Cold War Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Cold War - Coursework Example The term the â€Å"Cold War† was first used by George Orwell in his article that was published in 1945 referring to what he predicted would be a nuclear stalemate between the world’s two monstrous super powers (Walker, 1995). Since the USSR and the USA fought as allies during the Second World War, it was expected that their relationship would subsequently be friendly and firm. However, this never happened and instead they turned out to be enemies and rivals (Sheehan, 2003). This paper will discuss the Cold War and its various aspects including the nature of the war; causes of the war; the effects of the war; the end of the war; and the aftermath of the Cold War. The Nature of the Cold War After the Second World War, the USSR and the US emerged as the world’s two superpowers with profound ideological, political and economic differences. These two superpowers were very distrustful of each other; they lacked mutual understanding of alien culture and each sought to e nhance their economic and military capabilities (Gaddis, 2007). Both of them created some of the most intriguing economic and political policies, and developed weapons of destructive capability. So, what exactly was the nature of the Cold War? This question can be answered by understanding the ideological, economic and political policies that each of them upheld and attempted to spread to other parts of the world. All these policies were largely aimed at enhancing these two superpowers’ individual political and economic capability within the international system. They each wanted to control a large number of allies on their sides and to benefit from resources from the allies that they would have wooed to their side (LaFeber and LaFeber, 2008). On one side, the US advocated for democratic states characterized with periodic free elections, upholding of rule of law, respect of human rights, freedom of expression and movement, and constitutionalism among others. On the other hand , the USSR was advocating for autocratic states characterized with fixed or no elections and limited freedoms and rights among citizens (Walker, 1995) The USSR preferred states that have strong central government and whose citizens have limited freedoms and rights. Also, the US on one hand pushed for capitalism as the preferred economic system around the world, while the USSR advocated for communism as her preferred economic system. Capitalism is an economic system that is founded on the concept of individualism and free market (LaFeber and LaFeber, 2008). On the other hand, communism is founded on the concept of collectivism and state control of the markets. In pursuing their divergent interests, the US and the USSR separately acquired allies mainly in Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe. The conflict between these two superpowers became increasingly apparent through military coalitions with their respective allies, espionage, nuclear and conventional arms race, strategic conventional military deployments, enormous propaganda campaigns, as well as through technological competitions (Gaddis, 2007). Causes of the Cold War Historians are of the view that there were multiple factors that caused the Cold War. The first main cause was that the Soviet Union wanted to propagate and spread its communism ideology worldwide and this alarmed the Western world and especially the Americans