Group 1

What is the Cold War?

The Cold War was a lengthy struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union that
began in the aftermath of the surrender of Hitler’s Germany. In 1941, Nazi aggression
against the USSR turned the Soviet regime into an ally of the Western democracies. But in
the post-war world, increasingly divergent viewpoints created rifts between those who had
once been allies.
The United States and the USSR gradually built up their own zones of influence, dividing
the world into two opposing camps. The Cold War was therefore not exclusively a struggle
between the US and the USSR but a global conflict that affected many countries,
particularly the continent of Europe. Indeed, Europe, divided into two blocks, became one
of the main theatres of the war. In Western Europe, the European integration process began
with the support of the United States, while the countries of Eastern Europe became
satellites of the USSR.
From 1947 onwards, the two adversaries, employing all the resources at their disposal for
intimidation and subversion, clashed in a lengthy strategic and ideological conflict
punctuated by crises of varying intensity. Although the two Great Powers never fought
directly, they pushed the world to the brink of nuclear war on several occasions. Nuclear
deterrence was the only effective means of preventing a military confrontation. Ironically,
this ‘balance of terror’ actually served as a stimulus for the arms race. Periods of tension
alternated between moments of détente or improved relations between the two camps.
Political expert Raymond Aron perfectly defined the Cold War system with a phrase that
hits the nail on the head: ‘impossible peace, improbable war’.
The Cold War finally came to an end in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the
collapse of the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe.
Towards a bipolar world (1945–1953)
The end of the Second World War did not signal a return to normality; on the contrary, it
resulted in a new conflict. The major European powers that had been at the forefront of the
international stage in the 1930s were left exhausted and ruined by the war, setting the scene
for the emergence of two new global superpowers. Two blocks developed around the
Soviet Union and the United States, with other countries being forced to choose between
the two camps.
The USSR came out of the war territorially enlarged and with an aura of prestige from
having fought Hitler’s Germany. The country was given a new lease of life by its heroic
resistance to the enemy, exemplified by the victory at Stalingrad. The USSR also offered an
ideological, economic and social model extending as never before to the rest of Europe.
Furthermore, the Red Army, unlike the US army, was not demobilised at the end of the
war. The Soviet Union thus had a real numerical superiority in terms of men and heavy
weapons.
The United States was the great victor of the Second World War. Its human and material
losses were relatively low, and even though the US Army was almost completely
demobilized a few months after the end of hostilities, the United States remained the
world’s leading military power. Its navy and air force were unrivalled, and until 1949 it was
the only country with the capacity to produce nuclear weapons. It also confirmed its status
as the world’s leading economic power, in terms of both the volume of trade and industrial
and agricultural production. The US now owned more than two thirds of the world’s gold
reserves and the dollar became the primary international currency.
The conflicts of interest between the new world powers gradually multiplied, and a climate
of fear and suspicion reigned. Each country feared the newfound power of the other. The
Soviets felt surrounded and threatened by the West and accused the United States of
spearheading ‘imperialist expansion’. For their part, the Americans were concerned at
Communist expansion and accused Stalin of breaching the Yalta Agreement on the right of
free peoples to self-determination. The result was a long period of international tension
interspersed with dramatic crises which, from time to time, led to localized armed conflicts
without actually causing a full-scale war between the United States and the USSR. From
1947, Europe, divided into two blocks, was at the heart of the struggle between the two
superpowers. The Cold War reached its first climax with the Soviet blockade of Berlin. The
explosion of the first Soviet atomic bomb in the summer of 1949 reinforced the USSR in its
role as a world power. This situation confirmed the predictions of Winston Churchill, who,
in March 1946, had been the first Western statesman to speak of an ‘Iron Curtain’ that now
divided Europe in two.

Group 2
What impact did the Cold War have on American society?

The Cold War started to develop after the Second World War when the USA and the USSR
no longer had a common goal of Hitler’s Nazism. As soon as Cold War was instigated, the
differences in ideology and other factors worsened the relationship between the USA and
the USSR. This meant that many events such as Cuban Missile Crisis and arms race nearly
led to a hot war. As Cold War progressed until the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cold War
had significant impact on American society.
Firstly, Cold War instigated strong anti-communism within the USA. The hatred towards
Communism was so great that it eventually led to McCarthyism. During McCarthyism,
Americans were obsessed with the process of identifying the Communists and removing
those Communists from American society. The strength of this obsession increased greatly
that Americans started to forget the fact that the US constitution guaranteed all Americans
freedom to believe what they wanted to believe. The purpose of organizations such as the
Federal Bureau of Investigation and the House Un-American Activities became the
‘removal of Communists’ and laws such as the Communist Control Act were passed to
facilitate the process of identifying, capturing and removing Communists. The McCarran
Act was also introduced, which forced all Communist organizations to be registered within
the US government and banned Communists carrying US passports and working in defense
industries. Inevitably, many were questioned without having done anything wrong, many
lost their jobs and some even lost their lives like the Rosenbergs, who were blamed for
having passed secret information about atomic bombs to the Soviet Union. This red scare
continued to dominate the American society until late 1950s.

