what was the cold war?

Question

what was the cold war and how did spuntnik change it?

Answer 1

~The cold war was not a war. It was a contest primarily between the US and USSR for global political and economic domination. It was a contest between political and economic ideologies and it was 'fought' by propaganda in the press and with dollars and rubles in the marketplace. Other contestants were Western Europe and the former British Empire on the one side against Eastern Europe and China on the other. Pawns and puppets included the Middle East, Israel and Africa. One direct consequence is that residents of Washington DC got the right to vote for president in 1961 (with the ratification of the 23rd Amendment) and the right to have a mayor and city council (District of Columbia Home Rule Act) in 1973.

The Cold war got hot a few times, notably in Korea, in Vietnam and in Cuba particularly, and came close to getting very hot (as in nukes) in Berlin, Cuba, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and, had Barry Goldwater been elected in 1964, in Vietnam. The Cold War gave Robert McNamara the soap box he needed to create MAD (mutually assured destruction) and to begin the enormous drain on both the American and Soviet economies to build sufficient missiles and warheads to destroy the world several times over. The cost of the arms race would eventually break the back of the Soviet Union. You must be very young to not know any of this.

Sputnik didn't change anything. Sputnik did prove that the German scientists the Soviets took after WWII were probably better than the ones the US took. It proved the US was far behind the USSR in space and missile technology and added a new layer of fear to the nuclear nightmare. If the Soviets could put a beach ball in space (it was only 58 cm in diameter and weighed only 83.6 kg; by contrast, Little boy weighed 4000 kg) they could put a bomb in space that might be big enough to take out a baseball diamond in Central Park. The US wouldn't catch up in the space race for a decade, until after JFK promised to put a man on the moon before the decade (the 60's) was out and Lee Oswald martyred him in Dallas and gave LBJ and Congress the incentive to follow through with the promise.

Sputnik simply accelerated and intensified the US space and missile program, offshoots of which were the development of computers, the PC and the internet - but all those technological advances were coming in any event. Sputnik also inspired the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations to realize the deficiencies in US education and to promise to do something about it - but Vietnam and the arms race diverted the funding.

Indirectly, the Cold War exacerbated the 'holier than thou' attitude of the US hoi poloi and the 'New Right' by demonizing the Soviets and anyone who associated with them. This in turn led to the US support of tyrants like Shah Pahlavi, Ferdinand Marcos, Saddam Hussein, Ngo Dinh Diem, the House of Saud and others and to support folks like Osama bin Ladin as long as he was shooting at reds (the only good commie is one that's dead - and anybody who makes 'em that way must be a friend of ours, at least until they point the gun at us) which in turn earned the US the wrath of the the Third World.

The cold war also resulted in the gross distortions so patently clear and abundant in US primary and secondary history books, such as the major role the US is so erroneously portrayed as playing in beating the Nazi's, and the negligible part so reluctantly accorded the Red Army (and no, the Russian winter did not defeat the Germans at Stalingrad - superior Soviet troops, leaders, weapons, strategy and logistics did).

Cold war rhetoric is chillingly akin to the pap that spews out of Georgie the Younger's mouth when he speaks of Iraq and North Korea. So it goes.

