Figure 1, Stamp 'em out : Buy U.S. stamps and bonds, Poster encouraging purchase of war stamps and bonds to support the war effort, showing faces of Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito. WPA War Services of La., published between 1941 and 1943, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.
While all eras in the history of the United States have led to change, within the arena of international participation, the era America entered into when the nation declared war on Japan in 1941 was a true watershed for the United States. Historically, when it came to international affairs the United States had usually gone its own way. Up until the attack on Pearl Harbor, with the one exception of a mutual defense treaty with France signed during the American Revolution and later abrogated; the United States had not formed an alliance with any other nation in over one hundred and forty years. This long era of "isolationism" was far from absolute and the United States did of course have positions on international issues, such as wars and trade policies, and did sign treaties with limited scopes and the country did from time to time project its authority into the world. For example within the Western Hemisphere the United States had reserved an area of influence, but this involved no alliances with any world powers. The United States' unique form of isolationism would leave most conflicts and issues of the greater outside world to others as the nation mapped its own independent future. While this direction was possible through the nineteenth century it had become problematic at the beginning of the twentieth and virtually impossible by the time the country began to emerge from the effects of the Great Depression.
Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt have a
remarkable connection beyond their being Democratic presidents lost in a sea of
Republicans. Both ran for
reelection during escalating periods of world war and both stated publicly
their intentions to avoid participation in these conflicts while simultaneously
preparing for war. For each
president to take a different path would have been either impossible or foolish
because the probability of these conflicts finally involving the United States
were extremely high and failing to prepare would have left the United States
dangerously vulnerable. Each of
the world wars can be seen as a test for the United States as to where it would
stand in the respective post war periods.
After the First World War, having fought with "associate" nations rather than allies, Wilson sought to use the war to change the world, to make the world "safe for democracy." Part of this vision was based on Wilson's object of establishing the League of Nations, an organization, which resembled an international version of a "progressive" regulatory commission that could broker conflict and hopefully make future wars obsolete. The success of this organization would
rest on the participation and economic strength on the United States. After the war the United States was the
only participant to emerge in a militarily and economically better position
than at the start and without the United States participation there would be
simply no ability to put teeth in the league and the victors would be left
unrestrained to recoup their bankrupt economies with reparations forced upon
the vanquished. While Wilson
recognized the need for the United States to accept its place among the great
nations of the world much of the citizenry did not and with the Senate failing
to ratify the Treaty of Versailles the United States did not join the league
and left much of the outside world to be the province of other powers. While it can never be proven that the lack of American participation in the League of Nations so crippled that organization that future wars could not be prevented; it is fairly certain that conditions in Europe otherwise allowed by the Treaty of Versailles left a situation, which greatly increased the chances of a restaging of the "Great War." Consequently in 1939 following the rise of Adolph Hitler and the establishment of the "Third Reich" war raged across Europe.
This Second World War would present a
similar situation to the United States as did the first but the country would
take a different tact following the cessation of hostilities. Unlike Wilson, Roosevelt and his
successor Harry Truman, would succeed in getting the United States to stay
permanently engaged in issues beyond its immediate sphere of influence. This process was initiated by the
signing of the Atlantic Charter, which recognized Wilsonian objects as allied
war aims, and as World War II ground to a close the American conversion of its
general alliance with Britain, Russia, France, and China into the United
Nations, which would be very similar in intension and much more influential in
practice than the abandoned League of Nations. Unlike the situation in 1918, the United States would commit
itself to this new organization, whose charter would be signed in San Francisco
and headquarters located in New York City. The United States, which did not fall back into the old
pattern isolationism, sits with the other World War II allies as a permanent
member on the Security Council, and remains engaged in world affairs.
Figure 2, General view of United
Nations Secretariat Building in New York City in the early 1960s, Library of
Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.
