There are many different reasons for the development of the Cold War’s in 1945 – 48. This period could be argued as being the transitional period from the USSR and USA being allied powers creating a peaceful post-war Europe to two powers fighting for control over post-war Europe. The development throughout these years, on the one hand, could be seen as being a result of Soviet expansionism, as suggested clearly in sources 7 and 9. On the other hand, in line with evidence from sources 8 and 9, USA’s
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International History of the Cold War: Three (Possible) Paradigms* The Cold War is not what it once was. Not only has the conflict itself been written about in the past tense for more than a decade, but historians’ certainties about the character of the conflict have also begun to blur. The concerns brought on by trends of the past decade – such trifles as globalization, weapons proliferation, and ethnic warfare – have made even old strategy buffs question the degree to which the Cold War ought to be put at the
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The Cold War marked a period of hostility between superpowers: that of the USA (and by extension, the West) and the USSR and the East. This hostility began after the Second World War, despite the supposed camaraderie between the two superpowers during the war as allies against Hitler and Fascism. Whether the schism between the superpowers was caused by their differing ideologies (the capitalist West and the communist East) or a clash between national interests and strong personalities is a matter
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How far do you agree that the origins of the Cold War in 1945-6 owed much to ideological differences and little to personalities and conflicting national interests? There is a significant and complex argument into which aspects were the most important in the origins and sowing the seeds that led to the Cold War in the years 1945 and 1946. It is widely perceived that the variances in philosophy was the focal reason, because America and the Soviet Union had virtually polar opposite understandings
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How far do you agree with the view that the development of the Cold War in the years 1945-49 was mainly due to ‘Stalin’s own errors’? I disagree with the statement - sources 7, 8 and 9 all suggest that the Cold War had many contributing factors, although it was ultimately the USA’s own economic and national interests to blame, rather than Stalin’s errors, as a result of acts and policies such as the Marshall Plan and Truman Doctrine in 1947. Both providing evidence to support this view are sources
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Although factors such as ideology differences and traditional power rivalry played a part in the development of the Cold War in the years 1945-53, superpower misjudgments account largely to this as well. As Source 7 suggests, mistrust between the US and the Soviet created a vicious cycle which could not be broken after 1945. It states that the US "misread" the Soviet security policy in eastern Europe and saw it as "Soviet expansionism". This, in turn, led the Soviets to misjudge the US policies
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The development of the cold war between the USA and the Soviet Union between 1945-53 was primarily due to traditional great power rivalry The USA and the Soviet Union worked together to defeat Hitler in WW2. Towards the end of the war relationships between them began to break down, although in 1945 there remained possibility of continued cooperation. By 1947, this prospect had disappeared and tensions between the two powers continued to increase for the rest of this period. Some historians, including
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To what extent was the Cold War a result of World War II? Often, the Cold War is said to have been a result of World War 2, but the question arises of whether there would have been an inevitable confrontation between the USSR and the US without the Second World War. World War II ended with the US and the USSR as the only remaining world superpowers. The ravaged post WWII Europe provided perfect conditions for imperialism by other countries; the war created two superpowers with polarizing ideals
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it. Theoretically, this did not exclude Eastern Europe but it was assumed that it didn’t apply to them as they were not capitalist. These two events did contribute to the development of the cold war as it was one of the first times that the west had directly taken action against the East and their ideology and actions. In addition to this, in 1947 the soviets responded by starting Comintern which was a unity of all communist governments – allowing the Soviet Union to gain more control over their
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How far do you agree with the view that the development of the Cold War between the USA and the Soviet Union in the years 1945-53 was primarily due to traditional great power rivalry? The development of the Cold War can be viewed as being caused for several different reasons. The great power rivalry, ideological differences and personality traits cited as the main causes for the war, but ideology and personality also contain flaws that prove the great power rivalry was the primary cause.
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