Cold war (Essay Sample)

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Cold war
The cold war is a 20th century war that started in 1947 and ended in 1991 and was fought between the United States of America and the Soviet Union together with their allies. The war was described as the straggle between the communist and the capitalist where they fought over military issues, economic issues and political issues.
Before the occurrence of the cold war, there was the occurrence of the 1st World War and the 2nd World War. 1st World War is known to have started in 1914 and ended in 1918. This war was a global war where its central location was in Europe (Wohlforth 45). The fighting of the war was between two alliances that is the triple Entente and the central powers. The triple Entente side consisted of United Kingdom, Russia and France while the central power comprised of Italy, Germany, and Austria-Hungary. When the war ended in 1918, Europe was left very instable where due to this instability, another international conflict started two decades after which was called the 2nd World War. This war started in 1939 and ended in 1945. This war involved many different nations in the world and was the most widespread war ever in history.
After the end of the 2nd World War, the cold war started. . This war was termed as ‘cold’ since the nations that were involved did not use undeviating military engagement although during the Korean War some shorts were exchanged between the two nations. The two nations did fight for the beliefs each had by use of the client states by fighting for their beliefs and rights on their behalf. The cold war was able to dominate major international affairs for decades and during these period, major crises occurred (Wohlforth 67). For instance there was the instance of the crisis if the Cuban missile whereby the Soviet Union placed nuclear missiles in Cuba that targeted the U.S.A. this period is also linked with the Vietnam War which began in 1957. The Vietnam War was between the Northern side of Vietnam which was under communist rule and the southern side which was under the non-communist.
This period was characterized by the technology war for instance the space race. This race started in 1957 when the Soviet Union first launched its spuntnik 1 which orbited the earth. The spuntnik 1 was the first ever artificial satellite that orbited around the earth. During the same year, Soviet Union launched spuntnik 2 but this time it contained a dog inside which was the first passenger to orbit the earth. This technological advancement was a shock to the U.S.A. in this era there is the introduction of a new weapon for both U.S.A and Soviet Union called the InterContinental Ballistic Missiles.
In the period of the cold war, there is the coalition between different governments. For instance, in 1945 there was the signing that occurred between 50 countries which later formed the United Nations in October of the same year. The heads of this signing were United State, China, France, and Soviet Union. In this period there was also the signing of the Warsaw pact which was signed by Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Albania, East Germany and Poland (Wohlforth 87). This pact was signed in order to ascertain strong union so as to be able to protect against the economic risk that the West posed on the Soviet Union.
During the end of cold war, there were many changes that happened especially to the two nations that were in conflict. The economy especially in Soviet Union faced a lot of challenges. For instance people in the East of Germany started seeing and appreciating the wealth of their neighbor west Germany. There was the demolition of the Berlin wall which was built by the Soviets in order to prevent the citizens of East Germany going to West Germany which had more food supply and had good wages....