When did the Cold War actually start?

[AVG-JOE]

Vulnerable from what? A tin basketball that beeped?

I think you are confusing this with the start of the space race.

The space race was an important theater of operations of the cold war and that beeping tin ball had the sobering effect of proving that the Soviets were close to having the capability to hit American cities with nuke rockets.

Are you old enough to remember "Duck and Cover" in School?

-Joe

 

[glockmail]

The space race was an important theater of operations of the cold war and that beeping tin ball had the sobering effect of proving that the Soviets were close to having the capability to hit American cities with nuke rockets.

Are you old enough to remember "Duck and Cover" in School?

-Joe

When I was a kid it was bend over, put your head between your knees and kiss your ass goodbye.

You have a good point but that wouldn't make it the start or the CW, just an important milestone.

 

[dilloduck]

When I was a kid it was bend over, put your head between your knees and kiss your ass goodbye.

You have a good point but that wouldn't make it the start or the CW, just an important milestone.

great times that "duck and cover" shit was. Sorta changed my perspective on everything.

 

[glockmail]

All I was thinking about in those days were Gina Merello's tits.

 

[Diuretic]

If you could nail down one event that started the Cold War, what would it be?

This is a question that is debated heavily amongst Americanists. Some argue that it began in 1917 with the October Revolution, Some argue that the Korean War actually kicked it off. There are many different answers: Potsdam, "Iron Curtain" speech, Berlin Airlift. Any opinions on what actually kicked it off?

Bretton Woods.

 

[Luissa]

If you could nail down one event that started the Cold War, what would it be?

This is a question that is debated heavily amongst Americanists. Some argue that it began in 1917 with the October Revolution, Some argue that the Korean War actually kicked it off. There are many different answers: Potsdam, "Iron Curtain" speech, Berlin Airlift. Any opinions on what actually kicked it off?

"The Cold War began in a series of events from the conferences of the Big Three in 1943-45 to the complex events of the postwar years. Both sides contributed to it. The previous post that "Stalin began the Cold War by invading Poland" is wrong, and is unclear anyway because the Soviets invaded Poland twice and the poster does not specify which invasion. In any case, the Cold War began because the U.S. would not allow the Soviets a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe and because the Soviets took a series of aggressive actions to expand their areas of control or influence all over the World.

The Cold War ended not because of Reagan's actions: his increased armament only antagonized the USSR and intensified the Cold War. The Cold War ended only because a reformist faction of the Communist Party came to power in the USSR, with Andropov, and then again with Gorbachev, because the old-guard, and just plain old, Soviet leaders kept dying. Gorbachev was from a younger generation and had a much more critical attitude toward the USSR and was much more open minded, educated, intelligent, and worldly than any previous leader, and more than Reagan as well.

There was however, one other group responsible for the end of the Cold War: the peoples of Eastern Europe and the USSR, who organized and protested at great personal risk. Their protests, and Gorbachev's acceptance of their role, brought the end of the Cold War, not U.S. arms deployments, which only delayed the whole process. "http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_events_started_and_ended_the_Cold_War

I found this! It seems logical! Like many of you I think it was the day we dropped the bomb on Japan! We are the only country to this day that has dropped a nuclear bomb.

 

[AVG-JOE]

great times that "duck and cover" shit was. Sorta changed my perspective on everything.

That is my thesis... that the war started when we felt it all the way down to 3rd grade.

-Joe

 

[Luissa]

great times that "duck and cover" shit was. Sorta changed my perspective on everything.

I didn't have to go through the whole duck and cover but we did have to go through the whole lock down drills in case there was a school shooting. The best is when we actually had a lock down for a bomb going off close by at a bank and they put us on lock down and didn't tell us what was going on for thirty minutes. My class was on the third floor so we had no idea it wasn't a school shooting, we had to find out was going on from the radio.

 

[mightypeon]

The hints we got in our (East German) school were:
-smoke a cigarette
-drink lots of Wodka
-Try to get laid in 5 minutes

Yay for socialist realism

 

[ButtersBC]

I thought it was when the NFL instituted a salary cap just like Karl Marx had foreseen on Page 22 of the Manifesto (roughly translated from the original Russian it speaks of the worker not receiving proper retirement benefits after they leave the game)

 

[TPIRFail]

I thought it was when the NFL instituted a salary cap just like Karl Marx had foreseen on Page 22 of the Manifesto (roughly translated from the original Russian it speaks of the worker not receiving proper retirement benefits after they leave the game)

see, I always thought the cold war started when the NHL began putting hockey teams in hockey climates such as Phoenix and Miami

 

[mightypeon]

Uggh, the original of the "Kaptial" was GERMAN!

That actually lead to the fact that I partly read it when I was 6, I confused the author with one named "Karl Max" (wrote a bestselling child book series about Indians and Cowboys) and was slightly taken by suprise since there where neither Cowboys, nor Indian, nor Colts.

 

[elvis]

One thing to consider, and I'm not sure how this ties in.....
Germany and Russia were allies before 1941, correct? Was there any animosity between US and Russia at that point?
Aside from that, I would say the Berlin Airlift. In one of my history classes, I was told that Truman threatened Stalin with an atomic strike during the airlift.
One other choice could be when the Russians developed their own Atomic Bomb.