Beyond the United Nations, which may be viewed as a "progressive" institution the United States also became a member of several more old fashion international clubs, these are traditional alliance organizations such as NATO and SEATO. The difference between these types of organization is very significant. Membership in the United Nations is open to most nations in the world and consequently any political agenda or consensus is not shaped by the selection of member states with similar political systems but on the vagaries of international politics. The United Nations does possess the authority to sanction wars but this power is based on debate and consensus among the member nations in the General Assembly and any resolution sanctioning war is subject to the further consent of the Security Council whereon any permanent member can issue a veto and stop the action. In contrast membership in NATO, SEATO, or the Soviet led Warsaw Pact were based on nations having parallel interests, falling under the same sphere of influence or possessing similar political systems and were formed along the old idea of a mutual defense pacts were an attack on one was to be regarded as an attack on all. As a member in both of these type organizations the United States might at times take action with one, which would be contrary to the interests of the other. For example if the United Nations provided famine relief in a war torn African nation, this aid could be benefiting communist backed rebels who were decidedly anti-American and who were fighting another military forces receiving American military support. What these two types of organization had in common were their being arenas for the posturing and actions of the Cold War.
A very significant consequence of American
international engagement unimaginable to Woodrow Wilson but possibly glimpsed
by Franklin Roosevelt in the months before his death in April of 1945, many
months before the end of the war was the post World War II international
struggle known as the Cold War.
While it was possible for the United Stares to return to its historic
position of independence and isolation after World War II this path would have
been very hard to take. The
alliance to defeat the Germany and Japan did not leave a group of victors
united in their post-war objectives, as was the case after World War I. In 1945 there were two, or three
depending where mainland China is placed, distinct camps: one headed by the
Soviet Union and the other headed by the United States. After World War I the United States had
the option of tacitly leaving the world to the control of the British and the
French since both nations possessed international empires and were still
considered world powers of the first rank, but after World War II this was
clearly no longer the case. Both
Britain and France were bankrupt and faced the expensive task of either
re-establishing or scuttling their empires, neither action was an attractive
economic or political prospect.
With these two powers no longer in the great game the United States stood
alone as the major western power, or super power as it came to be known, with
the options of rising to the occasion or choosing abdication. The United States accepted its place
and spent over four decades engaged in the Cold War and shaping what has become
known as the American Century.
One way to look at
the Cold War is as the postwar collapse of the World War II coalition to defeat
the Axis Powers based upon the deep political differences of the key
players. In hindsight the
differences between the American and Soviet systems might seem adequate for
this collapse but during the war the emphasis was on finding common cause and
the necessity of defeating the common enemy. Whether Roosevelt or even Churchill, who was always very
suspicious of Stalin, could have predicted the extent of the post war rift
while the war was still being fought it is not possible to know. However there was at least one world
leader who counted on such a rift to occur while the war was still being
fought. This was of course Adolph
Hitler and it is easy to understand his thoughts in this case, which was one
part simple observation and one part desperate hope.
Figure 3, Hitler campaign poster from 1933, image found on
the World Wide Web at adolfhitler.ws
Possessed
of a messianic vision of his own destiny and ultimate vindication as both
savior of Germany and western civilization, a collapse of the Allied Alliance
might have saved Nazi Germany from total defeat. Hitler, who treated his own allied nations as the suppliers
of cannon fodder, was incapable of believing that the alliance fighting against
him could hold itself together.
The clear lack of political cohesiveness among the allies, he believed,
would be its Achilles heel.
Describing himself as a gambler, his last great gambit was based on this
premise and the dice were tossed in the winter of 1944 during what became known
as the Battle of the Bulge. This operation would be Germany's last offensive and used up it last reserve strength in an effort to split the western allied armies and stopping the inevitable complete defeat of Germany.
Hitler hoped that a successful German assault would split the western
allied forces and so slow their advance that a peace could be brokered in the
west and then Britain and the United States would allow the Germans to turn all
their strength against the Soviet Union in the east. If the western allies abandoned the Soviet Union it might
fall to the Germans who could remain strong in the east and communism would be
essentially destroyed. From Hitler's view point this was his destiny, but a different fate awaited the Third Reich. Hitler
underestimated the unity among the allies, which was based on their collective
commitment to eliminate Nazi Germany and its dictator. The rift would come but only after Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender.
Unlike
the previous Units in this unit you will be reading three chapters, which are
chapters twenty-eight, twenty-nine and thirty The American Nation. These chapters cover over three decades
in American history starting with the United States entrance into World War II
and ending with the fall of Richard Nixon. This was an era of tremendous change for the United States
as it finally recovered from the full effects of the Great Depression and following
World War II emerged as the most powerful nation on earth and entered upon an
era of over forty years of Cold War.
There will be four threaded discussions
included in this unit, one will relate to a topic found in chapter
twenty-eight, one will relate to a topic found in chapter twenty-nine and two
will relate to topics from chapter thirty. All students must actively participate in all the threaded
discussions; the dates of the threaded discussions are listed in the schedule.
