Negotiations of the Cold War

The history of the world, especially the United States has been moved through time because of negotiations. Negotiations for the United States started with our fore fathers and “No Taxation without Representation” to the debt ceiling debate. This is what America is made of. One of the longest negotiation processes the United States has been a part of was The Cold War. The Cold War is the name used for the relationship between the United States and Soviet Union for almost 60 years. This was a serious time with nuclear arms aimed at both countries due to the tense relationships. Negotiations really started The Cold War, but it was also negotiations that kept both countries from firing the deadliest weapons known to man. These examples are shown in The Yalta Conference and Cuban Missile Crisis.

The beginning of the Cold War came from the negotiations held at the Yalta Conference in February, 1945, on the Crimean peninsula in Russia. This was the second of three meetings that would take place between Great Britain, the United States, and Russia. The leaders of the time, Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and Josef Stalin would be discussing what to do with Germany after World War II. Items that were to be discussed where hot-button issues, so tensions were very high. The issues to be discussed where the dividing up of Germany, the formation of the United Nations, Germany war reparations, the entry of Soviet forces into the Far-Eastern front (Japan), and the most difficult issue, the future of Poland. All of these issues were going to take strong negotiation skills from the leaders of “The Big Three” and whomever had the best skills, would get the ideal situation for the their country.

The first issue was the division of Germany. All three countries knew that Germany would have to be divided up so they could not gain a large amount of power again and start another world war. Great Britain, the United States, and Russia all had ideas of how the country should be divided. For example, Great Britain wanted a split between Prussia and Austria-Bavaria, and the German heartland under international control to keep the area from forming power. The United States want Germany to be split into five constituent parts. Because they couldn't agree, it was decided that the exact boundaries would be discussed at a future meeting. This could be called a pre-settlement statement in negotiation terms.

Besides the Cold War, one of the most famous collaborations of the Yalta Conference, was The United Nations. The United Nations formation was brought by President Franklin Roosevelt of the United States. The idea of the United Nations was for 26 nations to join together to continue to fight the Axis Powers. The main issue that arose from the United Nation discussion was how many Soviet republics would be seated on the United Nations. Stalin wanted 15 Soviet republics to have seats so he could have a large