Who do you blame for the Cold War?

Too much weaponary left over and too much research invested to just stop. So when the WW finished, the powers at be needed further justification to maintain it all. Enter the new "enemy". The cold war was propegated by both superpowers equally - hence the stale mate.

However if it had kicked off, I think the USSR would have won, they were far more prepared than we were.

Hey, Ralph, I went to wikipedia and read the whole article. I have to say, that I didn't get that interpretation at all. McCarthy was an alcoholic, straight up, pure and simple, even the Wiki article pretty much says that. And as anyone who's ever lived with an alcoholic knows, alcoholism has its own brand of insanity, on top of being a diagnosable mental illness.

-Forestlady

Admittedly a weak-pointed link, but the quickest reference I could find while writing. The Venona Project successfully identified many of the people McCarthy labeled as communists.

[edit on 28-2-2006 by Ralph_The_Wonder_Llama]

Originally posted by EarthUnificationFrontier

USA,
Military: 295,000
Civilian: None
Total: 295,000

Actually more like 400,000 total - most encyclopedias agree on that. But still - less that 1 million deaths is NOTHING compared to what other nations lost.

Originally posted by WithinyouWithoutyou
The Japanese had been in secret talks to surrender for quite some time prior to the dropping of the A-bombs. Truman had them detonated in order to send Stalin a message: Don't **** with us, we can explode you, you commie rat!

To be sure, the USA and USSR were of opposing philosophies and this played it's part, but I believe the A-bomb was the catalyst. It prompted prompted the Soviets to get in gear and prepare for the long haul to deal with this threat. Hence, I blame Truman.

Flame away!

[edit on 21-2-2006 by WithinyouWithoutyou]

I guess that's why Truman offered the Soviets equal share in governorship of the Atomic Bomb?

You're a twit.

Stalin wanted his own bomb that he could use without US veto; that's why he persued the completion of such in 1949. Using stolen German scientists. (None of that Rosenbaum crap).

This is pretty well known to the Russians, I don't know why you live in a fantasy world.

Originally posted by Ralph_The_Wonder_Llama

Originally posted by EarthUnificationFrontier

USA,
Military: 295,000
Civilian: None
Total: 295,000

Actually more like 400,000 total - most encyclopedias agree on that. But still - less that 1 million deaths is NOTHING compared to what other nations lost.

This figure is grossly inaccurate and there were Civilian deaths in the United States. The Germans were attacking civilian shipping off the coasts of the US and the Japanese fired rounds at Los Angeles from some of their Submarines killing civilians.

During Pearl Harbor civilians were killed from both Japanese attacks and Anit-Aircraft flak falling back to earth.

And the Cold War began when the Communist Internationale (The Soviet Communist Front) invaded Greece.

End of story, if you want to argue about this then you should first get the world's best experts to change their minds.

Civilian casualties meaning no non-military personnel death has ever occrued in American main soil. The only Americans killed in Pearl Harbour that do not fight the Japanese physically were the military medical staff, which do not count as civilians.

2,403 Servicemen casualties
1,143 military KIA, 35 wounded ;
4 battleships sunk;
4 battleships damaged;
3 cruisers damaged;
3 destroyers sunk;
2 other ships sunk,
188 planes destroyed,
155 planes damaged


[edit on 28-2-2006 by EarthUnificationFrontier]

And do you mind listing the names of your so called: "The World's Best Experts"??

And may i ask on what measurement and standard can you boldly claimed anyone as the "Best Experts"?

[edit on 28-2-2006 by EarthUnificationFrontier]

The Japanese also sent the so called "balloon bombs" to the US. Bombs that would use the jet stream to cross the pacific and reach the US. The damage casued by them is reported as minor and casued no civilian casualties. But still interesting no less, think if htey had used them as a platform for germ warfare.

Japanese Balloon Bombs

Balloon bombs lol The Japs are truly very creative thinkers and inventors, i give them that.

Originally posted by EarthUnificationFrontier
Balloon bombs lol

The Japs are truly very creative thinkers and inventors, i give them that.

Yes they were, but of the 6000 or so sent, not very many made it. Somewhere between 2 and 3 hundred.

On point, you really cant blame one group or nation for starting the Cold War. The events were set in motion before the end of WW2. Individual events didnt cause it, it was a string of cause and effect type events(yes I mean more than 1 event) I'm just sick of all the finger pointing that goes on around here, if I were to point a finger it would be at human beings in general as someone said earlier. There was probably no way to prevent this to happen much like we can not prevent another Cold War between China and the US coming in the future, its just what happens when you get competition between the 2 biggest powers in the world.

Originally posted by Ralph_The_Wonder_Llama
Personally I blame Stalin. Here's why:

When WWI ended, Europe was trashed. The Allies said to Germany "you broke it, you bought it" and Germany had to recover on its own, while the Allies helped each other.

Germany's economy went to pot, which made it easy for extremists to take over. Enter: Hitler. Hitler blamed the rest of the world (particularly the Jews) for Germany's poor state.

Then came WWII. When it ended, we decided not to "stick it" to the Axis powers - we helped them instead. The US, Britain, and Russia each occupied a certain portion of Germany. Russia also occupied the territories that it had to cross to get to Germany.

At a certain point, we were supposed to do a big "1-2-3 let go!" and stop occupying Germany. Everyone "let go" but Russia, who gave us the finger an held on to it and many Eastern Russia.

