Lost but not loser: The assessment of the claim that the Soviet Union lost the Cold War
Introduction
With the disintegration of Soviet Union, the Cold War era, which lasted as long as 40 years, had come to an end. The last Soviet Premier Gorbachev, ironically, been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize after his failed reformation and governance in Soviet Union, which, to put it the other way round, could been seen as affirmation for his struggle to pave the way for nuclear agreement and open the seriously bureaucratic Soviet Union to the world.
It could be easy to conclude from the phenomenon that Soviet Union lost the Cold War, as Brzezinski alleged in 1990, “the end of the Cold War would make two winners: the United States and Germany, and two …show more content…
We could find a number of approaches trying to explain the origins of the Cold War. The initial one put emphasis on external threats to national security, blaming Soviet Union for its aggressive action. It is apparently not rigorous as it ignored the internal factors of states, which was later questioned by ‘revisionist’ historians.
Revisionists pay more attention to the expansion requirements of international capitalism, and they deem US was the one to be blame for creating Soviet insecurity.
Those who originally incline to accept the former approach, focusing on national security issues, have been called ‘post-revisionist’. What’s different is that post-revisionists consider that US policy cannot just be seen as a response to Soviet Union, and they concern more about the national interests when facing external powers who may not pose a direct military threat, but who do represent an ideological danger (Young and Kent, …show more content…
In the work of Tom Nichols (2014), he inspires us by giving five assumptions that if some certain details of the history has changed, the consequence of the Cold War may be different, while Soviet Union may win or at least survive until now.
The first assumption is, if Stalin doesn’t kill all the smart communists in 1938, the development of Soviet Union would be supported by a group of talents who experienced the test of the Second World War; In 1947, if Truman lose his nerve to act as Europe 's postcolonial police officer, then Italy, France and Greece would probably be led by communist and the NATO would never been set up. Therefore, Soviet Union may establish an empire with the resources of Europe; What’s more, if Soviet Union launch a war in 1976, when America was in its weakest time whether in terms of economics or politics; In 1979, if Leonid Brezhnev has noticed Soviet Union’s economic problem, stopped the ‘generous assistance’ to the falling Third World project and save the money to consolidate, reform and reorganize; The last chance is in 1988, if Gorbachev choose to either open the Soviet economy or clam down on the
Introduction
With the disintegration of Soviet Union, the Cold War era, which lasted as long as 40 years, had come to an end. The last Soviet Premier Gorbachev, ironically, been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize after his failed reformation and governance in Soviet Union, which, to put it the other way round, could been seen as affirmation for his struggle to pave the way for nuclear agreement and open the seriously bureaucratic Soviet Union to the world.
It could be easy to conclude from the phenomenon that Soviet Union lost the Cold War, as Brzezinski alleged in 1990, “the end of the Cold War would make two winners: the United States and Germany, and two …show more content…
We could find a number of approaches trying to explain the origins of the Cold War. The initial one put emphasis on external threats to national security, blaming Soviet Union for its aggressive action. It is apparently not rigorous as it ignored the internal factors of states, which was later questioned by ‘revisionist’ historians.
Revisionists pay more attention to the expansion requirements of international capitalism, and they deem US was the one to be blame for creating Soviet insecurity.
Those who originally incline to accept the former approach, focusing on national security issues, have been called ‘post-revisionist’. What’s different is that post-revisionists consider that US policy cannot just be seen as a response to Soviet Union, and they concern more about the national interests when facing external powers who may not pose a direct military threat, but who do represent an ideological danger (Young and Kent, …show more content…
In the work of Tom Nichols (2014), he inspires us by giving five assumptions that if some certain details of the history has changed, the consequence of the Cold War may be different, while Soviet Union may win or at least survive until now.
The first assumption is, if Stalin doesn’t kill all the smart communists in 1938, the development of Soviet Union would be supported by a group of talents who experienced the test of the Second World War; In 1947, if Truman lose his nerve to act as Europe 's postcolonial police officer, then Italy, France and Greece would probably be led by communist and the NATO would never been set up. Therefore, Soviet Union may establish an empire with the resources of Europe; What’s more, if Soviet Union launch a war in 1976, when America was in its weakest time whether in terms of economics or politics; In 1979, if Leonid Brezhnev has noticed Soviet Union’s economic problem, stopped the ‘generous assistance’ to the falling Third World project and save the money to consolidate, reform and reorganize; The last chance is in 1988, if Gorbachev choose to either open the Soviet economy or clam down on the