WWII and COLD WAR

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02 April 2008

The Cold War and WWII

Introduction

Sometimes we doubt , whether the Cold War has been a real ' war . We might think that the Cold War was hardly a real ' war due to the absence of real military actions between the nations . On the one hand the reality ' of war is not limited by military operations . On the other hand , the history of the Cold War is filled with military examples of a real ' war . That stage of historical development

requires thorough re-consideration through the prism of its chronology and the most important events . WWII will become a good basis for comparison because for many of us the Second World War remains the most vivid representation of what real ' war is

One of the major problems of this research is what we consider to be a real ' war . Under the term real ' we imply military actions millions of deaths , and millions of injured , with several nations involved into the conflict . There are numerous definitions of what war is . A war can imply an armed conflict against an enemy , or can appear in the form of a violent opposition between two different nations . In this context , the Cold War hardly looks like real ' war . It seems that the Cold War was nothing more than visible political opposition and competition between the two powerful nations - the United States and the Soviet Union . However , those who hold such erroneous perceptions about the Cold War are not aware of the numerous critical events which took place at that period , and which could easily turn the Cold War into a real ' war

As WWII started with the German invasion to Poland in 1939 , the Cold War began in 1945 , with bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States . The nuclear attack has caused multifaceted military and political effects on the history of the Cold War . First , it has pushed the United States ahead of the world 's arms race . Second , it has caused thousands of deaths , and in many aspects this event has turned a quiet political opposition into a real ' war . Certainly , we may argue that neither bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki , nor the explosion of hydrogen bomb in the United States in 1952 were the displays of the Cold War as a real ' war . Certainly , those events did not involve the two political powers into direct military opposition , but the Cold War was and remains primarily a military conflict . It would be correct to call the Cold War the the continuous armed race , in which each of the two states was trying to prove its military leadership . We can easily call the Cold War "World War III , because it has led to irreversible political and military consequences not only for the USSR and the USA , but for the whole world . The Cold War has completely changed the political opinion of what a real ' war could be , and has divided the world into the two large...