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Why did the USA and the USSR emerge as super powers - Coggle Diagram
Why did the USA and the USSR emerge as super powers
Economic
Extract B
With the amount of money that Britain and France had spent in the war they couldn't compete with all the other countries so they passed to second rank.
"Lost most from the war- the old balance of power, the empire and the dominant role in the worlds economy"
Extract C
Economically the USA is better than the rest of Europe because they have overcome the depression and the European countries started with the depression after the war which made the USA an even more powerful nation.
"They alone possessed economic power to prevent the return of economic stagnation..."
Extract D
"American economy emerged in 1945 strengthened by the war, capable of out producing all the other great powers together"
The USA´s economy recovered after the depression, and now they were trading with europe and asia, producing and supplying armament.
"A different world system with American power at its heart was unavoidable"
If more countries were conquered by communism, america´s economy would be greatly affected because they would no longer be business partners with the rest west europe, thus because now they had more power they could use it for their own preservation of their economy.
Political
Source C
"In the west, the ideals of democracy and international collaboration had the field of opinion to themselves".
The USA´s governamental system had less opponents, fascism was defeated furthermore democracy was preferred in the west. Because the USA was very influential, now it had more space to grow and demonstrate its ideals to everyone.
Source B
"Britain and France found their post-war international position fatally weakened by their inability to stop Germany..."
Britain and France were no longer superpowers nor were influencial because they had lost political power due to their failures during the war, in which they lost their empires.
Extract D
"President Truman recognised the transformation of America’s position"
The USA now had the atomic bomb, and were economically leading the world, everyone depended on them, thus their position changed because they were now much more powerful and shared that position with less countries.
Source E
"Stalin’s state became the dominant political giant throughout eastern Europe and Asia"
The USSR was the only powerful country left in Europe, Germany was defeated as well as Japan, The other countries were to weak, and most of the east was ruled by communism.
Source F
."..the illusion that communism was the. ..the system to which all societies were historically moving"
"illusion", is used because it demonstrated that the image of communism was in fact very manipulated. It looks like progress that the working class ascend socially, but what no one talked about because of fear was that the communist dictator leader threatened others who opposed them and acted recklessly, that they were actually causing damage to their countries.
Military
Extract A
USA is a big and powerful military force
Red army is the backbone of the soviet union and starts being a very big power as well. It takes over and wipes down the Japanese forces in China
"Red army went on to become the backbone of the soviet super power"
As a result of Germany being so aggressive, the USA and USSR both became the most powerful power because they can't let Germany take over.
Extract D (Part one)
This talks about how the USA started being very much frightened and respected after the atomic bomb and the fact that Europe didn't have one
"The most powerful nation- perhaps in all history"
This powerful nation couldn't maintain peace if they could win the war
Extract D (Part two)
This source suggests that the USA is very strong militarily by saying the amount of aircraft they had and how the military forces operated "twelve million men... seventy thousand naval vessels... 73,000 aircrafts"
IMF (international monetary fund) this means that the markets are being controlled by the USA and the dollar is the money that is more present in the world
If the USA doesn't rebuild europe then they will not have a market to trade in the future and that in the long run will be a positive thing for the US (market imperialism)
Extract G
Due to the military power and the military successes communism was viewed as a better system
Communism was an inevitable step in human progress. Countries in eastern Europe did not have a choice, everything was an "illusion", a propaganda