The "Commodity Gap" V. The "Missile Gap."

Ahmad Taylor

Mid-term Examination

The Cold war was a struggle between the Soviet Union and the United States after World War II. The war changed the outlook on many governments before it was over in 1991. The cold war changed the economical effect of Europe, the United States, and Asia. It also affected the welfare state in Europe and the consumer culture of the United States.

The Cold war changed the European government forever. The president of the United States of 1986, Ronald Regan visited with the Soviet commander Reykjavik. The two sides discussed scaling back their intermediate missile arsenals in Europe. The talks between both sides were never successsful. After all the meetings and talks, the United states decided to up the anty by posing warnings. The Soviet policymakers slowly accepted Ronald Reagan's administration warnings that the United States would make the arms race a huge problem for the Soviet's. The were two burdens of the Cold War arms race on one hand and the watch of large sums of foreign and military aid. This left the allies of the Soviet's optomistic. The result of this was a dual aggrement of acceptance with the west and economic restructuring and openness domestically. In 1989 the European Communist governments crubled one after another. Reforms of the government in Bulgaria, Polandm and Hungary all signaled a message of peaceful end to the communist rule and the welcome to democtatizaion.

In the Asian countries, some of them wanted different things. In cause of the cold war, in order to contain communism, Japan was given special treatment by the United States government. The Japanese were given special access to United States technology, markets, and, capital. Like, to firms in South Korea, Taiwan and, particularly during and after the war in Viet Nam, Thailand profited from United States military spending and technology transfer policies, as well as relatively unfettered access to the United States market for their exports. Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia were similarly benefited from Cold War politics. During the Korean and Viet Nam war periods, the United States had billions of its