American Studies Cold War Blog Post
Question: Identify one source of conflict and tension between the USSR and the US around the 1950s. What caused this tension and why?
- Nuclear Weapons Race & Conflict
- The U.S. was the 1st to design, create, and implement the atomic bomb on Japan during WWII.
- Because the U.S. was the 1st and only power to create and implement nuclear weapons, they were the only power that knew how to build and use such weapons.
- The U.S. was trying to make peace in the world. Peace in their eyes at the time was being the only power to have nuclear weapons.
- The USSR at the same time was making peace somewhat difficult.
- With their communist dictator (insert name of dictator), their perspective on the world was entirely theirs for the taking and they had the “we deserve it all” mindset.
- The U.S. and the USSR began to fight over “who deserved it all”.
- When it seemed inevitable that the U.S. would keep a hold on nuclear weaponry, the USSR developed their first nuclear device code named, “First Lightning” and detonated it in a remote location in Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan in 1949.
- The U.S. did not approve of the USSR doing this and once they found out about their use of nuclear weapons the U.S. and the USSR were both in the race for power.
- The tension between the two authorities then skyrocketed.
Good cliffhanger.... eh?
-Zmurf's ideas
I believe that you chose a very good source of tension for the Cold War. Also, it seems relevant to bring up the fact that the project "First Lightning" was developed according to stolen Manhattan Project records, if I am not mistaken, meaning that it caused even more conflict than power. To end on a question, do you believe that, at the time, atomic weaponry was the sole sign of power?
ReplyDeleteTo answer Chavez's question, I believe that in the time period of question, atomic weaponry was the sole sign of power, because it was at the time the most powerful weapn. As seen through hindsight, multiple people were killed during the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombings. The effects were so monuemental, that they resulted in the theft of the Manhattan Project records and the multiple bluffed threats of atomic bomb usage to scare each other.
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