Misconceptions Between Two Superpowers That Led to a Tragedy

While there are factors that were unavoidable that inevitably led to the cold war, there are also factors that could have been avoided. One is misconceptions between two countries that led to more serious rivalry and increased tension unnecessary. The crucial misunderstanding was done by the U.S. when George Kennan, a missionary in the U.S.S.R, sent the Long telegram to the state to clarify U.SS.R actions and motives by explaining foreign policies. In this telegram, it explained why the U.S.S.R didn’t participate in international economic organizations and actions such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund. It also offered the U.S. to act for capitalism with political ways, avoiding direct military conflicts.

However, the U.S. misunderstood the Soviet motifs as expansionism and thought the telegram was a hint of revolution against capitalism. The U.S. interpreted that as the U.S.S.R was xenophobic, paranoid of the U.S. and countries, the war will inevitably happen soon. This misunderstanding led to a second telegram that increased the tension between two countries even more. As a reply to the Long telegram, the Soviet ambassador in the U.S. named Nikolai Novikov sent the Novikov telegram to the Soviet government. In this telegram. Stalin understood this telegram to be warning the U.S.S.R that the U.S. is economically, militarily strong and is desiring to dominate the world with this power. As these two telegrams, caused by misunderstanding of each other’s motives, alerted both countries and eventually increased the tension as both countries tried to stop each other and prepare for a war, eventually leading to further conflicts that connected to the cold war.

Another misconception was when speeches of leaders of countries were delivered. First speech delivered was a public speech from Britain’s former leader Churchill that was aimed to convince the U.S. the need to stop the spread of communism by expressing fear of U.S.S.R expansionism. As this was a public speech that showed the positive connection of Britain and the U.S. while negative with the U.S.SR, it aggravated Stalin. In Pravda’s interview, Stalin blamed Western Europe, including Britain and the U.S., for being offensive and “war mongering”. These speeches were key to two countries publicizing and developing their rivalry and distrust, increasing the tension and foreshadowing a war. Even though speeches and telegrams were chances to stop the cold war by understanding each other’s intentions clearly and peacefully, they were misunderstood and used as a tool to show distrust and increase tension.

Like this, there were evitable causes of the cold war that could have been avoided. However, the cold war consists of multiple inevitable causes that shows that even if the war was avoided during the early times, it would have inevitably happened afterwards.