 

[editec]

Some might suggest that it started with The Potsdam Conference sometime between July 17 and August 2, 1945.

I'd say that the cold war really started in 1918 when the Western Powers invaded Russia

These are the numbers of the foreign soldiers who occupied the indicated regions of Russia:

• 50,000 Czechoslovaks (along the Trans-Siberian railway) [5]
• 28,000 Japanese, later increased to 70,000 (all in the Vladivostok region) [6]
• 24,000 Greeks (in Crimea)[7]
• 13,000 Americans (in the Arkhangelsk and Vladivostok regions)
• 12,000 Poles (mostly in Crimea and the Ukraine)
• 4,000 Canadians (in the Arkhangelsk and Vladivostok regions)
• 4,000 Serbs (in the Arkhangelsk and Vladivostok regions)
• 4,000 Romanians (in the Arkhangelsk region)
• 2,000 Italians (in the Arkhangelsk and Vladivostok regions)
• 2,000 Chinese (in the Arkhangelsk and Vladivostok regions)
• 1,600 British (in the Arkhangelsk and Vladivostok regions)
• 1,200 French and French colonial (mostly in the Arkhangelsk and Vladivostok regions)
• 560 Australians (mostly in the Arkhangelsk regions)

After the above, Russia knew perfectly well that the Western powers were the enemies of the Bolsheviks.

Not that there was much doubt, given that everything the bolsheviks stood for was in direct opposition to the capitalism of the Western world.

 

[mightypeon]

And the fact that the Germans had no interventionist troops helped forge an "alliance" between the two international Phariahs Russia and Germany.
Beginning during Weimar, Germany used Russian grounds to train its army in tank warfare in an effort to circumvent Versailles restriction.

It could have been a very long alliance (a bit like the old Anglo Portugiese one which was not broken for some 400 years), unfortunalty, a maniac called Hitler got to power.

Apart from that, Russia and Germany shared many interests.
-Both had absolutley no issues with upgrading developing countries or aiding colonial uprisings, as both were like "If I got no colonies noone else will either!"
-While the USSR was in theory devoted to World revolution, they were pragmatic enough not to bring World revolution to a strong ally, and at that time Germany was way down on their shitlist
-Germanys midterm politcal goal was the renounciation of Versailles and restablishing itself as a European power. Anything that would provide France and the UK with another threat was obviously gold for the USSR
-Both did absolutly dislike Poland.
As a matter of fact, Poland was one of the staunchest supporters of the White guard, the founding mythos of the USSR is also based upon fighting predominatly Polish interventionists, that Poland staged several incursion into Germany in 1919 (which were, hilariously enough, beeing beaten back by the Reichswehr) gave them a reputation of "opportunists who kick countries that are down and cannot even do that correctly" in Germany.

 

[Orange_Juice]

But the outcome of Yalta was fairly favorable to the Soviet Union. FDR had a great relationship with "Uncle Joe" and was willing to allow reparations that never came due to FDR's death. FDR was perfectly willing to concede those spoils to Stalin.

Short of going to war with the Soviet Union I just don't see how FDR could have really gained much more out of Yalta or Potsdam. The Soviet Army in eastern Europe was the main factor determining that area's political situation.

I think the Cold War began just as WW2 was ending. Hitler was a key factor. He made so many promises that he later broke and stabbed so many people in the back leading up to WW2 that no one was willing to trust anyone following the war. Both sides were very distrusting of each other. The United States wanting to rebuild Germany horrified the Soviets--can you blame them?--and Communist control of Eastern Europe horrified us--can you blame us?

 

[Orange_Juice]

One thing to consider, and I'm not sure how this ties in.....
Germany and Russia were allies before 1941, correct? Was there any animosity between US and Russia at that point?
Aside from that, I would say the Berlin Airlift. In one of my history classes, I was told that Truman threatened Stalin with an atomic strike during the airlift.
One other choice could be when the Russians developed their own Atomic Bomb.

Yes, the Ribbontrop/ Molotov pact supposidly made them allies, but Hitler invaded anyway. The reason Stalin signed a treaty was to buy time for the Red Army to prepare for the war he felt was coming later in the 1940's. The English and French wouldn't deal with Stalin to provide a guarantee for Poland. They chose to make a deal with Poland alone, which was a big mistake

*Truman never overtly threatened Stalin with nukes, but he did fly six B-29s to Greenencommon AFB in England. They were empty but Stalin didn't know that

 

[mightypeon]

Soviet German friendship did not begann with the Ribbentrop pact, both were international pharias after WW1 and therefor got along quite well anyway.
The Soviet Gouverment saw the Ribbentrop pact as a sign that Hitler was rational, and payed for it.
No seriously, imagine that you are one of the largest world powers. Your neighbour is at war with another one. Would you expect him to attack you while arleady beeing distracted with something else? I would not.

 

[Remey688]

I think the United States bombing Japan was the catalyst for the Cold War.

I think you aren't correct. We began the fire bombing of Japan on a massive scale before we dropped the two Atomic Bombs that forced the Japs to end the conflict. "The Cold War" began with the division of Germany into areas of occupation between the Soviets and the Allied Western Democracies.