Causes of the Cold War:

Causes of the Cold War After the World War II, the alliance of the Axis power ended and United States and Soviet Union emerged as two power forces. The world nations supported either of the blocs in order to peacefully coexists. For four decades, the two nations had ideological differences which affected the political and economic arena as well. Moreover, the difference did lead to suspicion and both feared each other's arsenal power and strength.

• Different Ideologies:

  The government in the United States is based on democratic principles where the people could elect their representatives, have freedom of speech and also question government policies .Whereas, in Soviet Union the ruling government was formed by the Communist Party, and as such the people were denied political freedom, the freedom of speech, expression and press. As these two governments were completely opposed to one another, there was hardly any cooperation between the two of them.

• Economic Policies:

  The economic policies of the United States and the Soviet Union was again different which caused a lot of ill feelings and misunderstanding between the two countries. While United States favored free trade, Soviet Union wanted to be aloof from international trade as she feared western influence and the rise of a capitalist regime.

• Power competition:

   The aftermath of the Second World War witnessed the rise of Soviet Union and United States as two powerful blocs. With the decline of Europe, these two countries dominated the world which led to wrangle of power which lasted for four decades. As a defense strategy, Soviet Union signed the Warsaw Pact (1955-1991) among the nations in the Eastern bloc while United States in the western bloc singed the NATO in order to safeguard herself and other nations from Communist aggression. The US also formalized a series of alliances with Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and the Philippines notably ANZUS and SEATO thereby guaranteeing a firm military base in these countries. There were other countries like India and Egypt who did not support either of the blocs and formed the Non Aligned Movement in order to keep away from the politics of the world power. The Cold War caused tensions at the international level like the Berlin Blockade (1948 - 1949), the Korean War (1950 - 1953), the Berlin Crisis of 1961, the Vietnam War (1959 - 1975), the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), the Soviet war in Afghanistan (1979 - 1989).The two powers were equally sure that the use of nuclear weapons guaranteed mutual assured destruction(MAD).

Post World War II trends:       

• The Yalta Conference that was signed after the war divided Germany and Berlin was into four zones each under the control of Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States .However, there was no proper agreement about the re-unification of Germany which marked the beginning of the Cold War.
• Soviet Union disliked the use of bombs on two Japanese cities to end war. US had secretly built arsenals win the war.
• The border agreement between Soviet Union and Poland was looked upon with discontent by US and Britain.
• Soviet Union occupied Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia was vehemently apposed by both Great Britain and US and it affected their trade relations with these countries.
• The US support to countries wanting to get out of communist regime ( Truman Doctrine of 1947) was looked at with contempt by Soviet Union.
• The Marshall Plan that involved monitory support to all non-communist countries so as to recover from the aftermath of the Word War II was another cause for the cold war.
• The victory of the Zedong communist forces in China was another reason for America to have a cold front.
• In space technology , they were tough competitors .When Soviet Russia launched Sputnik 1 into space in 1957 and later Sputnik 2 with a live dog Laika in it, the United States lost no time and developed her first satellite Explorer in 1958 and Mercury program with 18 minutes flight on January 31, 1961, which a chimpanzee .To challenge this, Soviet Union started the Vostok program on April 12, 1961, in which Yuri Gagarin completed one orbit aboard Vostok 1 and later in June 1963, Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to go to space. To compete with Soviet Union, the U.S. on February 20, 1962 set John Glenn into space who successfully orbited the earth three times. Later, in July 16, 1969 Neil Armstrong was a part of the US Apollo 11 mission and became the first person to step on the moon.
• Both the countries kept building weapons of mass destruction after the World War II. Both of them created and tested hydrogen bombs for self defense.
• The construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 was another source for the cold war between the US and the Soviet Union. The open border between East and West Berlin had allowed people from the east to move to the west .This was not like by Soviet Union and as such on Sunday, August 13, 1969 East Germany blocked all movements of East Berlin to West Berlin by constructing a wall. This wall remained till fall of the Berlin wall and the reunification of Germany on October 3, 1990 which marked the end of the cold war.
• In 1962, Kennedy demanded Soviet Union to stop helping Cuba with arsenals and troop and formed a naval blockade in protest. The world feared a nuclear war but it was averted with the withdrawal of Soviet troops and weapons .This incident was another cause for the cold war to persist between the nations.