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Zachary Lampman Origins of the Cold War Which Country’s Actions Were Most Responsible for the Emergence of the Cold War? The United States was more responsible for the emergence of the Cold War, but Russia and the United States were destined to engage in a profound series of conflicts on the basis of how each respective country developed from 1917 to the termination of the USSR. There are four major arguments for the emergence of the Cold War that identifies the involvement of each country: the Traditionalist theory, Revisionists Theory, Ideological Theory, and the Geopolitical Theory. Each theory involved both countries contributing to the emergence of the Cold War, but it was the United State’s foreign policy of containment that ignited the Cold War. The Traditionalist theory put most of the blame on the Soviet Union. It states that the communists were the aggressors who set out for world domination. It was a fanatic religion, and like most religions, they believed that they were the one and only salvation. Traditionalists believe that the establishment of the Comintern was the offensive foreign policy to subvert all non-communist governments. The Comintern killed millions of people and caused terror all over the countries they infiltrated and it was this fear that created the animosity from the West. The Revisionist theory deals with justifying the actions of the Soviet Union explained by the Traditionalist theory. Revisionists state that the Western powers initially welcomed the February Revolution because it looked like it would bring about continued support for World War I, but when the Bolsheviks took over and pulled out of World War I, the West felt betrayed. The Bolsheviks felt no remorse because it was their country after all and they shouldn’t have outside influences dictating their policy. Again, the Bolsheviks felt threatened by the West when it came to the Locarno Pact and Munich because the Bolsheviks felt the West were trying to push Russia to war with Germany. After World War II, it is no secret that the Russian’s suffered the most. The Russians, which were now the Soviet Union, believed that the West didn’t appreciate how much they lost, so Soviet endeavors in Eastern Europe were merely defensive measures. In early history they had to fight off the Mongols from invasion, during the Renaissance they fought off foreign culture from invading their society, and now they have to fight off outside influences from using them for their wars. The buffer zone created by the Soviet Union was merely defensive.

The Ideology theory explains that the Marxist ideology says Marxism is the only acceptable system and any other form of government is wrong. Anything a Marxist government can do to make another governments topple, you have to do it. With United States ideology, we believed that only democratic governments work and fully represent the people; every other government has no legitimacy, hence our containment policy. These two superpowers had completely opposite ideologies and war between the two superpowers was inevitable. The geopolitical theory states that Russia is just trying to have the same playing ground as the United States. Russia has had a history of expansionism due to fear of being invaded (looking at you Khan, Napoleon, Hitler, and many others). Also, Russia has always been in search of warm water ports. Their coastline is nearly always frozen and the Baltic Sea is basically a closed sea. The United States owns their territory from the west to the east which gives them easier mobility and safer borders. Russia has always been in pursuit of the same. To top it all off, fear of a united Europe would surely be the destruction of Russia, and with the United States as the “Ally” superpower, it was only destiny that both superpowers have a race to the end. All these theories have probable cause from both sides and each theory can’t be ignored, but these theories are just fuel to the fire-- not what started it. My stance is that the United State’s containment policy is what pushed the Soviet’s to expand farther than just Eastern Europe and immediate Ukraine area creating the Cold War. According to John Kennan’s Long Telegram, containment of the Soviet Union can’t be proliferated through war, but only by repeated failure of socialist policy. If the working class was shown that socialist policy does not bring about bread, land, and peace, then the people will abandon the socialist ideology and call for open markets. As you can imagine, the Cold War was not between the USSR and the US; but rather between the communist world and the noncommunist world. The West feared a communist world because it would directly threat their economy and political stratification. They made it policy to intervene in sovereign nations that may be threatened by the USSR, like Afghanistan, Korea, and Vietnam. Both sides pushed for influence within these third world countries, but it was the United States who was acting for selfish reasons. In my opinion, the Soviet Union was just trying to help these third world countries. If the United States went to war because they were trying to prevent mass genocide and end Stalin’s tyrannical rule, then it would be the Soviet Union’s fault, but alas, these were not the intentions of the United States. It was the desire for world domination of the free market.