under the pretext of guarding Allied munitions stored there after Soviet Russian signed a separate peace with Imperial Germany during World War Two. We never even extended diplomatic recognition to Soviet Russia until the 1930s. The suspicions about Soviet intentions after the Second World War was heightened after the Red Army drove westward against Nazi Germany and occupied all of the land driven over, including the eastern half of Germany. They looked on it as building a buffer zone between them and the nation (Germany) which had inflicted 32 million dead Russians and Soviet citizens in two world wars. We looked on it as communist expansion. We created NATO because of a fear of further westward expansion by the Soviets. They went on an arms race and formed the Warsaw military pact when we brought Germany into that NATO alliance.
It would have been an absolute miracle, given those circumstances, for the two entities to form an alliance. We were lucky that we even got approval of a few multilateral agreements. And, after the collapse of the USSR, we discovered what an absolute "house of mirrors" that Soviet military capability was. Tanks without internal climate controls and no spare parts logistical train. Nuclear powered submarines of pitifully inadequate shielding against radiation poisoning of the crews. A vaunted strategic rocket force whose missiles proved unable to launch simple satellites into orbit when post-Soviet Russia used them from Russian launch pads rather than the Cosmodrome in Khazakstan and the missiles splashed down into the Sea of Japan.
Sorry. I don't think the U.S. should have been put into a position to shore up such a weak ally.

Answer 2

The cold war is misnamed. There are many different ideas of what a cold war is including a war of words, many small skirmishes around the world, a war that nobody noticed, no direct fighting between two great powers. In fact, more people died in the Cold War than in WW1 and WW2. Also, the Cold War has no fixed beginning, middle or end. It just seems to rumble on. For countries where armies and large scale selling of armaments are necessary for the economy, the Cold War is big business (mentioning no names but rearrange SUA!)

Answer 3

The problem with an alliance between The Soviet Union and the US in the 50’s and 60’s would not have involved the people. The problem was with the respective governments.

Those of us on active duty knew in the early 60’s that Russians did not want to kill Americans; they wanted to…be…us. They didn’t envy us as people so much as wanting to have the freedom and opportunities we had. It was the governments which indulged themselves in their respective political assumptions that was the driving force behind the ‘cold war’.

I find that war between peoples is all too often the results of differences in management policy. Pure Communism is probably an OK system. I believe that Karl Marx gets the short stick when people confuse his ideas with the actual practice of people claiming to be communists.

The main thing wrong with Communism, as practiced, is that humans were involved. Generally, it is humans that mess any good idea; involve humans and you add an element that has the potential of guaranteed failure of the idea.

I prefer a system with much more freedom than we, in the US currently enjoy which, in my view, is beginning to look much more like Communism that it is supposed to. In the past, we, in the US have enjoyed much more personal freedom than we do now. Our system has proven more desirable and more functional than Communism. If the Russians could not make Communism work then how could anyone else on the planet succeed in doing so. China is obviously already non-communist; unfortunately, their government has not admitted this.

Our system, tainted as it is by the current group of incompetents currently trying their best to ruin our country, is the world champion. The system designed by the “Founding Fathers” is polluted by self interest, party agenda and general ignorance yet, it still has the potential to be saved. The effort by whomever takes over in Washington is going to be gargantuan and require the type of service envisioned by those altruistic “Founding Fathers’.

Our question appears to be…Can the Democrats do the job? It’s pretty obvious that Republicans have really damaged just about everything which made us a great country. I do not favor prison sentences for most Republicans since we should not legislate against avarice, self interest, incompetence and just plain refusal to learn something. We, as a free people, must reserve the right to act and BE stupid. This right should protect Republican politicians, religious fundamentalists and children.

The Russian people I have met have impressed me to the man/woman. I will include in this individuals formerly of the Spetsnaz, their elite force. As you point out, a close working relationship with the Russian people would be a really good thing for the US.

I have close personal experience with a particular Russian in the late 60's. This individual spoke more languages that I did and enjoyed a philosophical view that held Communism in contempt. This view was borne out as correct and logical.

Just my opinion, of course.

Jim D

Answer 4

Well, in the ideal world, I'd have to say we'd have peace.

I truly believe that the Cold War was something trumped up and marketed by US politicians and men (yes, men, not women) of power. There was tremendous fear in the US after the revolution in Russia that communism would spread to the US, and to put a damper on that and keep it from spreading here, the was an emormous campaign against Russia and communism. Thus it's become part of the American psyche to equate communism with "bad" and we react, like Pavlov's dogs, every time we hear it. Just read some of the above answers, most of the US has been conditioned that way. IMO & I'm just a bleeding heart liberal

Answer 5

More like Eastern half and western half. (World ownership) My suggestion read 1984. It is an excellent book , it is based off the theory that there are 3 ruling governments controlling the world. But to keep the peace. No civilian is allowed to know about the other 2 Governments. Now apply Russian Iron curtain tactics and American propaganda tactics during the Cold war.

Answer 6

My best hypothesis to this question is 2 powerful countries hell bent on power and control. Only 1 winner. But to achieve that winner would mean the annihilation of the loser. But since most countries are tied together by the big central banks from Europe, they'd fund both sides, since they'd make a profit from either one.

So I guess to best answer the question at hand, time to reread history and make a guesstimate of what a possible outcome could be...

Answer 7

The Cold War was a struggle between the United States along with its Western allies against the Soviet Union along with its puppet states. It is highly unlikely that the United States and the Soviet Union would have found any common ground for such an alliance. After visiting the Soviet Union in 1968 to better improve relations between the two superpowers, Richard Milhouse Nixon went to China in 1969 to open up relations and demonstrate to the Soviets that we never considered the head of their movement. China was at war with the Soviet Union at that time and it is believed that His visits in 1968 and 1969 helped to defuse the situation between the two countries.

Answer 8

what if pigs could fly? That is the most off the wall question. I guess that the US and the USSR would have split up the world then challenged each other. Like a game of risk. The USSR's whole purpose was world domination, so ......

Answer 9

I can't imagine a single thing the US and USSR could have agreed upon in order to seal and maintain such an arrangement. It took Hitler and Nazi Germany to keep them allied during WWII.

Answer 10

are you doing your homework?

if the US had joined with the USSR during the cold war, then there would be massive internal conflict within the unified empire. Soviet ideologies are almost nothing like american ideologies. it would be like most video games. one big empire and one huge rebel army just waiting to take it over