Q17. What was the Cold War? What were its reasons, consequences, results and lessons?

Question 1

What was the Cold War?

Answer 1

The Cold War was a power struggle and state of political hostility between the Soviet Union and USA which lasted from 1945/7 to 1989.

Question 2

What were the reasons for the Cold War?

Answer 2

• Ideological differences between communism and capitalism
• Soviet Union refused to take help from the Marshall Plan. Stalin wanted to stay distanced from economic American imperialism.
• The US never agreed with the Soviet’s fundamentally communist ideals
• US felt threatened by Soviet expansion into the Eastern Bloc

Question 3

What were the consequences of the Cold War?

Answer 3

• establishment of NATO (1949)
• we see many states establishing so-called democracies in order to obtain funding from the U.S.

Question 4

What were the results of the Cold War?

Answer 4

• Soviet Union falls
• Democracy prevails (so they say)
• Unipolar system where US is in charge
• Governments become increasingly focused on security and defense
• Reshapes the international system
• nuclear detterence
• fear of MAD (mutually assured destruction)

1989 Gorbachev & Bush sign agreement in Malta to end Cold War with a clause saying they are not enemies

Question 5

What are the lessons of the Cold War?

Answer 5

• Friends and allies matter
• Interdependence - NATO
• US can do whatever it wants so long as it hides behind the curtain of freedom and democracy
• **Statecraft: **the application of game theory into foreign policy