Communism affected America Politically in many ways. Rather than all happening once, the series of events that affected Americas politics and actions towards Communism happened through a widely spread amount of time. One of the most important events was the Cold War. Although it was not really a declared war, and there was no direct combat, it was still a time of military build up and scientific advancement. This was a time of conflict, and extreme competition between the United States and the USSR. This problem started small but grew over time and became a very serious threat to America and its people.

     It all started when Russia endured the Russian Revolution, which was when the USSR emerged as the first “communist” power. After this occurred, things began to become sour from an early stage of the communists existence. Considering the United States was aiding the White Army which was against communism its leaders in the Russian Civil War, tension and suspicion grew rapidly between the two nations. In other words, the United States knew that a communist party would ruin relations between the two nations, so they tried to prevent the communists (Bolsheviks) from taking power. Although Russia didn’t seem to be too concerned about the incident, they never let their guard down.

                                                                     The problem later began when and United States teamed up against the Nazi Germans. At first, things with the Russians went well. Considering they were both fighting for the same cause, which was to end the nazi regime, they never seemed to worry about what the other side was doing. Once Nazi Germany was conquered, problems that seemed to stop for some time now, came back, but with more suspicion coming from both sides. The things that caused the most conflict were the disagreements between how Germany should be reformed. At the Potsdam conference, tensions grew when president Truman informed the Soviets that America is in possession of a “powerful new weapon.” Stalin replied by saying that he is glad that the Unites States has developed a new weapon and hopes to see America use it. Only a week later, the Nagasaki and Hiroshima bombing took place further tensing the relations between the two nations. Later the Unites States imposed the Morgenthau Plan stating that America plans to keep its military presence in Europe. During this time, the Unites States practiced “containment which was the act of containing communism, but unfortunately these acts ruined relations with many allied countries. One of the containments was the Korean Containment. This ruined relations with the nation and caused the Communist north to split from the Democratic south. This would cause problems for years to come and still exists as a problem today.

                                                                                                                                                 Once Truman finished his term and as Eisenhower was elected president, funding for defense nearly quadrupled. Also, Eisenhower’s secretary of state announced that the US should depend on nuclear weapons to gain power, which added to the already high tensions. What really kicked off US concerns was the launch of sputnik. Successfully orbiting the planet, the US could only imagine what kind of damage could be done if the Soviets managed to pack it with nukes and use it against the US.

     The second Cold War was a war that continued the aggression from the previous one. One of the government’s largest actions imposed by Reagan was the Strategic Defense Initiative, nicknamed “Star Wars” that was said to be able to knock missiles out of the sky by using a high energy laser beam. Also, Reagan proposed that the Soviets stop declining Poland’s pleas for Solidarity. This gave Reagan and America a much better reputation. Although the US did some good, they also made a few bad decisions. For example, in order to oust communism out of the Middle East, the US pumped money into a secretive organizations called Taliban and Al’ Quida. The US plans worked to oust the Soviets but sadly, these organizations later turned against the US and where named terrorists from then until now.