The political system of the USA and the USSR were opposed to one another which made these two allies during the Second World War become enemies. The USA was a democratic and capitalist country, in which governments were elected by free elections. Industry and agriculture were owned by private businesses. Whereas, the USSR were a communist state of one party government in which there were no free elections and the state owned all the industries and the agriculture. Both states believed that either side wanted to destroy one another which increased the tension between these two countries. With the tension increasing between these two countries it was becoming clear that another war is going to break out. Finally the cold war came about where the leading countries were at the absolute peak of war.
In 1945 two major conferences were held, one of them was held at Yalta and the other in Potsdam. In Yalta the three allied leaders Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin agreed to divide Germany into four zones with the Britain’s, French, Americans and the USSR taking a zone each. The capital of Germany, Berlin, was also divided into four zones, each occupying a zone each. The second major conference was held at Potsdam after the defeat of Germany. However, even though the conferences were held in the same year the same people didn’t meet
but instead of them others from the same country took over. Roosevelt had died and was replaced by Truman, Churchill was defeated in the elections and also was replaced by Attlee the new British prime minister. The agreements agreed in Yalta were confirmed here, that Germany has to pay for the damage of the war (reparations) in the form of equipment and materials to the USSR for huge losses from the war.
In 1947 the Truman doctrine was introduced with the policy that “strength must be faced with strength.” The USA couldn’t let the communism spread to other countries. The USA would take the lead in the containment of soviet expansion. This policy was based on the fact that it is America’s duty to protect other democratic countries under threat of communism. Few years later the domino theory came about, this was about the countries of the South East Asia being close together and that if communism fell into this area it will have an knock on effect on the countries surrounding it. Like a row of dominoes.
The Marshall plan caused the policy containment of communism into action because America started to give Marshall Aids to countries across Europe and the East of Europe. The Americans gave the Marshall aid because they feared that an impoverished post war Western Europe would turn to communism. In order for this not to happen they needed to help Europe as quickly as possible.
The soviet zone was recovering because of the Marshall Aid, but the west was dependent on the USSR. Decisions made by Stalin triggered a crisis in the cold war. Stalin extracted reparations from the soviet zone of Germany whilst the other parts of the soviet zone were recovering. This wasn’t part of Stalin’s plan and then came to a decision that all roads, canals and the railways will be closed. Americans and the British flew in supplies to the west and the Americans made it clear that it is their duty to stop the communism uprising. This eventually led to the Berlin airlift causing greater disputes between the two countries. This was to warn the USSR that Americans will do anything too destroy communism. By now the Americans were involved because of communism being spread all over the Eastern Europe which in the eyes of the Americans was the worst possible scenario.
To conclude I think the USA has become increasingly involved in the Vietnam War by simply helping the Vietminh fight for independence which gradually turned out to be a war against communism which caused huge numbers of deaths and injuries. The cold war was also a huge concern to the involvement of the USA.