That, in my opinion, started the big fear about the Commies wanting to mindlessly spread communisim throughout the world. People blame Joseph Mccarthy for leading a "communist scare" but later evidence provided by the Venona Project proved him to be correct. It can be said with confidence that Communist Spies discredited Mccarthy by making him look like a madman.

en.wikipedia.org...

Anyway, in the end, I blame Russia. They didn't have to hold on to Germany or any of the other states that they liberated from Germany. It would have been messed up if the United States claimed France, Holland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Italy, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya as new States.

Anyone who says that McCarthy was correct is clearly off center. McCarthy never had any proof besides a piece of paper he held when he made speeches. That piece of paper could have had sketches of monkeys on it for all that we know, no one ever saw the contents. And if McCarthy was correct why would he only accuse in session? He would never name names outside Washington. Why? Because he couldn't be persecuted for anything he said inside Washington, outside was a different story.

Now as to "Who do you blame for the Cold War"? Everyone involved. But you can't really name one country or event since all of them were basically domino effects from the assasination of Archduke Ferdinand which essentially started WWI. So if you had to say anyone, it would be the man who assasinated Ferdinand, i.e. the Butterfly Effect. Especially in a "non-combat" war (we really did fight eachother indirectly however) it is hard to say who started what. That is just my two cents on the cold war.

[edit on 1-3-2006 by Semiazas]

The way I see it is that President Truman should have gone ahead and let General Patton and General Macarthur do what Generals are good at and taken over the USSR instead of being the egomaniac he was and denying these great Generals their destiny.

He made the right choice on the A-bomb but the wrong choice on the USSR.

To me, President Truman is the reason for the Cold War.

Did not Russian and Americans fight sided by side, or rather on two different fronts both pushing towards Berlin? Why would the US turn its back on the USSR and take over the USSR? I feel that a prominent reason for the Cold War was the Atom Bomb. A professor once said, (whose name I cannot recall at the moment...) "The Cold War can be charecterized by two men locked in a room with gasoline up to their knees. One man has 3 matches, the other two, and they are arguing who can light their match the quickest" The creation of the Atom bomb is the most prominent reason for the Cold War.

BlueAngel

Originally posted by EarthUnificationFrontier
Civilian casualties meaning no non-military personnel death has ever occrued in American main soil. The only Americans killed in Pearl Harbour that do not fight the Japanese physically were the military medical staff, which do not count as civilians.

2,403 Servicemen casualties
1,143 military KIA, 35 wounded ;
4 battleships sunk;
4 battleships damaged;
3 cruisers damaged;
3 destroyers sunk;
2 other ships sunk,
188 planes destroyed,
155 planes damaged


[edit on 28-2-2006 by EarthUnificationFrontier]

I have a National Geographic from 1942 that displays a picture of a bullet riddled car in Hawaii with the caption "the father and son in this vehicle were killed on their way to work when shrapnel from American Flak guns struck their vehicle".

I have a collection of National Geographics now back to 1917. They are a treasure.

And you're wrong.

Stalin can be easily blamed:

He was the one that built the berlin wall and attmpted to isolated the allies with the communist world. As a result tensions grew and that was the first spark of the cold war. In fact the U.S. attempted to help the situation (Berlin Lift) but that failed somewhat too. And admit it, if Hitler hadn't broke the agreement with Stalin, the soviets would've been part of the axis in history. The reason for the "Big THREE" is just the result of Stalin's wants.

the cold war, as said above, is just 2 strong powers trying to be the best
russia wants bigger, better weapons and armies than usa to be the best
and visa versa
you might as well say the entire world is almost in a cold war if it wasnt for trading

Cold war is caused by suspicion between Russia and the Western World.

Originally posted by ludaChris
The Japanese also sent the so called "balloon bombs" to the US. Bombs that would use the jet stream to cross the pacific and reach the US. The damage casued by them is reported as minor and casued no civilian casualties. But still interesting no less, think if htey had used them as a platform for germ warfare.

Japanese Balloon Bombs

Fortunately the Japanese didn't use them as BW munitions....but for at least the first ten years of the Cold War, the US did.

During 1950, work started on the development of the US E77 Balloon Bomb. The E77 Biological Warfare munition, based on the Japanese ballon bomb design, was accepted by the Chemical Corps Technical Committee in April 1951, and apparently represented approximately 1/6th of all US development effort on biological munitions.

Like the Japanese balloon bomb, the US E77 BW balloon bomb consisted of a hydrogen-filled envelope; suspended from the envelope was a cylindrical balloon gondola, circa 1 metre diameter and 0.6 metres in height. This gondola contained five Biological Warfare containers, each filled with a feather and BW agent mix. At the centre of the gondola assembly was a heater, which was designed to keep the BW agent viable.

The E77 was designed to be a strategic weapon and was to be launched by a special group attached to the theatre air commander. Training was the sole responsibility of the 1110 Air Support Group, HQ Command, stationed at Lowry Air Force Base, Colorado.

The E77 Biological Warfare Balloon Bomb demonstrated that its military characteristics had been met, after a series of successful trials were held, between October and December 1954, at Vernalis in California.

Further enhancement work was carried out on the E77 until 1960, when new developments in US Biological Warfare techniques rendered the balloon bomb redundant.



zero lift

[edit on 14-4-2006 by zero lift]

personally can't blame anyone

for the reason that the COLD WAR never went "HOT" and nothing really came 2