All
issues discussed in the text are important for this class as well as the years
in which events took place. After reading the assigned chapters student needs
to be able to answer the following questions and discuss related topics:
Chapter 28 Questions:
1.
Why did Japanese-American
relations worsen in 1937?
2.
What happened to the "Open Door?"
3.
How did the U.S. aid
China in the late 1930s?
4.
What did Roosevelt ask
manufacturers to do regarding Japan?
5.
What did Congress
embargo in 1940? How was this
embargo changed
6.
How did Japan respond to
the American imposed embargo?
7.
In 1941 what country did
Franklin Roosevelt consider the greatest threat?
8.
What action did Cordell
Hull ask Japan to take in 1941?
9.
What action in Russia
prompted Japan to take action?
10.
How was Indochina
connected to a further American embargo?
11.
What did Japan demand
from the United States and Britain in exchange for a cessation of expansion in
China and a withdrawal from Indochina.
12.
Where were the Japanese
planning to assault in 1941?
13.
What was the
significance of the Japanese diplomatic code?
14.
Who were Husband E.
Kimmel and Walter C. Short?
15.
What sorts of
precautions were taken at Pearl Harbor?
16.
How many American
service men were killed at Pearl Harbor?
17.
What happened on Dec. 8
and Dec. 11?
18.
How was the nation
economically mobilized?
19.
What was Roosevelt's greatest contribution to the war effort?
20.
How did the gross
national product change between 1939 and 1945?
21.
What did the war
demonstrate about Keynesian economic theory?
22.
How did the war affect
unemployment?
23.
Who was James F. Byrnes?
What was the Office of War Mobilization?
24.
How did the war affect
wages?
25.
What was the National
War Labor Board?
26.
How did the war affect
unions?
27.
How did the war affect
the standard of living and workers benefits?
28.
How did the war affect
government spending?
29.
What were war bonds?
30.
How did the war affect
the income tax?
31.
How did the war affect
the distribution of wealth?
32.
How did the war affect "un-congested areas" and the west?
33.
How did the war affect
the marriage and birth rate?
34.
How did the war affect
racial relations?
35.
What was "Aryan superiority?"
36.
What were the "Tuskegee Airmen?"
37.
Who was William Hastie?
38.
How did the war affect
African-Americans?
39.
What happened in Detroit
in 1943 regarding black war workers?
40.
Who was A. Philip
Randolph?
41.
What were "Zoot-suiters?"
42.
Who was Charles Drew?
43.
How were
Native-Americans affected by the war?
44.
What were "Code Talkers?"
45.
How did Americans
tolerate dissent and intolerance during the war?
46.
Why were Japanese
Americans interred during World War II?
How many did this include?
47.
Where were the internment
camps located?
48.
Who was Gordon
Hirabayashi? What was Ex parte
Endo?
49.
What did women do during
the war? How did their lives
change?
50.
Why did women choose to
work in war industries?
51.
How were families
affected by the war?
52.
How did the war affect
the marriage, birth, and divorce rates?
53.
In December of 1941 where were Hitler's armies?
54.
Once the U.S. entered
the war what were the first priorities?
55.
What was the importance
of Russia?
56.
What was the importance of a "second front?"
57.
Which enemy country did
the U.S. concentrate on first?
58.
How did the allies
strike Germany in 1942?
59.
Where did Dwight
Eisenhower attack in the fall of 1942?
60.
What was Vichy?
61.
Who was Jean Darlan and
Charles de Gaulle
62.
What happened at the
Kasserine Pass?
63.
Who was Erwin Rommel?
64.
Where is Monte Casino?
65.
What was the Italian
campaign?
66.
What happened on June 6,
1944? What was D day?
67.
Where was Omaha Beach?
68.
Where was the European
allied front in September of 1944?
69.
What advantage did the
allies possess in regard German military strength?
70.
Who was Bernard Montgomery? What did he propose?
71.
What happened on
December 16, 1944? What was the "Battle of the Bulge?"
72.
What happened at the
Elbe River?
73.
What happened on May 8,
1945?
74.
What were Dachau,
Treblinka, Auschwitz, and Birkenau?
75.
Why didn't Roosevelt order Auschwitz bombed?
76.
