Political conditions of the Cold War Era Essay Example for Free

Political conditions of the Cold War Era Essay The Cold War is increasingly treated as a historical period that customarily begins in 1947, when the Truman Doctrine sought to contain communism and the expansion of Soviet influence, and ends with the decline and fall of the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc in the late 1980s. My thoughts are that this event occurred after war world II between the Soviet Union and the United States of America due to a conflict about political, ideological, military, and economic values because the United States was capitalist when the Soviet Union was communist. During this time there was a fair that they were going to destroy each other with the arsenals of gigantic artillery. Germany was separated into 4 sections controlled by Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union and the United States and the Cold war started because there was a disagreement on unifying Germany. There were events that happened during the cold war the first was the foreign aid policies, which were able to divide the superpowers after that treaty organizations and alliances started forming up again one of these alliances was the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), as well as the Warsaw pact. The superpower were always involved in a conflict the mayor political crisis was that Soviet blockade on Western Berlin they block off supply routes to Western Berlin so the people were dying because they did not have how to cover the firs needs. Another conflict was the Cuban missile crisis it was the closest the world ever came to all-out nuclear war. Following the first sightings of the missiles being placed by Soviets, additional Russian vessels were seen heading towards Cuba carrying more missile components. Thus began what became known as â€Å"the 13 days,† a period of extremely high tension in which the Kennedy administration tried to find a way to get the missiles out of Cuba without starting World War III. Kennedy and his advisers had to walk a very tight line in order to achieve that end. In the end, Kennedy followed the path of Presidents Truman and Eisenhower as a leader determined to prevent the further spread of Communism in the world by all reasonable means. He had campaigned on the issue of a missile gap  between United States and the Soviet Union, and even his plan to place a man on the moon in the decade of the 1960s was, to a large extent, aimed at defeating the Russians in space. The military implications were obvious. It was during Kennedys administration that the most dangerous point in the Cold War was reached: the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. http://www.academicamerican.com/postww2/coldwar.html Presidents and Prime Ministers on either side came and went but the war never ended. Every President of the United States took the war personally as a Commander in Battle and it became a competition of who would do better. Finally, it was the Republican George W. Bush who called the final shots and that too because Mikhael Gorbachev backed down. http://www.historyking.com/World-War/cold-war/Summary-Of-The-Cold-War.html Explain the specific threats to American citizens One threat that is becoming more severe in the post-Cold War world is the proliferation of chemical, biological, nuclear, and missile technology. The probability of a retaliatory strike on the U.S. homeland by rogue states or terrorist groups using such weapons, however, can be reduced by ending unneeded and provocative U.S. military intervention abroad. Politicians of both parties often tapped into that fear and ran for office based on how strong they would be against communists. Fighting communism always involved the threat of nuclear war since both the U.S. and Soviet Union had nuclear weapons trained on each other. President Dwight Eisenhowers military plan relied on nuclear stockpiles rather than land forces. He hoped the threat of nuclear destruction would restrain the Soviets. http://www.tn4me.org/minor_cat.cfm/minor_id/23/major_id/10/era_id/8 Describe the preparations you would make to protect your family Those are my thoughts , it is important to have things that are going to be necessaries to survive in this situation as water medical and food the family can survive if they go to the close shelter they usually have a wonderful staff to help those who need them. It s important to keep the medication close and accessible. Conclude with one question for further study on the Cold War era What effect did the Cold War have on the political, economic, social, and  military conditions of the world’s nations? Conclusion Cold War as a period which began with the rivalities of the superpowers The effort to contain communism and capitalism (and covertly subvert the other), however, entailed a larger containment or channeling of the flow of possible change in various areas of political, social, and cultural life within its political imagination. The Cold War rivalry sustained an equilibrium which tended to freeze not only the power relations between hegemonic and client states but also the political contours of nation-states in the two camps backed by economic inducements, military power, and nuclear threat.