Blog Post #5 – The Essay

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The Cold War was my official Capstone project topic. Which was chosen 1 eternity ago. This topic was very compelling to my because it was based on Communism and Capitalism. A Communist society in China and a Capitalist society in the US. So what is the Cold War? The Cold War is a series of geopolitical disputes on the debatable ideology of communism and capitalism. Communism is the fact that everything in the country is owned by the government and Capitalism is when an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. Since the U.S competed with Russia’s military, nuclear weapons were no longer owned by the U.S it was also owned by the USSR. Although the Cold war was not based on direct blows, it still involved small wars that were fought across the world also known as hot wars or proxy wars. Hot war can be defined as a war with active military hostilities and proxy wars can be defined as a war instigated by a major power which does not itself become involved. We will later by talking about two proxy wars.  The only reason there was ‘proxy’ wars was because of  the ideology of containment of communism and spread of communism. During the Yalta conference of 1945 Winston Churchill, Josef Stalin and FDR discussed what to do with Germany after the defeat of  WW2. They decided that West Germany was going to be controlled by the U.S and the UK and the East by the Soviet Union. One year later after the Yalta conference Churchill remarks, “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic and Iron Curtain has descended.” This ideology again was based on the Communism in the east and Capitalism in the west. The cold war was well underway. The Cold War started because of  the spread of communism and the rise of power for the Soviet Union. Did you know that the first president of the country, Vladimir Lenin only ruled for 5 years 1917 to 1922, while the second president Joseph Stalin ruled for 31 years 1922 to 1953. So how did it actually start? Western countries like the U.S has been always hostile with governments which consumed communism. This led to an idea for the U.S to ‘contain’ communism by George.F.Kennan.(Contain as to contain the spread of communism from the Soviet Union.) The Cold War of 1947 has officially started. During the Cold war proxy wars was emerging into view across the world and today we are going to talk about the two wars that was widely known today. The Korean and Vietnam war. Let’s start with the Korean war. These can be considered as a negative effect because of the Cold War because of the people who suffered. The Korean war took place in Korea and started in 1950. The North Korean government were communists and the south were capitalists. Since China was close to Korea it was easier to load troops on the grounds. Within weeks the Soviet union, China and North Korea successfully infiltrated South Korea. America, along with the South Korea was overwhelmed by the advance. Then in 1950, General Douglas MacArthur successfully loaded troops on Ichon, a city in South Korea close to the 38th parallel or seperation line and quickly drove the North Koreans back to their territory. The war came to a stalemate in 1953 by no win of either side. Now, the Vietnam War was a totally different story. The loss was considered a colossal blunder for the United States of America and for John F Kennedy. The reason the U.S lost was because China was so close to the North Vietnam and the U.S was on the other part of the globe. Americans lost 58,000 lives and over one trillion dollars on the military during the war. The two leaders were Ho Chi Minh and Ngo Dinh Diem. Because of Diem’s horrendous ruling people despised, loathed and hated him. That’s why Ho Chi Minh seized his chance and took over all South Vietnam. But why? Why spend so much money and still lose? President John F Kennedy believed in the Domino Effect which was communist states would make vulnerable capitalism countries around become communist countries. For example, if one country fell to communism, like Vietnam, nearby countries like Laos or Cambodia would fall, too. But nevertheless his intentions were good. Because of his and countless others persistence on many ideology, the Cold war ended with a whimper from the Soviet Union and a cheer for the U.S. The Soviet Union eventually collapsed because of the countries that left the Soviet Union. Without those countries Soviet Union was nothing. When the Cold War ended Communism primarily was defeated. But many countries with communism and capitalism who grew really intense in the arms race suffered a great depression some much worse then the one in the U.S. Because of the great spending in military they have ignored consequences and only on what was current. During the war the countries around the world spent over 10 trillion dollars on military. ONLY. Although the Soviet Union’s consequences were not calculated specifically, we could realize that the Soviet Union spent a lot more money than the U.S. Even though the Soviet Union held most of the responsibility, the U.S also had some responsibility. The U.S thought that the Russian Spy Agency KGB posed a threat to the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA. International worries about communism was clearly transcribed through public events. In 1949 Mao ZeDong of China took charge of all China forming the People’s Republic of China. This made the U.S realize how fast communism was spreading. Since we mentioned about spies in the Soviet Union and spies in the U.S we will briefly talk about both of the spy agencies.So basically the CIA stands for the Central Intelligence Agency and KGB stands for the Committee for States Security when translated translated to English. The Central Intelligence Agency was for exploring international relations and solving crimes around the world. Unlike the FBI it only solves international situations. The KGB was established for intelligence gathering, border security, and propaganda enforcement. More than half a million people were employed in the KGB. It gathered information by using legal resident spies. Although there was also illegal spies in the U.S., they did a good job keeping American suspiciousness to a minimum. The CIA was basically the KGB of America. These two agencies gathered information in projects. For instance, Soviet spy Klaus (Clouse) Fuchs (Fukes) had been eavesdropping on the Manhattan project and is considered one of the most valuable spies in Soviet history. (The Manhattan project was underway during WWΙІ, which led to the invention to the first nuclear weapon). 30 years after the Red Scare, the Cold War had officially started.  This event is called the Red Scare. If the Soviet Union and the U.S could of just cooperated it would be a totally different story. The world spent trillions of dollars on military only and lost some money because of arms not put out to use so it’s basically a waste of money. The countries relationship deteriorates during the war and still continues to this day. So how do we answer our main inquiry question?

