The Political And Economic Consequences Of The Cold War

The Cold War began as World War II came to an end. After the war, each one of the Big Three (United States, Soviet Union, and Great Britain) had different concerns about the structure of the postwar world. Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or USSR), was in search of security for his nation. Germany had attacked the Soviets twice in thirty years, and both times the Germans had reached them through Poland. Therefore, Stalin thought it was necessary to create a buffer zone between Germany and the Soviet Union. Believing his nation would be safe if bordered to the west by states loyal to Moscow ( the Soviet capital), he directed his foreign intelligence agency (later called the KGB) to rig elections …show more content…
Each superpower assumed its system was better and would ultimately prevail. Each country was willing to do everything in its power to ensure victory. Therefore, over the course of the next forty-plus years, the fears and suspicions of these two powerful nations and the actions that resulted from them shaped and reshaped the world. This period, in which hostility existed between the U.S. and the USSR and an intense ideological battle between their respective political and economic systems was fought without ever developing into outright war, called the Cold War. In the atmosphere of intense distrust that existed between the U.S. and Soviet Union during the Cold War, each superpower feared the other would mount an attack, nuclear or otherwise. It, therefore, became important to each superpower to make certain it had the military advantage. The key to maintaining this advantage was to have better technology and weapons, which required developing new technologies, knowing about the technologies being developed by the other side, and having a first-rate warning system that would warn of any attack the other superpower might be …show more content…
They already possessed a much older and more advanced intelligence agency that continued to evolve and change to meet the challenges of the Cold War. Since the outset of World War II, the Soviet State Security organization has been called the NKVD, the GUGB, the MGB, KI, the MVD, and finally the KGB in 1953. While all these different names and initials suggest that drastic changes occurred in the organization, in reality it simply evolved throughout the twentieth century, taking on new names, new duties, and reporting to new departments. Therefore, for ease in understanding, the term KGB will be used to discuss the Soviet State Security organization throughout the Cold