Why did the Cold War not escalate into full-scale war between the USA Essay

Why did the Cold War not escalate into full-scale war between the USA and the USSR - Essay Example Even though there was no face to face conflicts these two blocks engaged in secret and indirect conflicts between each other. This was known to be the cold war. It continued till 1990’s when the Soviet Union broke up under the influence of perestroika and glasnost. To be precise, the cold war started in 1917 immediately after the Bolshevik revolution and ended in 1989 after the break up of USSR. It was a conflict between Bolshevism and democracy. The cold war is regarded as the most important political and diplomatical issue of the twentieth century. It got its name because both parties were afraid of fighting each other directly. Instead they fought the war indirectly. They played havoc in different parts of the world as well as fought with words on issues. Threatening and denouncement were common. Moreover they raced to make each other look foolish. The term cold war was used first by Mr. Bernard Baruch who was a senior advisor for the 33rd president of the US, Mr. Harry Tru man. He used this term because of the frequently occurring crisis between the two sides even though they fought side by side against Nazi Germany. The actual cause of the cold war was the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917. ... This prompted Russia to behave negatively against west. Russians though that the west was interested in toppling their communist regime and used all its strength to defend and shun them. Even though the US recognized USSR in 1933, suspicion between the two countries continued on a high note. This continued in the Second World War where both the countries were allies. The cold war is considered as decade’s long struggle for world supremacy. It began escalating during 1945 when relations between Washington and Moscow started deteriorating. The deterioration ignited the cold war as well as set a stage for the dynamic struggle between the east and the west. Even though political leaders changed in both sides, the cold war continued. In another sense, the cold war was more political rather than military (Cold war. 2011). One of the main reasons why the cold war did not escalate into a full fledged war was because both sides knew that if the war was started, it could easily be a nuc lear war causing destruction to the whole world (Why the cold war did never escalated. 2011). During the cold war, many times there was concern that this would escalate into a full war with nuclear arsenal used by both sides and killing millions. However both the sides developed a deterrence policy that further prevented problems from escalating beyond localities. Often periods of escalations and crisis appeared during the cold war days. That was in 1953, when Josef Stalin’s sudden death caused a leadership gap in Moscow. During this time in US there was American presidential election. This crisis continued till the most famous Cuban missile crisis of 1962. Other critical events during the cold war include the Hungarian