The Cold War was a war of ideology that had it's beginnings in the aftermath of World War II and the redistribution of power. The two great powers, the United States and the Soviet Union struggled for a balance of power in a world where even the definitions of peace had changed. The Cold war had the effect of generating an active defense of American capitalism. Private enterprise economy was seen as a viable and stable economic system. Economic freedom and political democracy were commingled in the eyes of the world, much as communism and authoritarian government were. This 5 page paper examines some of the changes wrought by the ending of the Cold War and the changes that might be expected in the future. Bibliography lists 7 sources.
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world where even the definitions of peace had changed. The political ideologies had been at odds since the Russian revolution that had installed communism. Soviet Marxism believed Western capitalism was
unfair and exploitive, controlled economically and politically by big business and big finance, and subject to economic depression and unemployment. America viewed communism as the great evil that limited personal
freedoms and restricted economic prosperity to the government. Both countries relied on the military structure, and by extension the theory of determent, to bolster and stabilize the economic policy. It
was necessarily military in nature as large increases in other forms of government spending were not politically feasible (Fusfeld, 1998). The consequence was a preponderance of rhetoric and propaganda aimed
at the threat of military interaction in order to justify spending and development. American global dominance was at one time unique in its categorization as a super-power. "The strength acquired
by the United States in the aftermath of World War II was far greater than any single nation had ever possessed, at least since the Roman Empire. Americas share of
the world economy, the overwhelming superiority of its military capacity - augmented for a time by a monopoly of nuclear weapons and the capacity to deliver them - gave it
the choice of pursuing any number of global ambitions" (Kagan, 1998, pp. 11). The choice not to use that power for global domination, as was seen with the German incentives,
was considered by many the reason the status of American diplomacy was so high. The Cold war had the effect of generating an active defense of American capitalism. Private
enterprise economy was seen as a viable and stable economic system. Economic freedom and political democracy were commingled in the eyes of the world, much as communism and authoritarian government