Connections With the Cold War

I just read about the emergence of the United States as a global superpower from 1945-1975. The United States's political influence was everywhere in its attempts to stop the spread of communism during the Cold War, its economy was booming and, perhaps most importantly, the US's culture spread to many countries around the world. At the same time Communism was at its peak from the 1950s-1970s. Despite internal problems like the death and denunciation of Stalin, the revealing suppression of individual movements, and squabbles between China and the Soviet Union, communism was just as influential globally as American democracy and capitalism.

"Those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it." A famous quote about history whose author fails me. The United States and the Soviet Union during the years after World War II almost came to a nuclear war in a clear repeat of the rivalry between European nations in the years leading up to World War I.

The Industrial Revolution and the advanced technology Europe possessed allowed countries like Great Britain, France, Germany and Russia to emerge as the more powerful countries in the world. But the new power also came with an insatiable desire for more power and the countries engaged in an arms race. Tensions between these countries about weapons along with many other factors exploded and led to the Great War where millions of citizens were killed.

A very similar chain of events occurred between the international rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union in the Cold War. Both were powerful after defeating the Germans in World War II. Both countries wanted to be more powerful than the other and went to great lengths to assert themselves. Just like the great arms race leading up to World War I, the US and the USSR built up their military capability, to the nth degree because this time nuclear weapons were being built. The principal difference was that these tensions resulted in a World War with many countries being involved. Many countries were involved in the struggle between the two global superpowers, but luckily an actual war was avoided. Narrowly avoided.