Why did the Cold War not escalate into full-scale war between the USA and the USSR - Essay Example

?.Why did the Cold War not escalate into full-scale war between the USA and the USSR? Introduction: After the end of the second word war in 1945, theworld was divided on the basis of political ideology. There was the eastern block under the leadership of the powerful Soviet Union and the western block led by the US. Even though there was no face to face conflicts these two blocks engaged in secret and indirect conflicts between each other. This was known to be the cold war. It continued till 1990’s when the Soviet Union broke up under the influence of perestroika and glasnost. To be precise, the cold war started in 1917 immediately after the Bolshevik revolution and ended in 1989 after the break up of USSR. It was a conflict between Bolshevism and democracy. The cold war is regarded as the most important political and diplomatical issue of the twentieth century. It got its name because both parties were afraid of fighting each other directly. Instead they fought the war indirectly. They played havoc in different parts of the world as well as fought with words on issues. Threatening and denouncement were common. Moreover they raced to make each other look foolish. The term cold war was used first by Mr. Bernard Baruch who was a senior advisor for the 33rd president of the US, Mr. Harry Truman. He used this term because of the frequently occurring crisis between the two sides even though they fought side by side against Nazi Germany. The actual cause of the cold war was the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917. The revolution spearheaded by Lenin thought that it could lead an international movement and convert the entire west into communist states. Lenin believed that Russia could be the leader of the world with the communist power therefore it is essential to influence all the major countries in the world through communism. In a letter wrote by him to the American workers in 1918, he emphasized the need for revolution to escape from the fortress which was besieged through social revolution. Western governments viewed communism with suspect. They believed that all other communist countries could be controlled by Moscow if communism gains dominance. Therefore the silent denial of communism began. The western forces also unsuccessfully tried to topple the Bolshevik revolution in 1918 with little success. This prompted Russia to behave negatively against west. Russians though that the west was interested in toppling their communist regime and used all its strength to defend and shun them. Even though the US recognized USSR in 1933, suspicion between the two countries continued on a high note. This continued in the Second World War where both the countries were allies. The cold war is considered as decade’s long struggle for world supremacy. It began escalating during 1945 when relations between Washington and Moscow started deteriorating. The deterioration ignited the cold war as well as set a stage for the dynamic struggle between the east and the west. Even though political leaders changed in both sides, the cold war continued. In another sense, the cold war was more political rather than military (Cold war. 2011). One of the main reasons why the cold war did not escalate into a full fledged war was because both sides knew that if the war was started, it could easily be a nuclear war causing destruction to the whole world (Why the cold war did never escalated. 2011). During the cold war, many times there was concern that this would escalate into a full war with nuclear arsenal used by both sides and killing millions. However both the sides developed a deterrence policy that further prevented problems from escalating beyond localities. Often periods of escalations and crisis appeared during the cold war days. That was in 1953, when Josef Stalin’s sudden death caused a leadership gap in Moscow. During this time in US there was American presidential election. This crisis continued till the most famous Cuban missile crisis of 1962. Other critical events during the cold war include the Hungarian revolution of 1956, erecting of the Berlin wall in 1961, and the Prague spring in 1968 (Cold war. 2009). During the cold war period, there was a competition between the US and the USSR for developing and using new technologies. As a result new inventions in the military as well as civilian areas were made by both the countries and they became superior technological powers. Another significant feature of the cold war is that both the countries used defensive technology instead of offensive technology. This is because both had similar destructive technologies like the nuclear bomb which could destroy each other in seconds. That is one of the reasons why the cold war did not escalate much further (Vieru.2010). Apart from military reasons there were political reasons for not escalating the cold war. This was the strategy initially followed by soviet dictator Josef Stalin. Personally Stalin was short in size but possessed unimaginable intelligence. After the Second World War which the USSR won along with the allies, Stalin slowly started scheming things at home that would keep him in power for long. He suppressed and killed all his enemies within the state and entered into strategic post war rebuilding agreements with US. Stalin believed that American aid is necessary for rebuilding the country therefore prima-facie good relations has to be maintained withy the west. Moreover he thought that the capitalists were too greedy so that they will not last long. It is only a matter of patience for the communists to wait for the right opportunities to seize power and spread communism all around the world. He believed that the Americans would provide loans in a greedy effort to open new markets and the western powers will ultimately end up in quarrelling each other. Moreover internal communist revolutions and movements inside western countries would soon overcome the present regimes. All these expectations were however short lived because Stalin failed to appreciate the post war objectives of the US. Moreover his unprecedented death in 1953 ended all his ambitions. But the efforts made by Stalin not to pursue an open war with the west played a significant lesson for the followers in USSR for not blowing up the war with US. Technological aftereffects also were another reason for the non escalation of the cold war. Hydrogen bomb developments were started by both the countries and tested during 1952-53 periods. The American BRAVO test in 1954 exploded a 15 megaton hydrogen bomb which produced a huge amount of fall out that was detected all around the globe. This gave analysts an impression about the effects of a nuclear explosion would be and its consequences. These prompted leaders from both sides to think about restrain during times of wars. Nikita Khrushchev who replaced Stalin and his counterpart in the US Eisenhower were military men who were aware of the horrors of war. They understood the war better than their advisors and developed an instinct of aversion in the use of nuclear weapons. Moreover Khrushchev was not really interested in escalating tension in the real sense because his positioning USSR was not secure. He had the fear of overthrowing by his opponents. Eisenhower who believed that use of nuclear weapons would wipe out the human race was determined to use nuclear weapons as a means of deterrent. He insisted that soviets who are better in conventional warfare could be stopped through threatening policies of using nuclear arms at the time of war. Such restrictive policies from both sides really made the open war non mature. The soviets were too reluctant to go for an open war with the west on many grounds. Firstly they had a very underdeveloped economy which could not stand the effects of open warfare. Secondly their military technology particularly the ICBM capabilities were very limited and primitive when compared with that of the West. They only boasted of their capabilities in reality they lacked even the interceptor for the US spy plane U2 initially which flew right across USSR taking important photographs. These factors necessarily put the soviet communists in going for an open warfare with the US and its allies (Gaddis.2003). Conclusion: The cold war of the twentieth century was really one of the most important political periods of the globe. It divided the world into two blocks practically and instigated fears of an imminent war in the minds of people. But actually cold war was like ghost war in which parties to it not really interested to carry on. The war was just a namesake to satisfy the greedy as well as unscrupulous intentions of some leaders who were interested to remain in power for long times by manipulating world affairs. The cold war did not benefit any country but it drained the wealth of states that they intended to spend for the common suffering people. Even though the real causes of non escalation of cold war can be political and military, other causes that stopped the war from blowing out was the ability of the common man to judge their leaders according to their merits as well as their never ending thirst towards democracy. Reference: Cold war. (2011). [online]. Available from:http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/cold_war.htm Accessed on March 22, 2011 Cold war. (2009). [online]. Available from;http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Cold_War. Accessed on March 22, 2011 Gaddis.J.L. (2003). The cold war. [online]. Available from:http://www.scribd.com/doc/5482784/The-Cold-War-review. Accessed on March 22, 2011 Vieru.T. (2010). Military Technology Not an Indicator of Victory. [online]. Available from:http://news.softpedia.com/news/Military-Technology-Not-an-Indicator-of-Victory-138655.shtml Accessed on March 22, 2011 Why did the cold war never escalate into full blown war? (2011). [online] Available from:http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_did_the_cold_war_never_escalate_into_full_blown_war Accessed on March 22, 2011 Read More