Cold War

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Student Voix

5 min readJun 9, 2023

World War II lasted from September 1, 1939, through May 7, 1945. The United States and the USSR fought side by side as allies during World War 2. However, there was political tension between the USA and USSR, There were no military conflicts but rather smaller proxy wars from which emerged the term ‘Cold War’.

USSR did not allow eastern Europe independence after WW2 to act as a Buffer Zone -

For the Soviets, a buffer zone between themselves and Germany was necessary to reduce future aggression similar to the infamous German invasion of 1941 which led to the USSR not allowing Eastern Europe to regain its independence. ( In 1941 Germany had launched Operation Barbarossa and its invasion of the USSR; this Operation eventually failed).

In a speech in March 1946, the former British prime minister Winston Churchill claimed that an “iron curtain” had fallen across Europe due to the USSR not allowing Eastern Europe to regain its independence. As the Soviet Union assisted the communists in winning the ongoing civil war in China, it resulted in China becoming a communist country in 1949. After which tensions increased even further.

Iron Curtain — By claiming that an iron curtain had fallen across Europe, Winston Churchill meant that there was a curtain like line dividing Europe. Soviet Rule was established in Eastern Europe whereas Western Europe had political freedom.

After which they were engaged in several other proxy wars which Included Space Race lasting till 1969, Vietnam, Korea and Cuba War which lasted till 1975,1953 and 1959 respectively -

Space Race

The USSR and USA were competing with one another to complete space exploration first. The first objective of this “space race” was to successfully launch a satellite into orbit around the earth.

The US had been planning space exploration since 1954 but unfortunately in 1957 the Soviet Union had launched Sputnik, a satellite. This was followed by Sputnik 2 which contained a dog named Laika. This made the USSR the first to send a creature to space. The US launched Explorer 1 in 1958 along with which President Eisenhower signed an order creating NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration).

In 1951, USSR launched Luna 2 which was the first probe to hit the moon. Yuri Gagarin, a USSR astronaut became the first person to orbit our planet in a capsule namely Vostok. The US made an effort to send a man into space via Project Mercury, Alan Shepard became the first American in space but not in orbit. After this President John F Kennedy announced that they would land a man on the moon and Mission Apollo was set in place. Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon as part of the Apollo 11 mission and the US technically won the space race.

Vietnam, Korea and Cuba

The North Vietnamese communist government fought South Vietnam and its main ally, the United States, in the Vietnam War. The ongoing Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union escalated the issue. Over 3 million people died in the Vietnam War, more than half of whom were Vietnamese civilians (including over 58,000 Americans).

On June 25, 1950, around 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People’s Army crossed the border to the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. This marked the start of the Korean War. This was the first military action of the Cold War. The US had entered the conflict on behalf of South Korea. It was a fight against all of communism and soon fighting ceased, and despite increasing casualties, nothing was gained. They worried that the alternative would be a larger conflict with China and Russia, or even, as some predicted, World War III.However it ended in July 1953.

After the Korean War, Cuba was undergoing a communist revolution. In 1958 the US tried to prevent communism from spreading as it brought communism less than 100 miles away from the American border. They launched the Bays of Pig Invasion, however it failed and the following year Russia had placed their Nuclear Missiles in Cuba. The United States was ready to use military force, this led many to believe the world was headed for nuclear war. The USSR offered to remove the Cuban missiles if the US did not invade Cuba. USA accepted their offer.

Towards the end -

The USSR and US were engaged in an Arms Race -

An Arms Race is when two or more countries gather weaponry and grow their military power to have military superiority over each other. The Arms Race between the USA and USSR was the biggest and most expensive Arms Race ever recorded.

Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by American Atomic Bombs suggested that USA had many weapons which in result started a Arms Race between USSR and USA. The USSR realized this and tested their first atomic bomb in 1949. This was followed by President Truman(President of USA) authorizing development of thermonuclear and hydrogen bombs along with long range missiles. (The explosive power of these bombs was close to 1000000 tons of TNT)

However, the USSR had caught up to the USA.

Following the ratification of the Treaty of Conventional Armed Forces of Europe in 1990, this arms race came to a stop. By placing restrictions on the number of weapons and munitions that NATO and the Warsaw Pact could deploy between the Atlantic Ocean and the Ural Mountains, it served to reduce the USSR’s quantitative superiority in conventional weapons in Europe.

The Great Inflation -

The Great Inflation, which lasted from 1965 to 1982, was influenced by the Cold War. Even Republicans remained committed to large government spending to increase aggregate demand and maintain low unemployment despite the fact that inflation started to creep up in the late 1960s. This came to be known as Keynesian economics- economic theory that advocates using government spending and taxes to boost the economy.

By the late 1970s, a large portion of Americans had begun to oppose excessive government spending and the associated taxation. Some economists were promoting a new school of thought termed supply-side economics as Keynesian ideas lost favor due to the inflation that resulted from decades of high government expenditure. Supply-siders emphasize maintaining high supply through decreased taxes and business regulations rather than sustaining high demand through increased government spending. The output of products and services increases under both scenarios, but as supply rises, prices fall.

Reagan did not entirely reject Keynesian theory, though; he maintained high aggregate demand by raising military spending.

Many people attribute the fall of the USSR in 1991 to Ronald Reagan’s increased defense spending . His extensive military spending, which included providing international assistance to anti-communist parties engaged in proxy wars, compelled the Soviet Union to try to catch up, but they failed, causing irreparable economic damage. Moreover since the USSR was a communist they tried to control everything but they fell and lost control of eastern europe. This marked the end of coldwar.