Cold War

ch 21 Brandon Leon

The reasons for the cold war competition between the USA and the USSR were, competition of spreading their government ideas along with gaining territory. Since the middle of the nineteenth century America had always had the belief of “manifest destiny” . Having emerged victorious and powerful from the war it acted on doing this with the Pax Americana. That ensured worldwide peace through american arms and wealth. Through the 12 billion investment in the marshall plan to restore Europe , it opened up trade markets and input democracy in nations like Germany. The US did also did this in Japan by outlawing the divine status of the emperor and promulgating democracy. The Soviet Union did a similar act, they established the Third Socialist International. The Comintern encouraged communist parties and revolutions by dispatching agents around the world. The USSR imposed communism on most of eastern europe, and set the economies to produce goods for the USSR. The western powers saw this as an iron curtain dividing europe. The Soviets however saw the westernization of Japan and Germany as an attempt to encircle the USSR.

Decolonization took place so quickly once it began because due to the wars and depressions worldwide the colonial powers no longer had the manpower, financial resources, and moral status to colonize. Like in Iraq when the leftist coup tried to overthrow the monarchy and british troops came in but were defeated, breaking away from britain.Also the colonies no longer ,after the devastation of two wars believed in the “white man’s burden” to be superior and have the right to civilize the non-western world. Thus after colonial european powers had failed to keep their promise to give independence to nations in the middle east and india after the end of world war one, anti-colonial nationalists gained support from either the US or the USSR. Iraq after becoming independent oriented its foreign policy toward the USSR.

The superpowers and the new nations attempted to use one another for the economic prosperity of one another and political affairs.. Many of the third world nations were politically unstable and challenged economically, but rich in natural resources. To preserve access to these resources both the US and the USSR approached the new nations as allies and clients. The US and USSR were willing to investigate coups to overthrow hostile governments and set up and back up the government they had. An example is the nation of Nicaragua, it had begun to grant economic concessions to go government other than the US. The US encouraged a revolt against the government and dispatched marines to support it. Another example is in Panama where the colombian government denied the US rights to the panama canal. Thus the US yet again encouraged the revolt of a small Panamanian independence movement and after becoming independent in return they