The USA won the cold war on many different fronts but one of the most effective was through their economic strength. Ronald Reagan effectively ended the cold war through his strong business ideals, with his Reaganomic ideals he effectively out spent the Soviet Union. one example of this was the strategic defense initiative which was a satellite that would shoot down any missiles headed for the US (known as "Star Wars"), this meant that Russia also had to invest in this plan but could not afford the exorbitant fees that the USA could. The war with Afghanistan also drained a lot of money from Russia and because America was supporting Afghanistan they were able to string them out for longer and defeat Russia through economics.
The detente consisted 4 events: The Helsinki Accords, Ostpolitik, SALT I, and SALT II. I I believe the Helsinki Accords had the most success in lessening tensions in the cold war because it was an agreement between 35 countries that announced the countries who had developed nuclear weapons were the only ones who were allowed to have them, no other countries were allowed to develop their own past this accord. Although not all countries accepted and/or played fairly, I think that this consensus helped prevent further growth of nuclear weapons throughout the world. SALT II also helped lessening tensions between countries by trying to accomplish nuclear parity, but was interrupted by soviet invasion in Afghanistan. Despite the fact SALT II wasn't entirely successful, it had good reasoning behind it and seemed almost do-able. There are several ways the US lost the Vietnam War. Firstly, the American ground forces were limited to South Vietnam - few operations took place in Laos and Cambodia. As a result, North Vietnam sent many of their troops and equipment through the two neighboring countries. The main reason the US lost the Vietnam War was due to the political pressure from within the nation over the morality of the war. Militarily, the US won the Vietnam war, but nationally, with the media and the civilians, they lost. Finally, the US lost this war because they did not have the political will to finish what they started. On another note, the basis of the domino theory came from the United States learning that communism was becoming more of a threat in other countries, especially South East Asia if it overtook South Vietnam. The Americans believed that it would spread to Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and others. In the end, the US withdrew from the Vietnam War and consequently, 'losing' the War did not result in the domino theory. |
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