Secondly, Cold War made many Americans to live in fear of danger of war. This fear of
war was instigated by the arms race. One example is Cuban missile crisis, which caused
high tension within the USA as the missiles in Cuba could reach the USA at any time. Until
the U-2 planes found the missiles in Cuba, the fear was not significant as people knew that
the missiles in the USSR could not cover such long distance to reach the USA. However,
the missiles in Cuba threatened the USA’s security to a significant extent that many
Americans had to live in fear. Although the attitude of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD)
was existent, the missiles in such proximity alarmed many Americans at that time. Apart
from Cuban missile crisis, Americans lived in constant fear as the Cold War could turn into
a hot war at any time.
Thirdly, Cold War had an impact on American people economically. The impact was
caused mainly by the increase in the amount of taxes. The United States used to adopt
isolationism previously, meaning that the USA did not intervene in any other foreign
matters to only concentrate on the domestic issues. As soon as the USA decided to
intervene in foreign matters, Americans had to pay more taxes to support the USA’s
actions. These actions, including the arms race and other wars, required massive amount of
capital. For instance, the Vietnam War was one of the factors that used up massive amount
of capital. The Vietnam War was very different from any other wars because it was a
guerrilla war between Vietcongs. The Vietcongs had successfully planned the strategies to
kill many Americans without having America’s latest technology such as tanks and
airplanes. As the war developed, it was estimated that it cost Americans $400,000 to kill
one Viet Cong.
To conclude, although the Cold War never actually led to a hot war between two major
powers, the USA and the USSR, it caused massive impact upon the world, including
American society. The main impacts include anti-Communism, fear of war and economic
damage. Of all the impacts, I believe that anti-communism is the one that caused
everlasting impact on American society. The fear of war and the economic impact had short
term effect while the hatred towards communism still exists within American society.
Taken from: http://www.markedbyteachers.com/gcse/history/what-impact-did-the-cold-
war-have-on-american-society.html
Group 3

The Cuban Missile Crisis

In 1962, a new trial of strength unfolded in Cuba: for two weeks, the world teetered on the
brink of nuclear war.
Since the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista’s military dictatorship in January 1959, Cuba had
been ruled by Fidel Castro. In the course of agricultural reform, Castro nationalized the
Cuban property of American undertakings on the island, thereby incurring the wrath of
Washington. In response, the pro-Communist Cuban leader moved closer to the USSR,
which was delighted to find a new ally in the western hemisphere and inside the American
security zone. The Cuban and Soviet regimes signed successive agreements on trade and
military cooperation. In April 1961, the United States attempted to overthrow the new
regime by arranging for anti-Castro exiles to land in the Bay of Pigs. The operation failed
and ultimately only strengthened Castro’s position. He enticed many Latin American
revolutionaries to Cuba, which was the only Communist country in the Americas, and
threatened the United States’ prestige in the region. Khrushchev decided to secretly provide
the Cubans with intermediate-range offensive missiles that could pose a direct threat to the
territory of the United States.
On 14 October 1962, after Soviet freighters carrying missiles had been identified on their
way to Cuba, American spy planes also photographed launchers for Soviet intermediate-
range rockets. The US President, John F. Kennedy, therefore decided to impose a naval
blockade, closing off access to Cuba. Any attempt by Soviet ships to force their way
through could have ignited the powder keg, provoking open conflict between the United
States and the Soviet Union. Europe, and in particular Germany, would inevitably have
then become a theatre of war.
However, at the eleventh hour, and after repeated contact between Moscow and
Washington, largely through the intermediary of the United Nations, a compromise
emerged: The Soviet ships agreed to turn back, and the Americans undertook not to invade
Cuba and to remove their rockets from Turkey. On 28 October, the world avoided nuclear
war by a whisker and the two
Great Powers returned to disarmament negotiations. In Europe, Franco-German links were
strengthened by the crisis.
Group 4
What Was the Space Race?
By Adam Mann August 07, 2019
The space race was a series of competitive technology demonstrations between the United
States and the Soviet Union, aiming to show superiority in spaceflight. It was an outgrowth
of the mid-20th-century Cold War, a tense global conflict that pitted the ideologies of
capitalism and communism against one another, according to an online exhibit from the
National Air and Space Museum.

