POL 607 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Mutual Assured Destruction, Warsaw Pact, Cuban Missile Crisis
Document Summary
1945 1990 -> bi-polar system (aka cold war) Wwii destroyed all the major players: german was devastated economically and militarily so was japan, during wwii, americans & russians were allies, both banded together to fight against nazi germany. American believed they defeated the germans but reality was russians were the one who defeated: allies became mortal enemies. There was a conference in 1944 to figure out what the political future of. In eastern europe, countries were occupied by the red army (soviet. Union) and acquired the countries with communist power. Americans saw that as an expansion of soviet union, saw it as a threat. Containment was a policy instituted by the americans designed to contain the growth of the soviet army. The reason it was called cold war because soviet union & americans never really fought a war with each other: they fought war at other countries like at vietnam. Nato (american) vs. warsaw pact (soviet union)