Cold War - The "Ideology Export"

The History of Cold War

      Cold war is a term used to refer a period (1947-1991) where the conflict and competition happened between USA (United Nation of America) and USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republic) with their own respective alliances. The beginning of Cold War was triggered by the victory of USA and USSR as the super power countries in the Second World War. This “ideology” war began after USA defeated Germany (Nazi) in the Second World War, and remained those big countries with different ideology, economy, and military weapon power. It was named as Cold War since USA and USSR did not seem doing physical combat, even though both had a massive power of military. 

        The “Cold War” term was firstly introduced by English Journalist, George Orwell in his essay after the end of the Second World War. However, the battle actually was not yet ended since in fact those major powers still competed in spreading their influence through their soft powers (particularly culture) towards the other countries around the world especially the non-aligned one. Both countries brought up their own influence; USA with liberalism-capitalism and USSR with communism. Capitalism emphasizes on freedom to create any kind of strategy in order to earn more profit. Besides, communism emphasizes on abolishing the social class to create the same level of people.

            In spreading the influence, USA and USSR applied different plans. Here below were some ways how USA was eager to spread its ideology:

• Marshall Plan was a widespread economic help for the Europe and some Asian countries whose economic got collapsed after the Second World War.
• Truman Doctrine was an economic and military help for Greek and Turkey to avoid Soviet’s communism. Truman Doctrine was enacted by Harry S. Truman (the president of USA at that moment).
• On April 4^th 1949 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) was formed in Washington by USA as a defensive pact with some Western Europe countries (England, Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxemburg, French, Portugal, and Canada).
• SEATO (South East Asia Treaty Organization) was formed on September 8^th 1954 in Manila, Philippine.

USSR also did creating counter attack toward USA. Some major actions were:

• Warsaw Pact on May 14^th 1955 led by Soviet Union with Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Albany, and Bulgaria.
• Comminteren Economic; was an agreement to rebuild the economic crisis among Eastern Europe countries.
• Molotov Plan; helping/rebuilding the collapsed countries in Eastern Europe which were the aftermath of the Second World War.
• Comminform was an international communist network which worked as propaganda to rival the capitalism spread.

Besides competing to influence other countries with ideology, USA and USSR also competed in many aspects, such as military forces, space exploring, doing espionage toward each other, up to competing in some Olympiad games. USA and Soviet Union also built a sophisticated weapon, such as ballistic missile and WMD. The competition was not stopped at that point; they also competed to show their power and ability as they launched their own rocket to explore the outer space.

Here, below is a video that show what happened during Cold War:

There were some different theories that explained how Cold War ended as written below:
1. Soviet Union spent 11% of GNP on military expenditures until 1980. Soviet Union also provide and spent large cost for its satellite countries.
2.    In 1989, USA and Soviet Union declared to do ceasefire as exposed to the public through press conference on Soviet ship, Maxim Gorky. Both agreed to reduce their respective army and military weapon in Europe.
3. In December 8^th 1991, three leaders from Soviet Union Boris Yeltsin (Russia), Leonid Kravchuk (Ukraine), and S. Shushkevich (Belarus) gathered and raised an agreement in Belovezkhaya Pusha without Gorbachev presence. In December 24^th 1991 Gorbachev officially resigned from his position (President) of Soviet Union;hence, Soviet Union also dismissed.