How the Space Race Began

The opening salvo of the space race was the launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik 1 on Oct.
4, 1957. The U.S. government had already been planning to launch its own artificial
satellite, and members of the public were shocked when they saw that the Soviet Union,
which had been devastated during World War II, was able to achieve this milestone first,
NASA wrote on the 60th anniversary of the launch.
The Soviets followed up with another triumph less than a month later with the launch of
Sputnik 2, which carried a dog named Laika. It wasn't until the next year, 1958, that the
Americans had their first achievement in the space race, launching a satellite called
Explorer 1. That same year, NASA was founded and publicly announced the creation of a
program to send human passengers into space.
Still, for much of the first half of the space race, the Soviet Union was considered to be
ahead. Its engineers accomplished many firsts, including the first mission to leave Earth
orbit, Luna 1; the first probe to reach the moon, Luna 2; and the first spacecraft to head
toward Venus, Venera, which stopped responding a week after its launch.
On April 12, 1961, the Soviets obtained another spectacular victory with the successful
flight of Yuri Gagarin, the first person to fly in space. After returning to Earth, Gagarin was
celebrated as an international hero. Gagarin beat the first American, Alan Shepard, into
space by less than a month. Shepard's flight took place on May 5, 1961.
A major turning point in the space race occurred that same month, when U.S. President
John F. Kennedy stood before legislators in Congress and announced that he had committed
NASA to landing people on the moon before the end of the decade. A few months later, at
Rice University in Texas, Kennedy delivered his famous "Moon Speech," where he said,
"We choose to go to the moon … in this decade and do the other things, not because they
are easy, but because they are hard."
Who Won the Space Race?
Over the next few years, each side in the space race took several other firsts. The
Americans achieved the first interplanetary flyby when Mariner 2 sped past Venus in 1962,
followed by the first Mars flyby in 1965 with Mariner 4. The Soviets sent the first woman
into space, Valentina Tereshkova, in 1963 (a feat that would take the U.S. 20 more years to
achieve). Other nations launched their own rockets and satellites, including Canada in
1962, France in 1965, and Japan and China in 1970.
But these countries' successes were mere sideshows in what came to be the main event of
the space race: NASA's Apollo program. Following the achievements of the crewed
Mercury and Gemini programs, NASA engineers embarked on a series of missions to place
human footprints on the moon.
The program got off to a horrific start on Jan. 27, 1967, when all three astronauts in the
Apollo 1 capsule were killed during a launch rehearsal test that sparked a huge fire. But that
catastrophic failure generated extensive redesigns of the spacecraft and a commitment to
ensuring that the crew did not die in vain.
Just over a year later, on Oct. 11, 1968, NASA launched its first Apollo astronauts into
space aboard a Saturn I rocket for the 11-day Apollo 7 mission. This was followed two
months later by Apollo 8, which sent a crew around the moon and back to Earth.
Meanwhile, the Soviets were continuing to build up their spaceflight capabilities, but by the
time of Apollo 8, repeated disasters had caused their moon program to lose momentum.
In 1969, NASA launched Apollo 9, which conducted critical tests of its lunar module in
Earth orbit; and Apollo 10, which all but landed on the moon, bringing its crew within a
few miles of the lunar surface. Then, on July 20, 1969, the space race reached its peak
when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon and walked on its surface
during the Apollo 11 mission.
Though there were additional American and Soviet missions, after the successes of the
Apollo program, the space race was widely believed to have been won by the U.S.
Eventually, as the Cold War wound down, both sides agreed to cooperate in space and
construct the International Space Station beginning in 1998.

Is there a current space race?

Some observers, including U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, have declared that America is
now in a new space race with up-and-coming global superpowers like China and India, as
well as old rivals like Russia. But most space policy experts who have spoken to Space.com
don't think that Pence's arguments hold much water.

"The Russians don't have a stated public interest in going to the moon with human
spaceflight," Wendy Whitman Cobb, a political scientist at Cameron University in
Oklahoma, told Space.com. "[The Chinese] have taken a purposefully slow, methodical
approach to spaceflight and for them, I think the motivations are more in the military and
national-prestige realms."
The world is much more complex today than it was during the Cold War, when two major
superpowers vied for dominance. Now, private companies, such as Elon Musk's SpaceX
and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, have joined in a new contest to show off their spaceflight
capabilities, according to the BBC. While there are some competitive aspects, such as the
potential for fights over limited lunar resources, tomorrow's space races will involve a
greater number of actors and more muddled win-lose scenarios than before.