Impacts of Cold War-Politcs
The Cold War was a propaganda war. The Soviets portrayed us, The United States, as greedy and materialistic; in response, our national security agencies encouraged Hollywood to produce anticommunist movies and urged film scripts to be changed to praise American history. Propaganda was a major influence in Americans perspective towards communist states. Political figures in the U.S exaggerated the communist threat, creating a wave of paranoia, and fear. In the U.S, capitalism was praised, while communism was something Americans should have nothing to do with. The Cold War influences on Americans escalated due to antagonist values between the U.S and the U.S.S.R. The Cold War eventually led to the division of the world into two power blocks— one led by the U.S and its allies and the other led by U.S.S.R and their allies. Both the U.S. and U.S.S.R sought to influence the governments of the new decolonized countries. Soviets didn't want to risk any war with the U.S., so the left Western Europe to fall to the U.S., leaving the U.S.to form an alliance Western Europe. However, The Soviets then formed the Warsaw Pact with Eastern Europe. After the division the effects of the Cold War could be seen all over the world; Germany was divided into two eastern and two western parts, Crisis in the Korean Peninsula, Cuban Missle Crisis, The Great Game in the Middle East, the feud in Vietnam, etc… The U.S. then adopted a policy called “containment”, according to which the United States committed itself to preventing any further expansion of Soviet Power. The U.S. became so dedicated to the containment policy, that it occasionally abandoned its ideals of self-determination. The containment policy also resulted in American military intervention, all over the world. And, eventually, the Cold War still effected politics by people electing anti-Communist presidents. The Cold War effected many political aspects, such as propaganda, division of the world; two different governments, the fear of nuclear war, etc, but politics weren't the only thing the the Cold War influenced in America.