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The Second World War and the Cold War
Allied Military Strategy in both Europe and Asia
The Allied coalition was mainly formed to counter the threat posed by the Axis powers. The Allies were led by the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union, forming the Big Three (Robinson, 2020). The three leaders, including Winston Churchill of Britain, Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union, and the United States Franklin Roosevelt, developed a strategy that divided the Allied forces into strategic points in Europe and Asia. Initially, the United States remained neutral but actively supplied war materials to the Allied forces. After joining the war in 1941, the United States became a key leader of the Allied forces that provided manpower, weapons, and tactics.
The Allied strategy involved partitioning Europe into two fronts, including the Western Front and the Eastern Front, while Asia and the Pacific were treated as one. The British and American forces focused on the Western Front, the Soviet Union focused on the East, while a combination of the British, American and Chinese forces concentrated on the Asian and Pacific region (Robinson, 2020). The United States was the major supplier of weapons, shipping at least $50 billion worth of equipment to the Allied forces to strengthen the fronts. The Allies relied heavily on the American Air Force to conduct strategic bombings. They targeted the German industrial structures, residential houses, and key cities. The aim was to reduce the German power to finance its war and cause destruction to the Axis forces.
Diplomatic Efforts in Ending the War
Diplomatic relations among nations played a significant role that shaped the Second World War. The Allied nations conducted a series of conferences where key strategic issues about the war were discussed. Foreign ministers, ambassadors, and other top officials among the Big Three nations organized frequent summits to formulate policies that determined their relations with the Axis powers (Johnstone, 2020). These conferences improved diplomatic relations among the Allies, thus enhancing their cooperation and making them speak in one voice on the international stage. The close relations, especially between the United States and Britain, saw the two nations form a combined Chiefs of Staff, which consisted of top officials between the United States and Britain, to form policies approved by the US President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill.
The major conferences conducted by the Allied nations during the war included the Arcadia Conferences, the Tehran Conference, the Yalta conference, and Potsdam Conference. Other conferences were conducted after the declaration of the United Nations, where several other Allied nations signed to declare war against the Axis powers (Johnstone, 2020). At the Arcadia conference, President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill agreed on key strategies for the war in Europe. The main aim was on liberating Europe from the Nazi German, which was considered a significant threat to Britain.
The Tehran Conference was the first conference attended by the Big Three leaders. The leaders agreed on the post-war settlements, including the Soviet Union border issue with Poland and the reincorporation of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania into the Soviet Union. At the Yalta Conference, the leaders mainly focused on the postwar Europe borders, including settling the Poland conflict with the Soviet Union. The leaders conference at Potsdam demanded Japans unconditional surrender and agreed to establish the Allied Control commission that would govern Germany after the collapse of the Nazi regime (Johnstone, 2020). Therefore, diplomacy played an essential role in forming policies that focused on ending the war and the post-war policies to prevent another war.
Origins of the Cold War
The Cold War began immediately after the end of the Second World War. Several reasons, including ideological differences, caused the Cold War. The United States and the Soviet Union emerged as superpower countries after the defeat of Nazi Germany (Nyuon, n.d). However, despite being in the same alliance, the two nations shared different ideologies. The United States supported democracy and respect for human rights. The Soviet Union, under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, was a communist state that believed in expanding territories and forcing the Soviet culture on the minority countries. The Poland issue indicated The United States and Britain supported the Polish government in exile. In contrast, the Soviet Union Supported the Lublin government, which controlled Polands affairs under the influence of the Soviet Union.
The post-war economic reconstruction policies by the United States were considered unfavorable by the Soviet Union. The United States terminated the Land-Lese policy that enabled the US to supply with the Allies the needed materials for the war (Nyuon, n.d). The Soviet Union saw this termination as premature and aimed to reduce its ability to reconstruct. The Soviet Union tried to negotiate with the United States to provide aid for the reconstruction, but the negotiations were unsuccessful. US President Harry Truman did not portray a positive attitude toward the Soviet Union. He signed a foreign policy that vowed to protect any country that was under the threat of the Soviet Union. In retaliation, the Soviet Union signed the Brezhnev Doctrine, which required the Soviet Union to respond to any threat with force (Nyuon, n.d). The United States Atomic bomb was viewed as a threat by the Soviet Union. As a result, the Soviet Union began developing their military and nuclear warheads to counter the growing military might of the United States.
The Effects of Cold War on American Culture
The Cold War had a significant impact on American Culture. Some of the main ideologies of the Cold War were the threat of nuclear war, communism, and espionage. Americans developed hysteria and fear toward communism, leading to a widespread anticommunist movement (Richmond, 2021). The government, civil rights groups, and the general public became suspicious of people who portrayed communist values. For instance, teachers who failed to take an oath and other civil servants were fired and closely investigated. Communists were highly considered Soviet Union spies who were monitoring the atomic secrets of the United States and leaking them to the USSR government (Richmond, 2021). The new culture was reflected in music, TV series, and other cultural activities, which majorly citizen communist ideology and encouraged capitalist values.
The Presidencies of FDR and Harry Truman
President Franklin D. Roosevelt and President Truman had different policies that defined their administrations. The two leaders played a significant role in ending the Second World War. However, President Truman had a stronger foreign policy than that President Roosevelt (Warren & Siracusa, 2021). For instance, Roosevelt tolerated Joseph Stalin and his policy of invading neighboring states to establish communism. Truman saw this as a threat to the West and vowed to fight the spread of communism by supporting any country that felt threatened by the Soviet Unions power.
Roosevelt enacted the Land-Lease Act that supplied the Allies with financial and military aid. Truman terminated this policy because he did not want the Soviet Union to benefit from American aid. He wanted to reconstruct Europe as a mechanism to deal with the Soviet Unions influence (Warren & Siracusa, 2021). President Roosevelt attended many conferences where he signed several treaties about the world war and American commercial deals. This was not the case with Truman, who did not prefer conferences and treaties but majorly signed policies that addressed key issues that were a threat to the American people. In other words, Truman was more aggressive than President Roosevelt.
References
Johnstone, A. (2020). Us foreign relations during World War II. A Companion to US Foreign Relations: Colonial Era to the Present, 418-445.
Nyuon, A. K. (n.d). Cold and World War II: Understanding the Causes, Views and Conceptual Analysis.
Richmond, Y. (2021). Cultural exchange and the Cold War. Penn State University Press.
Robinson, P. (2020). Legacies of the Big Three : A grand alliance of the United States, the British empire, and the Soviet Union defeated Nazi Germany and imperial Japan. Three big historians, David Kennedy, Andrew Roberts, and Stephen Kotkin, on Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin. Hoover Digest, (1), 165-188.
Warren, A., & Siracusa, J. M. (2021). The Transition from Roosevelt to Truman. In US Presidents and Cold War Nuclear Diplomacy (pp. 19-34). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
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