Pros And Cons Of The Cold War

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2.) The Cold War represented a very different time in our Nation’s history. New technologies, new ideas, new governments and new voices were brought to light as old powers began to ebb. However, how we view the Cold War is incorrect as it was not so much an “us against the USSR” as it was a culmination of circumstances, leadership decisions and global atmosphere which lead to how the US dealt with and responded to communist Russia. I propose that the Cold war is best described by option C, as it was primarily a product of an ideological incompatibility between communist nations lead by the Soviet Union and democratic nations led by the United States. First, looking back at history tells us the US was very committed to retaining Open Door policy in the face of global tensions, even if doing so placed US foreign policy in a precarious position. Despite the tense atmosphere circa 1899, the United States pushed forward to open trade without barriers in China. As Layne may infer, doing so was the beginning of the rise of US hegemonic strategy. Moving forward into the 1900s, we can see even before the first World War that the US kept growing as a regional power from instances such as the building of the…show more content…
Using this deduction, we can rule out option D because the issue did not lie solely with power control. If option D is true, we may have looked at communism in a gentler light, much like we view our current relationship with China; we do not support their government structure, but we recognize their large power and compromise when ideological complications emerge. As Deborah Welch Larson in Layne writes, “Within a bipolar structure of power, the US and the USSR could have defined their relationship in a variety of ways” (Layne,

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