1. How did the development of nuclear weapons change the military tactics in the United States and the Soviet Union? What was the two countries’ defense strategy?
2. What had some people in the United States done as they grew fearful of the threat of nuclear war? Who was Senator McCarthy? What did he do?
3. What issues was France facing in Southeast Asia after World War II? What specifically was happening in Vietnam? How did the United States get involved?
The deployment of nuclear bombs in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki signaled the surrender of Japan and the subsequent end of the Second World War. War tactics suffered a significant change, as the existence of nuclear weapons meant that entire cities could disappear in a single moment. The US and the Soviet Union started to deploy nuclear missiles in countries that neighbored the other. The US did this in Turkey and the Soviet Union did this in Cuba.
Senator Joseph Mccarthy publicly alleged that the Soviet Union had infiltrated spies in universities and the media to start the spread of Communism in the United States. This initially led people to adopt an anticommunist attitude. However, Mccarthy was ultimately censored by the Senate, as they considered his words demagogical.
The territory that is nowadays Vietnam was known as French Indochina during the years after the Second World War. However, an independence war, known as the "First Indochina War" occurred in 1947. This represented the exit of the French from this territory. Nearly an after a decade, the US aided South Vietnam in their battle against North Vietnam, which was supported by the Soviet Union. This was known as the "Vietnam War" or "Second Indochina War".
