If the US and Soviet Union were allies in WWII, what caused them to be rivals during the Cold War?
The US and the Soviet Union were only allies because they had an enemy in common - Nazi Germany. The US, France and Britain sent military expeditions to Russia in 1918-1919 to try and squash the Russian Revolution that became the Soviet Union, they were never friends with the USSR. Everywhere the US and British armies entered a country, they liberated it. Everywhere the Russian army entered a country, they forcibly put in a government controlled by Russia and made it a satellite of the growing Russian empire. Remember where the communist governments of North Korea and North Vietnam came from? Remember what happened to the Baltic Republics? The US and British saw that the Soviet Union was literally trying to take over the world, and that someone had to push back or the Soviet-style government - which had already killed more than 10 MILLION of its own people before WWII even started - would be imposed on billions of innocent people. The US had the most resources, so it took on the lion's share of the defense. Things quickly got so tense that the US and its allies felt forced to do some bitter things to try and hold back their enemies - like support anti-communist governments that treated their own citizens as enemies to be brutalized. The Cuban Missile Crisis is seen by most as the closest the US and USSR ever came to open war. US and Soviet pilots regulary fought each other during both Korea and Vietnam, but a diplomatic fiction that the Soviet pilots were actually Korean or Vietnamese was in place to keep things from escalating beyond those proxy wars.
The cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union during World War II supports the idea that?
The cooperation between the United States and the Soviet Union during World War II supports the idea that 1. alliances are built upon mutual self-interest 2. communism and capitalism have much in common 3. political leaders often disregard the wishes of their citizens 4. imperialism is necessary in defense of liberty
Who Really Was Responsible for beating the Nazis in WWII ?
I know American history books say it was the US and Britain. But my research for class is bringing up Russia as the real force that beat the Nazis in WWII. Why is this not mentioned in American history? I learned that 10 million Russian soldiers died and 17 million Russian civilians were killed in sieges that starved them to death, no different from the Concentration Camps. So even though a Holocaust was committed, it isn't mentioned in American history books. Why is there a disconnect with facts?
What factors help to explain why the United States and the Soviet Union became rivals instead of allies?
Background: communism vs capitalism and global domination and lack of trust were the main factors starting in 1922. From 1922 to 1991, Russia was the largest part of the Soviet Union. Through most the final half of the 20th Century, the United States and the Soviet Union (known also as the USSR)were the principal actors in an epic battle, referred to as a Cold War, for global domination. This battle was, in the broadest sense, a struggle between communist and capitalist forms of economy and social organization. Even though Russia has now nominally adopted democratic and capitalist structures, Cold War history still colors U.S.-Russian relations today. World War II: Prior to entering World War II, the United States gave the Soviet Union and other countries millions of dollars worth of weapons and other support for their fight against Nazi Germany. The two nations became allies in the liberation of Europe. At war's end, countries occupied by Soviet forces, including a large part of Germany, were dominated by Soviet influence. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill described this territory as being behind an Iron Curtain. The division provided the framework for the Cold War which ran from roughly 1947 to 1991. Fall of the Soviet Union: Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev lead a series of reforms which eventually lead to the dissolution of the Soviet empire into a variety of independent states. In 1991, Boris Yeltsin became the first democratically elected Russian president. The dramatic change led to an overhaul of U.S. foreign and defense policy.but many issues remain it's a love hate relationship
Which country played the greatest role in winning WW2, Britain, USSR or USA?
Concerning the war in Europe (which seems to be the key element of this question, since Britain played a decidedly lesser role in the Pacific, and the USSR next to none) a few numbers are illustrative:Total War Dead in Europe:USSR 11,000,000Germany 3,500,000Romania 519,000Yugoslavia 300,000Italy 226,000UK 144,000USA 143,000There is a single graveyard created after the battle of Stalingrad (973,000 deaths) that has more bodies than the US or UK lost in the war.The war in the Western Front, June 1944 to May 1945, occupied 16,500,000 man-months. The German-Soviet war of 1941-1945 occupied 406,000,000 man-months. That is about 25 times as much for the Soviets, versus the part of the war most Americans fixate on.The Battle of Kursk, which most Americans haven't studied, was perhaps the world's last great set battle, involving 6,000 tanks, 4,000 aircraft, and approximately 235,000 Soviet casualties. By comparison, the Normandy landings involved 5,000 ships, 13,000 aircraft, and about 9,000 allied casualties.The US supplied the USSR with 14,700 airplanes, 7,000 tanks, and 15.4 million pairs of boots. In terms of material and financial support, the U.S. was important, possibly critical in the success of Stalin's grinding down of Hitler. Whether you see this as decidedly influential affects the answer of this question.In effect, the U.S. was the dominant industrial element, while the Soviet Union participated in by far the greater amount of violence and loss - and showed no signs of ceasing its human cost.Norman Davies, in his "No Simple Victory," makes the case that World War II in Europe was essentially a battle between two totalitarian mass murderers, one of whom the U.S. and the U.K. backed. While the U.S. and the U.K. played an important role, much of that role was support of Stalin's forces.While the Soviet Union played virtually no role in the violence of the Pacific theater, it had an oddly critical role there too. It moved on Japanese territory as the U.S. began its great effort against the Japanese mainland with Okinawa, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. This sped Hirohito's decision to surrender.