Answer 2

The "best answer" on here is TOTALLY wrong. To say the cold war was not a war is a SLAP IN THE FACE to all the people that DIED FIGHTING IT. Yes the Cold War is term to describe the political struggle between the east and the west after World War 2. Now in 1947 the Soviet Union acquired the A-bomb, this meant that in a few years any direct confrontation between the major players in the east and west (U.S. and the larger European countries and Russia) would soon lead to a atomic/nuclear war. To avoid the potential destruction of all life on earth the east and the west fought over their different ideologies in smaller proxy wars that avoided the European battlefields that would trigger "WWIII" If you dig a little deeper than the "history" taught in public schools you'll soon discover that the "Cold War" was in fact WW 3. It was fought all over the world (except NATO and Warsaw Pact territories). hundreds of thousand died, America and Soviet pilots even did engage in direct combat over Korea. So how you can call a conflict between two sides, fought all over the world, in which thousands died not a world war much less not even a war is beyond me.
To address some of the other points in the "best answer"
Sputnik changed EVERYTHING. It meant that the "protection" of having 2 vast oceans on either side of the county meant NOTHING to our defense. And while it's true that USSR could not put an atomic warhead on a rocket the day after Sputnik was launched it signaled a MASSIVE change in the current and future balance of power between the east and the west.
To call the part played by America in World War 2 "erroneous" is like spitting in the face of the GREATEST GENERATION. There is ZERO proof that RUSSIA could have defeated Germany on their own. Stalin did everything but BEG F.D.R and Churchill to open a "2nd front" in the west to take pressure off the Red Army. BECAUSE THEY WERE LOSING. Yes the Red Army fought hard and payed a very heavy price. The ONLY thing the Red Army had was enough people to feed the meat grinder that was the Russian Front. To say the Red Army won though better leadership is laughable. Stalin's "leadership" almost lead to the destruction of Russia. His famous "No step Backwards" order lead to " NKVD blocking units" killing and arresting more Red Army troops than were killed by the German army at that time. About the only thing Stalin got right was the moving of his war infrastructure to the east. Once he got the desperately needed help from the west and finally pulled his head out of his butt the Red Army was able to finally go on the offensive. The truth is if those plucky Brits hadn't stood up to Hitler in 1941, draining away resources that would have surly been used against Russia, there is a very good chance that Russia would have fallen as fast as Hitler thought they would.
And yes it is TRUE. Fighting the cold war lead the U.S to make very strange bedfellows. Supporting "leaders" that held views that were in direct conflict with America values.
And while this did cause some of the "wrath of the the Third World" it is America's total lack or inept leadership on the world stage since the end of the cold war that lead us to were we are now.

Answer 3

It was basicly a really bad time to be a Russian (Sovit Union) or an American. It was from WW2 to the late 80's when the Berlin Wall in Germany came down. It wasn't really a war, but a lot of diffrent ideas going againts the others. School children in our nation are tought that the Russians were wrong for being (and still being) Communitst. I think theres still some oppresion. There is still some fear with them, but its ok now. They used to tell by the way, that you could be nuked at anytime by the Commies, I imagion thats the same thing that happend there. But anyway, it was a really scary time. Spuntnik only started a new face for the war. It was the 'Space Race' to the moon, we won of course, so 'the winners wrote history'.

Answer 4

the cold war was just what the name implies, a war without fighting on a global scale.since the united states and the soviet union both had thousands of nuclear weapons and could end the entire world, the policy of M.A.D. came about during the lyndon johnson administration. mad stood for mutually ashured destruction.during the height of the vietnam war, the defcon level(readiness to launch such as during the cuban missle crisis existed from 1967 through 1969), the cold war officially ended when the soviet union ended in 1989 without firing a shot.

Answer 5

the cold war was a war between the US and the USSR which was to see who was the strongest superpower in the world showing of their technology and one of the ways was the race to see who would first reach space which was done by the USSR with the artificial satellite Sputnik which made the US very scared. there was also a lot of crisis like when the USSR put rockets in Cuban territory

Answer 6

The Cold War was a war between the U.S. and Russia.Sputnik was the first space probe,or unmanned space explorer.

P.S. Are you doing homework or are you just curious?

Answer 7

The "Cold War" was a period of hostility between the US and the USSR. It was called cold because there were no battles between the military.

Answer 8

Very oversimplified, it was a race for military dominance through weaponry between Russia and the US. Sputnik upped the ante by introducing a weapon that was a threat from outer space. The US scrambled to catch up.

Answer 9

cold war was a war of "ideals". it had to do with communism and the US role in getting rid of it. its alot like the division over the iraq war today

Answer 10

the cold war was pointless and spuntnik shot kennedy