Origins of the Cold War: schools of thought

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School of thoughts [Origin of Cold War]

The orthodox view (blame USSR for Cold War).

Thomas A. Bailey argued in his book "America Faces Russia" that the USSR violated promises made at Yalta, imposed soviet-dominated regimes on Eastern European states and had the intention to spread communism beyond Russian borders. Hence, the United States responded defensively through the implementation of the Truman Doctrine by provided $400 million to Turkey and Greece in military and economic aid, pursued a policy of containment to ensure communism didnt spread beyond Russian borders and the introduction of the Marshall Plan by providing $17 billion in economic aid to European countries to rebuild their economies.

The post revisionist view (neither to blame and both to be blamed)

Historian, John Lewis Gaddis argued that neither was to blamed and believed that both America and Russia wanted to keep the peace after the war but that conflict was caused by mutual misunderstanding. USSR's 'takeover' of Eastern Europe was to create a buffer zone for it's security while US thought it was the soviet's expansionist policy to increase their influence and to spread communism in Eastern Europe.

Also, USA created and implemented the Marshall plan to aid in the recovery of the European economies post world war 2 while USSR misunderstood their intentions and thought that USA wanted to bring their influence into Europe and in response came up with the Molotov plan to prevent USA from spreading their influence into Eastern Europe and disallowing USA to 'take away' USSR's buffer zone.

The Revisionist view (blamed US for Cold War)

Historian William Appleman Williams published his The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, blaming the US for the Cold War. Williams argued that America’s chief aim in the years after the war was to make sure that there was an "open door" for American trade, and that this led the American government to try to make sure that countries remained capitalist countries like the USA. Gar Alperovitz, in his book: Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam (1965), placed the blame for the Cold War on the Americans for their use of the atomic bomb – he contended that Truman decided to drop the bomb as a means to intimidate the Soviet Union.

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