What type of war was the
American war in the Pacific?
77.
What did commanders
discover was the most effective weapons system to use against warships?
78.
What happened in Coral
Sea in May of 1942?
79.
Who was Isoruku
Yamamoto?
80.
What is Port Moresby?
81.
What were Lexington and Yorktown?
82.
What happened near the
Midway Islands in June of 1942?
83.
Who was Douglas
MacArthur?
84.
What did Douglas
Macarthur commit himself to carrying out as a result of events in Manila and
the Bataan peninsula?
85.
What was the basic
strategy of the two-pronged American advance led by Chester Nimitz and Douglas
MacArthur?
86.
What was the importance of the Solomon
Islands?
87.
What was Guadalcanal?
88.
What was the importance
of Guam?
89.
What were kamikazes?
90.
What happened in
February of 1945?
91.
What happened in April
of 1945?
92.
What was Albert Einstein's warning?
93.
What was the Manhattan
Project?
94.
Who was J. Robert
Oppenheimer?
95.
What was the significance of Hiroshima's Museum of Science and Industry?
96.
What was the rational
for dropping the Atomic Bomb on Japan?
97.
What was the Enola
Gay?
98.
What do Hiroshima and
Nagasaki have in common?
99.
What benefits did the
most costly and destructive war in human history nevertheless produce?
100.
What happened in San Francisco in June of 1945?
101.
What was Mission to Moscow?
102.
Who was Time magazine's 1943 Man of the Year?
103.
What was the Declaration of the United Nations?
104.
What was the Comintern?
105.
Who was V.M. Molotov?
106.
What happened atTeheran?
107.
What happened at Dumbarton Oaks?
108.
What was the UN Charter?
109.
What was the General Assembly?
110.
Who were the permanent members of the Security
Council?
111.
How did the UN reflect both the ideas of Woodrow
Wilson and Henry Cabot Lodge?
112.
What did the Russians resent about the
British-American second front?
113.
What were Stalin's plans for after the war? Who expected this?
114.
What happened at Katyn?
115.
What happened at Yalta?
116.
Why was Stalin suspicious of British and American
support for Poland?
117.
What happened at Potsdam?
118.
What was "the American century?"
119.
What happened to the relative power of the United States' allies and enemies after the war?
Chapter 29 Questions:
1.
Why was there significant fear of a serious depression
after the war?
2.
What did most people want to do with America's military forces, wartime programs, and taxes after the war.
3.
What did labor, industrialists, and farmers want after
the war?
4.
What did Harry Truman propose after the war.
5.
What was the G.I. Bill of Rights?
6.
What was the Taft Hartley Act?
7.
How were marriage, family life, and life styles
affected by the war?
8.
How did the government affect suburban life and
domesticity after the war?
9.
How did many popular magazines as well as many
scholars view domestic family life after the war?
10.
How did Hollywood often depict domestic life after the
war?
11.
How were men and women's roles seen after the war?
12.
How had work for both men and women changed after the
war?
13.
According to Truman what language did the Russians
really understand?
14.
How was the U.S. Army different from the Red Army
after the war?
15.
Who were Averill Herriman and George Kennan?
16.
What was the importance of The Sources of Soviet
Conduct?
17.
What was containment policy? What did it really entail?
18.
What did Truman hope to gain from the atomic bomb in
regard to the Soviet Union?
19.
How large was the U.S. Atomic arsenal in 1947? Was this a secret?
20.
How did many Americans regard the Atomic bomb in the
aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
21.
What is the Atomic Energy Commission?
22.
What was the Baruch plan? What was the Soviet reaction?
23.
What was happening in Greece in 1947?
24.
What was the "Iron Curtain?"
25.
Who was Dean Acheson?
26.
What was the Truman Doctrine?
27.
Who was George Marshal? How did his plan influence Eastern European nations?
28.
What was The Lesson of History?
29.
What was the Marshal Plan? How much did it initially cost?
30.
What was the Berlin airlift?
31.
Who were Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong?
32.
What was the situation in the Far East after the war?
33.
Who governed Japan after the war?
34.
What was the situation in China after the war? What role did George Marshal play?
35.
What were Harry Truman's political prospects in 1948?
36.
Why was Harry Truman losing political support? How did he change the situation?
37.
What was the "Fair Deal?"
38.
What was the North Atlantic Treaty?
39.
