H.W. # 68b:“The cold war” Read pages 788-796 (“Truman...”) Evaluate the statement: The cold war was as much a crusade for the expansion of an American empire as it was a defensive preparation for a Soviet attack.


After the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the war was over and the U.S. had gained some credibility as the world’s strongest world power. In a realm of financial loss experienced by their Allie countries, Americans were enjoying a time of economic privilege that avoided, and benefited, from the ravages of war. Soon the U.S. experienced high increases in industrial production and capital assets of manufacturing benefited even more than after the First World War, going as far to create the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, directing the world’s economy. However, the U.S. and Soviet Union were completing for the same title of the world’s leading country, further demonstrated in the fact that the Soviet Union did not join the World Bank or the IMF. Furthermore division was in seen in the financial proceedings in Europe, divided between the influence of the capitalist U.S. (West Germany) and the influence of the Soviet Union (East Germany). Winston himself stated that an “iron curtain has fallen across Europe,” portraying the opening staging of the Cold War. The U.S.’s fear of the Soviet Union streamed mainly from its fear in communism, creating the Truman and Marshal Act in order to contain communism and support capitalism. These acts and the formation of NATO, an economic alliance between the U.S. and Allie forces, resolved the antagonism toward the Soviet Union, giving the U.S. political power to spread out financially. The Atomic Race, triggered by the U.S. bomb created to destroy Hiroshima, which triggered an immediate fear and inspiration in the Soviet Union to create nuclear weapons, then frightened the U.S. to start production of the hydrogen bomb, which also defined the Cold War Crusade. America was a country of U.S. patriotism, anti-communist/ Soviet Union sentiment, fear, and atomic experiment.