Who Started the Cold War?

Who Started the Cold War?

The Cold War was the result of the belligerence of Stalin and the insecurity it caused in the United States and the west. What pushed postwar international politics beyond simple imperial rivalry and into the militarized Cold War was the growing insecurity of the United States, particularly Truman and his advisers, about the aggressiveness of the Soviet Union under its leader, Stalin. The insecurity reached a critical level in February 1946, and by that point, Truman and his advisers had become convinced that the Soviet Union would eventually threaten the security of the United States.

As Truman became president, he was faced with the challenges left by Roosevelt in regards to the postwar situation. Truman’s advisers had pointed out that the Soviets had violated wartime agreements in eastern Europe, and often imposed client regimes on the populations in that part of the continent. Also, the Soviet Union adhered to an ideology of global communist revolution and the destruction of capitalist regimes such as the United States.

In February 1946, Truman decided that the Soviet Union sought to expand its power and therefore posed a threat to the United States. Stalin delivered a public address in which he brought back a form of communist rhetoric that had been suppressed during the war. Stalin blamed American criticism of his actions in eastern Europe on the forces of international capitalism. In 1946, Americans faces a world a lot more dangerous than they had ever seen before.

The only nation capable of threatening the United States was the Soviet Union. The Soviets still had an enormous army, which was capable of marching through Europe and attaining military resources.

The events of early 1946 convinced Truman and his advisers that it would be too big of a risk to assume that the Soviet Union did not intend to dominate Europe or to believe that the United States would be safe in a world where the Soviets controlled that entire region. Truman, taking the side of national security, decided to adopt a harder line toward the Soviet Union in the many negotiations. Despite this, the Soviet Union did not back down, and the Cold War carried on.