The conflict between the United States and Russia is a complex and multifaceted issue that has roots in political, economic, and military tensions that have developed over several decades. Some of the major sources of conflict between the two countries include geopolitical competition for influence in regions such as Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, concerns over nuclear weapons proliferation, disputes over cyber security and election interference, economic sanctions and trade disputes, and human rights concerns. The conflict has escalated in recent years, with both countries engaging in military interventions in various regions and engaging in diplomatic and economic pressure tactics against each other.
In 1776, the Russian Empire initiated official communication with the newly-formed United States of America. Despite maintaining a formal stance of neutrality during the American Revolution, Russia was partial towards the U.S. In 1914, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria sparked the Great War or World War I. This war lasted until 1918 and involved the Central Powers comprising Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire, fighting against the Allied Powers which included Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Canada, Japan, and the United States. The use of advanced military technologies and trench warfare resulted in unparalleled levels of destruction and fatalities, with over 16 million people - both soldiers and civilians - losing their lives by the end of the war when the Allied Powers emerged victorious.
In 1933, the Soviet Union and the United States established diplomatic relations, which followed the bilateral ties between the Russian Empire and the United States that lasted from 1776 to 1917. During World War II (1939-1945), the two nations joined forces as allies against the Axis powers, although their relationship remained tense. The United States had always been cautious of Soviet communism and Joseph Stalin's autocratic rule of the USSR. On the other hand, the Soviets resented the United States' prolonged refusal to acknowledge the USSR as a legitimate member of the international community and their delayed involvement in World War II, which caused millions of Russian deaths. After the war, these resentments grew into deep-seated mistrust and hostility. Soviet expansionism in Eastern Europe following the war heightened American fears of Russian global domination, while the USSR resented what they perceived as the United States' aggressive rhetoric, military buildup, and interventionist foreign policy. In such a hostile environment, neither side could be entirely blamed for the Cold War, with some historians believing that it was an inevitable outcome.
The Cold War
The Cold War was a period characterized by political and military tension between the United States and the Soviet Union, along with their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term "cold war" was used because there was no direct large-scale fighting between the two superpowers, but instead, they supported opposing sides in regional conflicts that were known as proxy wars. The conflict arose from an ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by these two superpowers following their temporary alliance and victory against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in 1945. The United States' development of atomic weapons after the end of World War II resulted in a dangerous "arms race." In 1949, the Soviet Union tested an atom bomb of their own, which prompted President Truman to announce the development of a more destructive atomic weapon: the hydrogen bomb, or "superbomb." In 1950, the National Security Council released a report called NSC-68, which recommended that the country use military force to contain communist expansionism wherever it appeared to be happening. As a result, the stakes of the Cold War were extremely high.
During the Cold War, space exploration emerged as another dramatic arena for competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite and the first man-made object to be placed into Earth's orbit using an R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile. The launch of Sputnik took most Americans by surprise and was not received positively. In response, the United States launched its own satellite, Explorer I, in 1958, which marked the beginning of the Space Race. Later that year, Alan Shepard became the first American man in space. In May of 1961, President John F. Kennedy publicly declared that the U.S. would land a man on the moon before the end of the decade. On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong of NASA's Apollo 11 mission became the first man to set foot on the moon, effectively securing America's victory in the Space Race. U.S. astronauts were hailed as the ultimate American heroes, while the Soviets were depicted as the ultimate villains, with their relentless efforts to surpass America and prove the superiority of the communist system.
Growing concern over the Soviet threat abroad was reflected in the fight against subversion at home. The first military action of the Cold War began in June 1950 when the North Korean People's Army, backed by the Soviet Union, invaded its pro-Western neighbor to the south. Many American officials feared that this was just the beginning of a larger communist campaign to take over the world and considered non-intervention unacceptable. To address the situation, Truman deployed the American military to Korea. However, the Korean War ended in 1953 in a stalemate.
President Richard Nixon (1913-1994) ushered in a new approach to international relations almost immediately upon taking office. He advocated for diplomacy as opposed to military intervention to create multiple poles in the world instead of viewing it as an adversarial and "bi-polar" place. Nixon encouraged the United Nations to acknowledge the communist Chinese government and, following his trip there in 1972, established diplomatic relations with Beijing. In addition, he adopted a policy of "détente," which aimed to reduce tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. In 1972, Nixon and Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev (1906-1982) signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I), which prohibited the production of nuclear missiles by both sides and marked a step toward mitigating the decades-old threat of nuclear war. However, under President Ronald Reagan (1911-2004), the Cold War resurged. Like many leaders of his generation, Reagan believed that communism's spread in any part of the world jeopardized freedom everywhere. Therefore, he provided financial and military support to anticommunist governments and insurgencies around the globe, particularly in the developing world, earning the name "Reagan Doctrine."
Eastern Europe witnessed a decline in Soviet control, as every communist state in the region replaced its government with a noncommunist one by 1989. The most prominent symbol of the Cold War, the Berlin Wall, was finally destroyed in November of that year, just over two years after President Reagan had issued a challenge to the Soviet premier in a speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” Eventually, the Soviet Union itself collapsed in 1991, marking the end of the Cold War.
Comments