The Cold War in America

Paper Summary:

This paper looks at the early stages of Cold War America by discussing what image America had of itself just prior to and in the opening act of, the Cold War, as well as why the alliance between the U.S.S.R and the United States collapsed by the end of the 1940s. Further, the paper attempts to explain why the perceptions of the U.S.S.R and the strategy proposals outlined in NSC-68 became linchpins of U.S. foreign policy for the better part of two generations - from 1950 until the U.S.S.R's collapse in the early 1990s. In the end, the final conclusion of the paper is that United States' actions were indeed motivated by (possibly) chauvinistic ambition - but that U.S. fears about the Soviet Union were well-founded in the main.

From the Paper:

"The vision of the postwar WWII world offered by journalists and by geo-political observers fundamentally revolved around many things - the expansion and/or projection of American power being one of them. In an interesting essay published in Time magazine in February of 1941, Henry R. Luce argued that America should seek to use its power to serve the Earth as a "Good Samaritan" spreading (American) democracy all around the Globe. In other words, Luce put forward the argument that America should unify the planet under its benevolent leadership in much the same way as it had previously unified much of the North American continent and its various peoples (both Western European and non-Western European) under one flag."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Calbos, Paul. "Fighting the Global War on Terrorism: Are There Lessons from the Cold War?" USAWC Strategy Research Project. N.d. United States Army. 4 Feb. 2007 <http://stinet.dtic.mil/dticrev/PDFs/ADA432311.pdf>
• Luce, Henry R. "The American Century." Diplomatic History 23.2 (1999): 159-171. (Originally appeared in Life, February 1941.)
• United States. National Security Council. NSC-68: United States Objectives and Programs for National Security. National Security Council: NSC-68. 14 Apr. 1950. Federation of American Scientists. 4 Feb. 2007 <http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsc-hst/nsc-68.htm>

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