American Foreign Policy

SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1 The Cold War

The detonation of the first atomic bomb right in the middle of the Potsdam conference seemed to elicit merely a shrug from Stalin . He was aware , from several members of the atomic team that had passed uranium to Soviet agents , exactly what sort of weapon was being developed . Once the bomb was dropped on Japan , the need for the old alliance with the Soviet Union was no longer necessary or important , and therefore , the Cold War was on . It was very soon afterwards that the

Pentagon had drafted a plan for hitting Soviet cities with atomic weaponry in case of the development of war with the Russians (The Cold War , 27 . At the very least , the development of atomic weapons kept the Cold War fro becoming too hot ' frightening both powers with the extend fo the destruction an atomic war would cause

Korea was the first armed confrontation . There are a few theories that Korea was a deliberately planned war by the USSR in to distract western attention from Russian plans in eastern Europe , as well as political oppression at home . Most , however , hold the official doctrine that the USSR was convinced that South Korean under Rhee Syng-man was merely a puppet of the United States . The North Koreans were supported by the USSR , so the idea goes , solely to unify the long suffering Korean peninsula . Of course , this puts the US and the UN into a terrible position , since it...