Year 10 history assessment

During the cold war the USA and USSR had policies that contributed to the conflict. The policies had an overall affect on the world as it prepared for what seemed like World War III. After World War II the two remaining superpowers were Russia and America, and there was a struggle for political and military superiority from 1947 to 1991. There was no major large scale fighting between the two nations however their ideals and movements were used to support countries and fight each other through proxy wars such as Vietnam and Korea. The world looked as if it was on the brink of thermonuclear destruction as the threat of nuclear missiles became more apparent and as America did its best to stop them without starting a war. Families stockpiled food and waited for the two nations policies to drag them into war and inevitable, to death.

Australia, along with many Western countries, feared the communistic spread as if it were an epidemic. Post-war propaganda scared the Australian public, telling them that all safety and way of life was at threat by the communist countries in Asia and as each one fell to communism, Australia was one step closer annihilation. The picture in Source A shows not only the USSR’s policy in creating a buffer of friendly states to protect themselves but also the Western fears that Communism would …show more content…
To the contrary, they believed that they could both survive and win strategic nuclear war as well as conventional war, forcing capitulation. This policy made the Soviets extremely dangerous to Western nations and was one of their greatest fears, because not only were they dauntless of the United States’ nuclear arsenal, they believed they would have no repercussions on their behalf. They thought nuclear war as a tool to destroy capitalism. This makes it easier to understand the soviets audacious move to implement nuclear missiles in Cuba as in source