One significant part played in the Cold War was the two individual spy agencies, the KGB and the CIA(I went to the KGB museum for my site visit). So basically the CIA stands for the Central Intelligence Agency and KGB stands for the Committee for States Security. The Central Intelligence agency was for exploring international relations and solving crimes around the world. Unlike the FBI it only solves international situations. The KGB was established for intelligence gathering. Border security and Propaganda enforcement. More than half a million people was employed in the KGB. It gathered information by using legal resident spies. Although there was also illegal spies in the U.S they did a good job hiding their suspicioness from the government. The CIA was basically the KGB of America. These two agencies gathered information in projects. For instance, Soviet spy Klaus Fuchs has been eavesdropping on the Manhattan project and is considered one of the most valuable spy in the Manhattan project by the Soviet Union. (The Manhattan project was underway during WWΙІ, which led to the invention to the first nuclear weapon) Since The Cold War has impacted the world in a positive way because it made us realize that both types of governments have their inadequate and superior places. For example, communism makes everyone equal even if you are poor and everyone is employed. You see, if the government controls most of the ‘stuff’ the government hires people to work and is their choice to employ or unemploy. But the problem with this is the rich people who work hard everyday would get the same thing as unemployed individuals who don’t even work and the government basically decides everything for you. While in Capitalism, you can decide what you want to do and you won’t have to be equal like while people are rich you could be poor the government won’t help you. This tends to make large inequality. Governments obviously spend too much money on arms during the Cold War and as stated before much were not put into use, just used as a threat. As a result to this is governments and countries losing money while they can spend it on much more useful and valuable things. They could’ve stabilize their economy, ten dollars on the line but if the governments spent the trillions of dollars on economy rather than military equipment plus wasting them, they would have been much more successful. Countries such as Russia and China have withered when the Cold War ended. So after the Cold War the KGB spy Agency of Russia broke down and China has experienced economic turbulences. And the foreign relations with U.S and Russia is not fully in the status of trustworthy. Russian politicians have criticized the American Government as a ‘Civil Rights Watchdog’ or in other words people who are constantly alert of peoples rights, and American politicians has criticized the Russian Government as the ‘political delinquents’. To sum up the article I will capture the main points. Positive effects, everybody learned something about both governments, one that had not evolved thought out of pure air would fall and that philosophy is right, most of the communist countries did fall. Negative effects the wastes on Cold War nuclear weapons wasted and people who died because of battle. Finally, after 44 years of rivalry the U.S has won with capitalism and the USSR has lost with communism. Anyways, in my opinion I think that the Cold War was absolutely necessary. Communism to me is like a dark dimension where everything is messed up and obsessing with human rights I mean, who would want property controlled by the government? Sharing your house with strangers. In a result, how is the communism beneficial except for killing people? When Mao ZeDong was ruling the 4 years of the Great Leap Forward a horrendous project that united people in farms and every bit of food cultivated was giving to the government. My Great Grandfather died because of hunger! But nevertheless, the U.S succeeded and at least minimized the amount of communist countries. And these are the final negative and positive effects of the Cold War.

Interesting facts.

  • Karl Marx was the inventor of communism and actually fascinated the U.S with his books about communism.
  • During WWII the U.S and the Soviet Union was actually forced to join forces rather than join forces by will.
  • The bully example up top was from my interviewee Bob.
  • Until my actual presentation I will include my second interviewee, Ray a former veteran and aviator of the Cold War.

 

Sources

So basically + 1 site visit + 5 websites + 2 interviews + 2 books + 1 database

 

Thank You

 

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