Us Involvement In The Cold War

Thus, in the initial stages of the Cold War, containment relied heavily on the atomic weapon monopoly the United States held over the rest of the world. The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki demonstrated vividly that the United States would employ the most destructive weapon ever developed by mankind. During the height of the Berlin Blockade crisis the United States dispatched B-29 bombers to Great Britain in an attempt to show Stalin that force would be met with greater force. A National Security memo detailed that the Soviet Union “should in fact never be given the slightest reason to believe that the U.S. would even consider not to use atomic weapons against them if necessary.” However, the Soviet Union broke this monopoly on August 29, 1949 as they successfully tested their own atomic bomb in the Kazakhstan desert. The United States would maintain a numerical and functional superiority with their atomic arsenal, but their ability to confront the Soviet Union with the “ultimate weapon” was greatly diminished due to Western European fears of retaliatory strikes on their industrial complexes. The detonation of an atomic bomb by the Soviet Union sent shockwaves through the American government. Containment relied heavily on the idea that the nuclear advantage could …show more content…
This was established by the alignment of Eastern Bloc nations to Soviet dogma as Stalin refused to adhere to the original agreements of self-determination made by the Allies once World War II ended. The inability to effectively negotiate with the Soviet Union led the United States to rely more heavily on economic and military means to accomplish the final ends of containing the expansive tendencies of their Cold War nemesis. However, diplomacy played a major role in the delivery of finalized containment strategies as the conflict