The cold war is one of the most interesting, and yet complicated events taking place during this century. Essentially the cold war was Capitalism versus Communism and an arms race that became one of the biggest and most threatening conflicts in the latter half of the twentieth century. From its conception and during its peak in the 60's then to its end, the cold war brought much fear and tension to the entire world. This paper will first give a short understanding of the cold war and then, compare separate sources for their views on the main point of conflict, various events taking place during the cold war, its conclusion and then summarize each source. Afterwards we will have a good understanding of what the cold war was and what the sources we discuss conclude about it.
To understand the views of different authors on the cold war we must first get a general understanding of the topic. The cold war between the United States and the USSR never involved actual fighting between the two sides. It was an arms race and a struggle between political ideals namely communism and capitalism. Both sides spent millions of dollars, investing money in countries to strengthen their world position. The US had its Marshall plan in which it gave aid to rebuild European Economies after WW2. The USSR spent millions on other communist countries such as Afghanistan, Mozambique, North Korea, Cuba and North Vietnam. At the height of this were the nuclear weapons they had pointed at each other, each with the ability to destroy the other a thousand times over.
The real struggle of the cold war is still a topic for debate. While it is generally accepted that after World War 2 there were immediately tension between the two rising superpowers, historians have varying views on what the real conflict was. In Thomas H. Naylor's book The Cold War Legacy he describes the fact that the leaders of each government created a hostile environment in its people "Right-wing politicians, religious fundamentalists, and American Sovietologists have been telling us since the late 1940"s "You can't trust the Russians.