American and Soviet Policies towards Arab-Israeli Conflict and the Essay

American and Soviet Policies towards Arab-Israeli Conflict and the Cold War - Essay Example The Second World War ended in the European theater on May 8, 1945. And the Cold War began on that day. The cold war had many dimensions; one was ideological, another was political, a third one was economic, and to all these we may also add the rivalry between America and Russia as to who would ‘rule’ the world. With an uncanny political insight Alexis de Tocqueville had predicted as early as 1835 that â€Å"There are now two great nations in the world, which starting from different points, seem to be advancing toward the same goal: the Russians and the Anglo-Americans. . . Each seems called by some secret design of Providence one day to hold in its hands the destinies of half the world† . It would appear; therefore, that history has destined these two nations to be at each other until a final and decisive victory is achieved by one over the other. But that time has not yet arrived, even though the cold war was declared to have been ended on December 3, 1989 at the conclusion of the Malta summit between George Bush Sr. and Mikhail Gorbachev. The ‘political Vacuum’ With the withdrawal of the colonial powers, Britain and France, from the Middle East after WW II, there was a virtual political vacuum in the region. By 1948 Soviet Union had consolidated its hegemony over Eastern Europe. The ‘Truman doctrine’ put a rein to its further ‘expansion’ into Greece or Turkey. But along with consolidating its domination over the East European nations, Soviet Union was busy trying to build and expand its influence among the ‘Islamic’ nations to its south.