Peace During The Cold War

What is the reason behind the peace between the United States and the U.S.S.R. during the cold war? How were their relations and reasons for peace different from that of second-tier powers such as Japan? The United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics emerged as the two most powerful nations in the aftermath of World War II. After five years of fighting the Germans, the soviet nation was more powerful than ever, and Joseph Stalin wanted to continue their rise to power and become the world hegemon. The United States also experienced a rapid increase in power, both economically and military, due to the war. The United States’ military was the largest that it had ever been, and the conflict with Germany and Japan had forced the United
For the nature of this essay, peace is defined as a period without a conflict involving fatalities of more than 1,000 military members. The United States and the U.S.S.R. knew that a war could be started by the push of the button, 2 pounds of force. There are many reasons for why a war was not started during the 43-year period, one of which is known at the Security Dilemma. Part of the Offense-Defense Model, the Security Dilemma is a Neorealist tradition whereas one state increases its security it subsequently decreases the security of others. In relation to the Cold War, Gaddis writes that after the fall of Germany, “there was less of an incentive for these former allies… to keep their anxieties under control. Each crisis that arose fed the next one, and with the result that a divided Europe became a reality.” The Security Dilemma is just one of the possible outcomes of the Offense-Defense
during the Cold War. John Mearsheimer wrote of the four different power balances that can be in a system, balanced bipolarity, unbalanced bipolarity, balanced multipolarity, and unbalanced multipolarity. In a bipolar system, there are only two great powers, while a multipolar system contains more than two powers. After WWII, there were two great powers to emerge, the United States and the U.S.S.R. They created a bipolar system, once which theorist claimed, “would last for as far into the future as anyone could see.” According to many theorists, a bipolar system is the most stable balance type that a system can have. Kenneth Waltz cites four factors for why a bipolar system is the most stable. First, two world powers means there are no peripheral powers to get in the way. Second, “the range of factors included in competition is extended as the intensity of the competition increases.” The United States was now not only competing with the U.S.S.R. economically and militarily, but also socially, to the point where Nixon considered the Supreme Court’s desegregation decision as the greatest victory of the war. Third, with a bipolar system, there is a constant pressure and reoccurring crises, where eventually “the absence of crises becomes more disturbing than their recurrence.” People are more aware of what to expect, so