Its the name of the period of conflict and tension between the former wartime allies, the United States and the Soviet Union. Spanning over 4 decades, this period of tension has left its mark in history not just as a time of fear, the fear that once friends against a common enemy and with that their enemy was disposed; they were to turn against each other…
But this blog post will go on further than that.
Onto the marks that the Cold War left on history. Its legacies.
Did you know, the Korean and the Vietnam War cost the United States $8 trillion in military expenditure, and nearing 100,000 lives.
That’s just a taster… Because of the Cold War, during the 1990s, Russia suffered an economic breakdown, even worse than what Germany or the United States went through during the Great Depression six decades ago. This was due to their dismantling of their military-industrial sector after the Cold War and just for the statistics, one in every five Soviet adults were employed in the military sector. So as a result, millions were unemployed. The Russian living standards worsened with every passing year.
And the legacy of the Cold War stretches far and wide onto structuring the world affairs to this day. The Cold War basically created the role of the United States of this day. By 1989, the U.S. was responsible for military alliances with 50 countries and 1.5 million U.S. troops were posted in 117 countries. The Cold War also institutionalised the commitment to a huge, permanent wartime military-industrial complex. As the United States being the ‘peace-keeping world police’ of today.
I just cannot stop wondering… What if the United States and the Soviet Union or Russia did not go against each other in the first place?
What place would communism hold in the world? What place would capitalism hold in the world?
Would Russia hold a stronger place in the world’s economy compared to its current place today? What place would the USA hold?
Just some questions from a shallow mind of mine, but still mildly interesting nonetheless.
What do you think?
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May 31st, 2007 at 11:48 pm
hey, i am studying the cold war at the moment and I think that altho’ there is some gain in thinking about what might have happened if it had not taken place, i don’t think that there is much point. capitalism would still be capitalism and communism would still be communism, and sooner or later, there would have been a clash between them, partly because they are world’s apart in ideological terms, and partly, if u don’t mind me saying this, america has always had, and probably always will have a very cavalier attitude to other ideas. In particular, communism (e.g. red scare 1920s). having said that, people like stalin are not entirely without fault either.
P.S for what it’s worth…idon’t think ur mind is that shallow