Cold War project topics/notes:
1. Causes of the Cold War-
-America's fear of a Communist attack made the US a bit paranoid about the USSR
-Truman didn't like Stalin
-Russia had a great fear of our atomic bomb, so that made him paranoid also. Staling was pretty much paranoid about everything. He killed doctors thinking that they were trying to kill him. Afraid of going into an all out nuclear war.
-Many houses in the 1950's (for both countries) had bomb shelters that were usually underneath the basement
-Captialism: An economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners.
-Russia's dislike of Capitalism: we were succeeding in using Capitalism, and he didn't like that we were succeeding in anything. They also didn't like that we were keeping nuclear weapon secrets from them.
-Russia's expansion west into Eastern Europe and broken election promises: Russia promised not to expand when they did, and Stalin also "promised" that there would be free elections, but he also broke that promise too and he turned his citizens into Communists.
-Russia was truly afraid that we were going to drop bombs on them from the US Army, Navy, etc, but Stalin felt that he couldn't leave any room for public panic. So he acted like he couldn't care less.
-Russia needed a secure western border to protect from any possible attacks from us.
-Karl Marx was the first to come up with the idea of Communism.
-Russia's aim of spreading world communism: There were getting to be more Communistic countries, which meant that Russia was beginning to have less enemies.
2. Policy of Containment: domino effect, Iron Curtain Speech, Marshall Plan, Truman Doctrine- The Domino Chain Effect: President Eisenhower and his national security adviser introduced the domino theory during the 1950's. It was a chain because if one country went into communism, then others would follow.
-The Iron Curtain: Ideological and physical divide that was between the soviet controlled areas in eastern europe and the democratic government in western europe. Winston Churchill used this term in his speech given in 1946..."from stettin in the baltic to trieste in the adriatic, an Iron Curtain descended upon the continent."
-Marshal Plan: The marshal plan also known as the european recovery program was an american program to aid europe where the US could give monterary support to help rebuild the european economies in the end of WWII to prevent soviet communism to spread.
-Truman Doctrine: A policy set forth by Truman in a speech in 1947 stating that we would support Creece and Turkey economically. This is often considered as the start of the Cold War. Truman stated "the policy of the United States to support free people who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures."
3. House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC)-
4. Senator Joe McCarthy and McCarthyism-
5. Berlin Blockade and Airlift-Brian-
6. China becoming communist-Mao-
7. NATO(beginning to present), de-Stalinization and peaceful co-existence-massive retaliation, mutual detterence
8. Nuclear Arms race(1945-1970)-
9. Fidel Castro and the Bay of Pigs-
10. The Cuban Missile Crisis-
11. The Berlin Wall--Going Up and Coming Down-
12. Nixon's visit to China-
13. 1970's Peace Attempts-Detente, Salt I, Salt II-
14. Effects of the Soviet's invasion of Afghanistan-
15. Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative(Missile Defense System today)-
16. Gorbachev's/Reagan's changing ways-perestroika and glasnost, INF Treaty-
17. The fall of Communism and the end of the Cold War-explain how it all went down-
18. The new map of Europe(up to present)-
19. Why the US won the Cold War-
20. Korean Conflict--
21. Vietnam Conflict
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