Who were the first members of NATO?
40.
What happened in the Soviet Union in 1949?
41.
What was the "super" of hydrogen bomb?
42.
What happened in China in 1949?
43.
What was NSC-68?
44.
What is important about 38º north latitude?
45.
What attack did Dean Acheson inadvertently encourage?
46.
What did Harry Truman do with the backing of the UN
Security Council?
47.
Why did Harry Truman implement NSC-68?
48.
What happened at Inchon?
49.
What was the significance of the Yalu River/
50.
Why was Douglas Mac Arthur fired?
51.
What paradox of American power was exposed as a result
of the Korean War?
52.
Why did Harry Truman establish the Loyalty Review
Board?
53.
Who were Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss?
54.
Who were Klaus Fuchs, Harry Gold, and Julius and Ethel
Rosenberg?
55.
Why did many fear a powerful communists underground in
the United States?
56.
Who was Joseph McCarthy? What did he claim?
57.
How was George Marshal connected to Joseph McCarthy?
58.
What was the "big lie?"
59.
Why did Joseph McCarthy attack Harry Truman?
60.
Why was Dwight D. Eisenhower so popular?
61.
What made Adlai T Stevenson a poor candidate?
62.
How did Eisenhower compare with Truman?
63.
What were the qualities of Eisenhower's national policies?
64.
How did Eisenhower's foreign policy differ from that of his predecessor?
65.
Who was John Foster Dulles? How did he modify containment policy?
66.
Who was Roy Cohn?
67.
What brought down Joseph McCarthy?
68.
What did Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia once have in
common?
69.
What happened at Dien Bien Phu?
70.
Who was Ho Chi Minh?
71.
What did France, Britain, China, and the Soviet Union
agree upon about the 17th parallel?
72.
What was the Democratic Republic of Vietnam?
73.
Who were Bao Dai and Ngo Dinh Diem?
74.
What was intended to happen in Vietnam in 1956?
75.
What was the United State's reaction to Ngo Dinh Diem's initiative?
76.
What was SEATO?
77.
Why did the world teeter on the brink of war during
the 1950s in regard to the Middle East?
78.
What was the British mandate of Palestine?
79.
What was Truman's view of Israel?
80.
Who was Gamal Abdel Nassar?
81.
What connected France, Britain and Israel?
82.
What was the Russian reaction to the Suez Crisis?
83.
What was the "Eisenhower Doctrine?"
84.
What happened in November of 1952?
85.
What was the "Kitchen Debate?"
86.
What was the importance of Sputnik?
87.
What was the "missile gap?"
88.
What was the important of Richard Nixon's trip to the Soviet Union and Nikita Khrushchev’s trip to the United States?
89.
Who was Gary Powers? What was the U2?
How did Khrushchev react?
90.
What was the OAS?
91.
Who was Jacobo Arbenz Guzman?
92.
What were the results of Richard Nixon's "Goodwill Tour" of South America?
93.
Who was Fulgencio Batista?
94.
Who was Fidel Castro?
95.
How did the American government react to Castro's revolution?
96.
Why were racial attitudes shifting in the United
States after World War II?
97.
What was the Internal Security Act?
98.
What ruling had weakened Plessy v. Ferguson by the 1950s.
99.
What was Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka? Who was
Thurgood Marshal?
100.
What happened in Little
Rock, Arkansas in 1957?
101.
What was the Civil
Rights Act of 1957?
102.
Who were the major
candidates for president in 1960?
103.
What made John F.
Kennedy an unusual candidate?
Chapter 30 Questions:
1.
What happened at the Bay of Pigs?
2.
How did Soviet Premier Khrushchev increase
Cold War tensions In 1962,?
3.
How did President Kennedy respond to the
Cuban missile crisis?
4.
What was the significance of the Nuclear
Test Ban Treaty?
5.
Who was Ngo Dinh Diem?
6.
How did John F. Kennedy's initially approach the race question?
7.
What was the purpose of bus boycotts, lunch counter sit-ins, and "freedom rides?" Who initiated them?
8.
Who was the leader of the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference? What was his significance?
9.
Who were Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm
X? Who were the Black
Muslims? What did they advocate?
10.
Who was the author of the "I Have a Dream Speech?"
11.
What was the Warren Report? Why did it
stimulate charges of conspiracy?
12.
What was the Civil Rights Act of 1964?
