The Cold War: America's Mistake

Abstract

The Cold War turned former allies into sworn enemies and has caused conflicts that still continue to take lives. The conflict of two different political ideologies has resulted in civil wars and revolutions. In some cases these revolutions were caused by oppression with Communism being seen as a way of liberation. The Vietnamese saw Communism as a way of achieving independence for their nation. The research conducted for this thesis exposes the United States’ mishandling of Communist insurrections and the consequences of those actions such as birth defects in the Vietnamese population and the children of American soldiers that served in Vietnam and were exposed to the defoliant Agent Orange. Despite the end of the Cold War initiatives taken by both sides still influence modern day foreign policies and the political arena. The selling of weapons to cause instability for East and West has resulted in millions of weapons being unaccounted for and unregistered providing terrorists or non state actors with a way of procuring weaponry to perpetrate actions of an illicit nature. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan resulted in the creation of the Mujahideen and therefore the predecessor of the Taliban who have incited violence that they see justified by their interpretations of Islam. What is more is that weapons used by these “Jihadists” were left behind by Soviet invaders or were one of the many weapons that have become ghosts as they are on no official system. The conflict in the Middle East mirrors America’s endeavors to put an end to the conflict in Vietnam and both have lasted for about the same duration and have caused the unnecessary loss of lives. In a nutshell the endeavors of both sides to spread their own political models have resulted in situations that plague the modern world.