The United States was primarily responsible for instigating the Cold War

Many thanks to TN05 for that great opening round! I will be using this round to rebut his constructive case and reinforce my own. Con's main method of trying to negate the resolution is, predictably, to pin the blame on the Soviets. His case can be broken up into three parts: that the Soviet Union's ambitious territorial expansion is what started the Cold War, that the first act of aggression within the Cold War (Berlin Blockade) was the fault of the Soviets, and that continued Soviet aggression is what fueled the rest of the Cold War as well. I will independently address each part. I. Soviet Expansionism I would like to first note that there is a significant difference between doing something which indirectly leads to a war and actually instigating a war. Take the following scenario: One Sunday morning, I was innocently frolicking around in the park, when a bunch of kids from my school came and started calling me names and jeering at me for my frolicking. Feeling cornered and harassed, I came to the realization that I was hopelessly outnumbered and that they had no intention of stopping any time soon, so I ran up and kicked one of them in the shins, causing the ordeal to escalate into a fist fight. Who caused the fist fight in this situation? It is true that I could have handled the situation better, but it is absurd to suggest that my frolicking in the park, or even my kick in the shin, is what caused it. Realistically, it was the other kids who were at fault-- they were the ones who, for some reason or another, decided to take issue with me despite my having done nothing particularly wrong, and they were the ones who pressured me into defending myself. They were the ones to first display unjustified hostility. This obviously isn't the perfect analogy for the Cold War, but that is besides the point. Con is basically trying to justify the Western actions that I have identified as the cause of the Cold War (i.e. containment, NATO, etc) as reactions to Soviet Expansionism. However, if Soviet Expansionism isn't necessarily something which warrants such reactions, then the blame still falls upon the Western powers for their unjustified hostility. The essential observation to make, here, is that literally *all* Western countries have engaged in ambitious expansionism at one point or another during their histories; by the time of the Cold War, the United States had engaged in territorial wars with Mexico, Canada, and Great Britain, committed numerous atrocities against native Americans in its westward expansion, stolen the Philippines from Spain, and economically imperialized several Latin American states. To object to Soviet expansionism after all that is simply hypocritical; as a relatively newly-formed state, it is to be expected that the USSR would have an active interest in obtaining more territory. More importantly, the USSR's expansion did not involve any aggression against Western powers at all, so there was no reason for the any of them to take issue with it. Con attempts to paint the United States as the hero, righteously stopping the 'evil force' of the Soviet Union from taking over the world, but in reality, what the USSR was doing was no different from what the US and other major European powers had done in the past, and it was really not harming them in any significant way either. Thus, the Western powers' reaction to Soviet expansionism was wholly unjustified, based more in their own greed for power than anything else; it is the Western powers who first displayed hostility, much like the bullies in the presented scenario, meaning that only they can be blamed for the ensuing Cold War. II. Berlin Blockade Con claims that the Berlin Blockade was the first crisis of the Cold War, and that the Soviets were fully at fault for it. However, this claim relies on a thoroughly American-biased perspective of the events that transpired; looking at it more objectively, we see that the Soviets' motivations for doing what they did were not *nearly* as bad as Con makes them out to be. His claims regarding the Soviet desire to keep Europe economically weak are completely without evidence, as are his characterizations of the 'generous aid' given by the United States in the Marshall Plan. His argument largely just consists of rhetoric attempting to paint a clear good vs. bad distinction between the USA and the USSR, lacking in actual evidence. In reality, the Marshall Plan was primarily motivated by an irrational desire for containment on the part of the American government: "Fanned by the fear of Communist expansion and the rapid deterioration of European economies in the winter of 1946"1947, Congress passed the Economic Cooperation Act in March 1948" (https://history.state.gov...). The Marshall plan was certainly implemented with the intent of promoting democracy in potential regions of Soviet influence, so there was good reason for the Soviets to wish to prevent the flow of American aid to regions under their control. Furthermore, the United States' decision to engage in the Berlin Airlift to circumvent the blockade was completey motivated by political reasons, rather than by a desire to provide humanitarian relief, as Con would have us believe: "[The blockade] left the western nations with the choice of either being politically pressured out of West Berlin (which would diminish their prestige in the rest of Europe), or staying... the western powers would not give in. To demonstrate their resolve, the Americans orchestrated a monumental airlift which flew necessities such as coal and food into the western sectors of Berlin," (http://www.coldwar.org...). The blockade was an attempt by the Soviets to hinder the Americans' unjust attempts at subtle containment, and the airlift was simply a show to gain international prestige on the part of the Americans. It is also worth noting that nothing the Soviets did was outside of the scope of the power granted to them by the other Western powers, even according to unbiased sources such as the Cold War Museum. Thus, when we take into account the perspective of the USSR, we see that the Berlin Blockade was not an act of Soviet aggression, but a justifiable response to the unprecedented hostility of the United States. Like me kicking one of the bullies in the shin, it was probably not the best decision, but it was not an unwarranted decision either. Once again, the initiator of the conflict, the United States, must take the blame. III. Continued Aggression This argument is irrelevant to the debate. It matters not what happened during the war, but what *started* the war. Once the fist fight gets started, both parties are going to be throwing punches-- but that doesn't change who actually started the fist fight. Both the United States and the Soviet Union were guilty of numerous acts of aggression once the war started... which is why it is called a "war". All Con has done is list out some of the acts of aggression committed by the Soviets, fallaciously expecting us to accept that as evidence that the USSR started the Cold War. ============ CONCLUSION ============ 1. Soviet Expansionism does not serve as a valid justification for the hostility displayed by the United States through the Truman Doctrine and formation of NATO. 2. The Berlin Blockade was simply a response to the United States' earliest attempts at containment (Marshall Plan), and was actually completely legal according to international laws at the time. 3. Acts of aggression committed during the war have no bearing on who originally caused the war. " I look forward to Con's response!