U.S.-Soviet Relations

U.S.-Soviet Relations: Yalta to the Berlin Airlift

This paper will discuss the evolution of relations between the United States and the Soviet Union between the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War in 1948. It will trace the deterioration in these relations, starting with friction between the two countries in the alliance against Nazi Germany at the end of the Second World War, through the advent of American nuclear power, to the imposition of Soviet hegemony over Eastern Europe in the late 1940s. The paper will end with the Berlin Airlift, which marked the final dissolution of the Second World War Alliance.

The evolution of U.S.-Soviet relations up to the Cold War cannot be understood without a brief background on the effect of the Second World War. Soviet leaders had presented the Soviet Union as an alternative to, and an enemy of, the liberal democratic Western countries in the 1920s and 1930s. Western leaders obliged this view by demonizing the new Soviet republics. The rise of Hitler did not soften this view, particularly when the Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin, signed a non-aggression pact with Germany in 1939. In accordance with this pact, the Soviet Union did not respond to the German invasion of Poland, the borders of which Germany and Russia had quarreled for decades. The two powers had already agreed upon the division of Poland and stayed out of each other's military escapades over the next 21 months.

Related Essays

US/Soviet Intelligence Communities .... process. This divergence will influence future US/ex-Soviet relations vis-a-vis their respective intelligence communities. As Boris .... (2305 9 )

Soviet-American Relations in Post WWII Period .... Tensions in US-Soviet relations were further heightened in the 1960s as the two nations became engaged in a "race" for nuclear arms. .... (1846 7 )

Relations Between Russia & the US .... to explain the performance of the US economy .... approach to the conduct of international relations, along with .... United States and first the Former Soviet Union and .... (2641 11 )

Japanese Security Relations in Post-Cold War Era .... Evolution of US-Japanese Security Relations Prior to .... arrangements were defined by the bipolar world powers: the United States and the Soviet Union. .... (1720 7 )

The future of US-Russian relations .... Russian organized crime in the US netted over .... airlift capabilities of the former Soviet army are .... President Clinton has made relations with Boris Yeltsin too .... (2816 11 )

oviet-American relations, giving the United States an outstanding edge over the Soviet-Union through the beginning of the next decade. Although American leaders were uncertain of the new weapon's power prior to July of 1945, after the first test they knew that they possessed a weapon with previously unimaginable destructive power. The bomb was first tested just as the Potsdam conference was beginning in middle July. News of the successful test reached Truman and Churchill as they preparing for the conference. Stalin was informed in vague terms by Truman that the U.S. had tested such a weapon and that it promised great potential power. Truman recalled that Stalin "showed no special interest." Truman and Churchill then concluded that Stalin had not understood the import of the news. In fact, Stalin had known about the research and development of the atomic bomb from Soviet spies planted in the program. Soviet scientists had correctly deduced from the public reports of successful nuclear fission experiments in the late 1930s that a nuclear weapon was probably feasible. Soviet scientists started work on replicating these experiments and developing nuclear power, but this work was not given much support until the German invas

Category: History - U