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HISTORY 1120-102 | The Cold War | Professor Gray | | Davante Henderson | 4/30/2015 |

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Davante Henderson
Professor Gray
HIST 1120-102
30 April 2015
The Cold War “We have to get tough with the Russians. They don’t know how to behave. They are like bulls in a china shop. They are only 25 years old. We are over 100 and the British are centuries older. We have got to teach them how to behave.”-Harry Truman, 33rd President of the United States. The Cold War was a period of East-West competition, tension, and conflict short of full-scale war, characterized by mutual perceptions of hostile intention between military-political alliances or blocs. The U.S. struggle to contain Soviet communism worldwide resulted in what came to be known as the "Cold War". Although full-scale war between the U.S. and Soviet Union did not occur, two major wars, (Korea and Vietnam), and many smaller conflicts occurred between 1946 and 1991 over the battle between democracy and communism. The Cold war was a product of many social and political reasons, a few but not limited to: The portioning of North Korea and Germany, the Marshal Plan, the Berlin Blockage and NATO. I’ll begin my explanation with the Yalta Conference, held in Yalta in February 1945 where Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill planned the final stages of World War II and agreed to the territorial division of Europe. “At Yalta, Roosevelt and Churchill discussed with Stalin the conditions under which the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan and all three agreed that, in exchange for potentially crucial Soviet participation in the Pacific theater, the Soviets would be granted a sphere of influence in Manchuria following Japan’s surrender” (Office of the Historian, Bureau of Public Affairs, United States Department of State). Stalin's "sphere of influence" consisted of territories that his armies had already overrun.

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