Wednesday, December 28, 2016

What was the relationship between the US and the USSR during Cold War?

The relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union was very tense and confrontational during most of the Cold War. The Soviet Union wanted to spread communism around the world. We wanted to prevent communism from spreading. This led to a series of challenges between the two countries.

We opposed the spread of communism in Europe. We challenged the Berlin Blockade by developing the Berlin Airlift. The Soviet Union wanted to force us out of West Berlin. We were determined to prevent that from happening. We prevailed when the blockade was eventually lifted. We also offered aid to European countries fighting communism with the European Recovery Program. Turkey and Greece were countries that benefited from our aid.


We also opposed the spread of communism in Asia. We went to the United Nations to help South Korea when North Korea invaded South Korea in order to make it a communist country. We were successful in keeping South Korea as a noncommunist country.


We challenged the Soviet expansion into Cuba. When we discovered the Soviet Union had built missile sites in Cuba and had placed missiles there, we demanded that the missiles should be removed and the missiles sites be should be dismantled. The crisis, known as the Cuban Missile Crisis, ended peacefully when we agreed not to invade Cuba, the Soviets agreed to remove the missiles in Cuba as well as dismantle the missile sites, and we agreed to remove our missiles in Turkey.


We competed with the Soviet Union in other areas. There was a competition to see which country would be the first to launch a satellite into space. The Soviet Union won that competition, but we were the first nation to land an astronaut on the moon. Both countries tried to stockpile nuclear weapons, with each side trying to have more nuclear weapons than the other side had. We competed against each other in the Olympic games. Each country wanted to have more medals than the other country when each Olympic games ended.


The Cold War is a period of confrontation and competition between countries. This definition certainly describes the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union after World War II ended.

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