All the Worlds’ a Stage; A Foreign Policy FOR America?
Uploaded by cap20014 on Dec 17, 2007
American Presidency
Cyle Parker
Dr. Mark Leeper
December 12th 2007
All the Worlds’ a Stage; A Foreign Policy FOR America?
In depth look at Presidential Policies and Action between the United States & neighboring
Soviet nations in the 21st Century
Often on the world stage, the relationships and tensions that play out between the superpowers of the globe has always been complex. How each leader of each respected nation handles these crises sets the foundation from which future leaders will derive effective solutions. There is the natural inclination to achieve dominance on the world stage, while trying to keep a stable relationship with neighboring world powers. The United States and the USSR had been recognized as superpowers since the end of World War II. “Boosting America into a foreign policy arms race, the United States’ Manhattan Project led to atomic bombs being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.” (Cohen, 20) In 1949, the USSR surprised the world by breaking the United States’ monopoly on atomic weapons by exploding their own atomic bomb. In 1952, the United States developed and exploded a thermonuclear weapon, also known as the hydrogen bomb. In the following year, the USSR followed suit by detonating their hydrogen bomb. On a global playground for men with big guns, quickly it was realized that our two countries had major ideological differences. The American system of free market capitalism was in stark contrast to Soviet communism. (Cohen 54, 84) The American economy was built, made and sustained by self-made men who had brought themselves from “rags-to-riches”. This stereotype was further perpetuated by American authors of the time and living examples of true life heroes of American industry such as John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie. The USSR’s communist ideology was based on the belief that every person should have the same social status as everyone else with no citizens outranking in elite classes. Both countries began to stockpile nuclear weapons and the period known as the “Cold War” began when World War II ended. What culminating actions on either side caused this “warm tension” to become a period in our nation’s history blemished with tales of espionage and counter-espionage between our two countries, each trying to get political and technological advantage over the other? This unofficial conflict lasted throughout each presidential administration predating Jimmy Carters induction until the dissolution of the USSR in 1991 during the Bush Sr....