Reasons for the cold war Flashcards
Background info
Ideological Differences
The Differing Ideological beliefs, Communism and Capitalism, is one of the many things the US & USSR fought over.
Each side worried that the other was spreading their own ideology worldwide and were concerned for the future of their country and the countries around them.
Ideological Differences - Positive
The US, concerned about the possible spread of communism, introduced The Marshal Plan
This allowed for the US to offer in total $13 billion to struggling European countries in order to sway them towards capitalism
They even offered some of this money to the USSR which they didn’t accept out of fear it may undermine communist ideology
Ideological Differences - Negative
However, the USSR forced many of eastern European countries to also decline the money, this showed they still held power and that their communist ideology would say because of bribery
Germany
In 1944, Stalin, Atlee and Truman met up in Potsdam to discuss future of Germany & decided to split Germany into 4 sectors, the UK sector, the US, the USSR sector and the French sector
UK & US were in agreement that Germany should be rebuilt to avoid another war while Stalin wanted it powerless, they also wanted to split Berlin, which was in the USSR sector, as it was a capital city
Germany - Benefit
However, after the meetup Stalin was unhappy due to wanting full control over Germany and resented that the US & UK had any power in Berlin and attempted to force Americans out, leading to tension between the 2 countries
Germany - Negative
Despite their anger, Stalin technically accepted his part of Germany despite his complaints and was more focused on cutting off west Germany than trying to invade it
The Arms Race
Aug 6th 1945- US dropped nuclear bomb on Hiroshima - this was the first ever nuke used, the US didn’t tell the soviets about their plans to use nuclear weaponry and didn’t share this new tech with the USSR
Aug 1949 the USSR finally started developing nuclear weaponry
The Arms Race - Benefit
This created huge tension between the countries as the soviets not only had to spy on America to figure out how to build these nukes but were also hellbent on having more nukes than the US as they were scared of being attacked by them
The Arms Race - Negative
However, both sides knew that if they used their nukes on the other country then it would eventually lead to mutual destruction, this lead to sort of keep the peace between directly fighting each other and is part of the reason why there was so many ‘proxy wars’
