United States vs. Soviet Union: 1980's

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Caleb Radomile

Modern America

Pd. 7 Mr. Grodz

May, 10th 2010

United States-Soviet Union

Relations (80's and 90's)

        The Cold War has clouded the relationship between the United States and Soviet Union pretty much since the creation of the Soviet Union. During the 1980's, relations were shaky at first, but soon they improved until the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Great successes for the U.S. in the combating of Communism during this time paved the way for the U.S. to become the lone superpower in our world today.

        After World War II, two major superpowers emerged from the ashes of war, the United States of America and the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics (USSR), or the Soviet Union. These two countries fought one another indirectly, and this became known as the Cold War, as there was no direct confrontation between the two. They went through numerous conflicts and competitions such as the arms race, the U-2 incident, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. The leader for the sixteen years beforehand into 1980 was a man by the name of Leonid Brezhnev. His doctrine for combating Western Influence was, "When forces that are hostile to socialism try to turn the development of some socialist country towards capitalism, it becomes not only a problem of the country concerned, but a common problem and concern of all socialist countries."

        Now in the 1980's, the Soviet War in Afghanistan has just started to unfold. The Soviets were supporting the communist government of Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, which were trying to crush the U.S. Backed resistance, the Mujahideen. Even with strong support, the communists were unable to eliminate the resistance and the Soviets pulled out in 1989. They suffered major losses domestically through the war, and it is considered what Vietnam was the United States.

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        Ronald Regan became president of the U.S. in 1980. He labeled the Soviet Union as an "evil empire", and increased military spending to combat them. In fact, this increase was the greatest increase in military spending during peace in American history. Reagan Also in 1980, the United States led a boycott of the 1980 Olympic Games, which took place in Moscow. Sixty-five nations took part in the boycott, but four years later the Soviets boycotted the 1984 Olympic Games that took place in the United States. An oil glut took place at this time also. The United States had persuaded ...

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