One of the most dangerous and bitter rivalries among the great powers in modern history erupted during the cold war. The cold war developed after World War II between the Soviet Union and the United States. The battle was mainly based on economic, political, and propaganda strategies. There was a limited supply of weapons during the period, and those that were available were primarily nuclear weapons (Lund 2019). During the Second World War, the Soviet Union and the United States were allies in the Nazi war against Germany. Still, the union did not last for long as it began to crumble after the war.
The cold war was caused by several factors, including America’s refusal to share nuclear weapons manufacture secrets, the United States’ fear of communist attack by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), dislike of capitalism, and the USSR’s actions in the Soviet zone in Germany, and Truman’s dislike of Stalin (Morgan 2018). The war mainly rose to determine who was most equipped in terms of arms and exploring space. This led to the creation of the National Aeronautic Space Administration (NASA) and more space exploration expeditions.
One of the factors that propelled the cold war to end peacefully was the newly elected President Richard Nixon, who formulated new approaches to attending to international relations matters. He suggested using diplomacy rather than military actions and advocated for every individual, more so those in power, to view the world as one peaceful community. He encouraged some non-governmental organizations like United Nations to recognize countries like China that practice communist forms of government. He began to create diplomatic relationships with such countries.
In 1972, he and the Soviet premier, Leonid Brezhnev, agreed to end the battles by signing a treaty known as the Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty (SALT 1) that prohibited further manufacturing of missile warheads for both superpowers. The Cuban missile was a clear indication that neither of the two parties was ready to use nuclear weapons and, hence, create atomic annihilation. This was a significant step toward ending the cold war peacefully (Knoblauch 2017). However, during Ronald Reagan’s tenure, the cold war sprung back where he believed the spread of communism was a threat to freedom. He formulated strategic plans to overcome the communist powers by providing military and financial aid to anti-communist governments. This plan was efficient in developing countries like El Salvador and Grenada and was called the Reagan Doctrine’s policy.
Another reason the cold war ended peacefully was the disintegration of the Soviet Union, which was caused by adverse economic conditions and arising political ferment in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Upon his election as the premier, Mikhail Gorbachev created two policies that he saw fit to redefine Russia’s relationship with the rest of the world, economic reforms and political openness (Kappmeier 2019). Soviet impact in Eastern Europe began to lose grip with every communist country changing their government to a non-communist one. Later that year, the berlin wall was destroyed, causing a peaceful end to the cold war.
The cold war eased after the death of the Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin, in 1953, who saw the formation of the Warsaw Pact, which unified military organizations in the soviet bloc countries. During this period, Germany was admitted into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) (Miller 2019). Later, the United States and the Soviet Union started making agreements to withdraw missiles targeting different states in those regions. The treaties unified the nations enhancing collaboration bonds that led to long-term relationships between the two superpowers. The ties ensured peaceful business operations between the two power giants.
References
Lund, Aron. “From Cold War to Civil War: 75 Years of Russian-Syrian Relations.” The Swedish Institute of International Affairs (2019).
Kappmeier, Mariska, and Aurélie Mercy. “The long road from cold war to warm peace: Building shared collective memory through trust.” Journal of Social and Political Psychology 7, no. 1 (2019): 525-555.
Knoblauch, William M. Nuclear freeze in a Cold War: The Reagan administration, cultural activism, and the end of the arms race. University of Massachusetts Press, 2017.
Miller, Jennifer M. Cold War Democracy: The United States and Japan, 1945-1963. Harvard University Press, 2019.
Morgan, Michael Cotey. The Final Act: The Helsinki Accords and the Transformation of the Cold War. Vol. 26. Princeton University Press, 2018.