What do you think this would get out of 9? I created (wrote on paper and then typed later) this within the timed environment following the APUSH test rules.</p>
Thank you all!</p>
Evaluate the impact of the second World War on the United States in the 1950s and 1960s in terms of TWO of the following.</p>
Education
International relations
Science and technology</p>
The United States has just finished fighting the second World War and had emerged victorious, and as the strongest world power, they had entered a period known as the Cold War against the Soviet Union, which actually was more of a showing of capitalism vs. communism. The second World War had greatly impacted the United States and it’s Cold War policy by great change and progress in both international relations and science/technology. The United States saw a great change from isolationist to interventionist in foreign policy and had emerged both more efficient and effective with it’s new technologies such as radar and programs such as NASA.</p>
After the first World War, the United States had entered a 10 year span of great isolationism. They had completely stayed away from European entanglements and had even passed tariffs to disencourage trade with Europe, most notably the Hawley-Smoot tariff. This great isolationism was also adopted to prevent another war. The effects of this isolationism were that first, another war wasn’t prevented and second, the tariff played as a major cause for the Great Depression, so obviously the policy of isolationism didn’t work. The American government needed a new policy so these problems don’t happen again and through the process of WW2, as America became the strongest world power, they were able to adopt the policy of interventionism. Adopted by Truman against the Soviets to prevent the spread of their communist ideas, we first saw this new policy in the Korean War and then again in the Vietnam War, when we intervened to attempt to halt the spread of communism there. The second World War caused this policy change because of the world-superpower-status that America had achieved through the war and as WW2 brought America out of the Great Depression, the American government needed a new policy because obviously isolationism hadn’t worked, so to prevent another depression, the government changed radically to the other side.</p>
One of the reasons that America had emerged a world power after the war is because of its large advancements in science and technology through the war. The development and usage of things like more advanced airplanes and ships, radar, better guns, and even the nuclear bomb had caused America to emerge a technological superpower also. This spur of science didn’t just stop after the war; it continued well into the 1950’s and 1960’s. Many of the technologies developed for warfare were brought to the standard American home while others were used for further military development. A notable example of the latter was shown in the U-2 incident in the Soviet Union when the Soviets found out about a stealth airplane that America had developed. Although this stealth airplane was caught, it is significant in showing that Americans were working very hard to perfect military technologies. The science boom wasn’t limited to just the military, but it did seem to revolve around competing with the Soviets. The Soviets launched Sputnik, the first satellite a few year just after WW2 and the Americans quickly responded through NASA. Through this boom, America was able to send the first man to the moon, a lot because of old Soviet sentiment.</p>
As shown here, it can be seen that out change in international relations and advancements in science revolved around a few main things. First, because of the government needing a new strategy to ensure another depression doesn’t happen and second being the competition in the Cold War between the Americans and the Soviets. But more notably, it must be seen that both causes and effects simply could not have happened without WW2 as WW2 was needed to first take America out of depression to change policy and second, WW2 was needed to start the Cold War by ensuing the only two world superpowers so WW2 had a large impact in these two aspects of America.</p>