What did it achieve?
13.
What was the Great Society ? Who promoted it and what did it
achieve?
14.
What caused poverty after 1945?
15.
What was the Gulf of Tonkin
resolution? What were its results?
16.
What was the Ho Chi Minh Trail ?
17.
How did many American opponents of the
Vietnam War describe the war?
18.
How does the text describe the American
situation in Vietnam by the middle of 1968?
19.
Which Senator from Minnesota challenged Johnson for the Democratic Party's nomination in 1968?
20.
What was the name of the Vietcong
Offensive launched in January 1968?
21.
Who was assassinated in 1968 just after he
won the Democratic primary in California?
22.
Who was George Wallace? What was the importance of his 1968
political platform?
23.
Who was Hubert Humphrey ? What was his significance?
24.
In 1968 what violent incident occurred in
Chicago?
25.
During his first term in office what did
President Nixon consider his chief task?
26.
What was President Nixon's principal plan for ending American commitment in the Vietnam war?
27.
What were the Vietnam Moratorium Days?
28.
What was the importance of My Lai?
29.
What was the purpose of demonstrations at
Kent State and Jackson State? What
happened at these events?
30.
In 1970, four students were killed in
demonstrations at what university?
31.
Who was Henry Kissinger? What was his significance?
32.
What was Détente?
33.
In February 1972, which country did Nixon
establish relations with? Why was this done?
34.
What were the terms of the January 1973
peace settlement in Vietnam?
35.
What was the major economic problem facing
Nixon when he took office?
36.
How did Nixon attempt to solve the major
economic problem facing the country?
37.
What was Nixon's policy toward school desegregation?
38.
Who did Nixon appoint as the new Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court in 1969?
39.
After the American withdrawal from Vietnam, what was Nixon's main domestic goal?
40.
What was the Watergate scandal?
41.
What was the key pieces of evidence which
demonstrated that Nixon had committed a felony?
42.
What was the "Saturday Night Massacre?" Who was Archibald
Cox?
43.
Who replaced Spiro Agnew after he resigned from the Vice
Presidency in 1973?
44.
What major problem plagued Nixon during
his second term that was not related to Watergate?
45.
In July 1974, what ruling of the Supreme
Court directly affected Nixon?
What was the reasoning?
46.
What was the key felony committed by Nixon
as revealed by the Watergate tapes?
47.
Who "put the interests of America first" when he resigned from office?
48.
How did Nixon's televised defenses of his innocence affect the public?
49.
According to the text, what was "the most dangerous confrontation of the Cold War?"
Figure 4, Sputnik 1, from NASA images http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/sputnik/gallerysput.html
From the end of World War II until the fall of Richard Nixon the one constant was the Cold War. It dominated international politics and greatly influenced American politics as well. All presidents had to deal with the ever-present possibility of a global nuclear war between what was then called the "Free World" and the Communists Bloc. Unlike other nation in previous centuries who possessed a war winning technology, America's monopoly on nuclear weapons was very fleeting and even if it had lasted unlike other ultimate weapons systems such as the Roman legions, Greek fire, or the British high seas battle fleet, the atomic bomb was very difficult to use. Generally in war cities, land, people, or material wealth can be acquired from the application of the weapons system, but the atomic bomb laid the land truly to waste, by destroying virtually everything it touched. Atomic weapons were much more valuable as a threat than as a deployable, battlefield weapon. And as the Soviets acquired atomic and then hydrogen weapons plus intercontinental missiles capable of delivering these devices anywhere in the world in a matter of minutes the balance of military power in the world ceased to be based upon methods of conquest but rather on the fear of mutually assured destruction, otherwise know as MAD.
This is essentially why the Cold War was "cold." The United States and the communist world would fight innumerable hot conflicts, but these were always proxy conflicts, wars where the actual fighting between any Soviet and American military personnel could always be plausibly denied by both sides to prevent the necessity of raising any given conflict to the level of a Soviet-American nuclear exchange. Both sides carried this military charade to an absurd level. For example during the Korean War American fighter pilots flew their Saber Jets against erstwhile Russian Migs in Chinese colors whose pilots could be plainly overheard communicating in Russian. There was really nothing "cold" about the Cold War.
Figure 5, Chief Justice Earl Warren administering the oath of office to Richard M. Nixon on the east portico of the U.S. Capitol, January 20, 1969. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C