Develop an argument that explains the extent to which the ways the United States and the Soviet Union sought to maintain influence over the course of the Cold War were similar or
different.

Similar

Explanation:

We could see the US and the USSR being quite the opposite of each other, one was a democracy and the other was a totalitarian regime, and mainly one was communist and the other was capitalist. The US had NATO and the Soviet Union had the Warsaw Pact, and the members of each of these alliances were nothing more than puppet states, and that's one way they exerted influence over the whole European continent. Another was also through proxy wars, a proxy war is when two great powers indirectly fight in a foreign nation's war (usually a civil war). Let's use the Korean was as an example of a proxy war, the North Koreans were supported by the Soviets and Chinse, and South Korea was supported by the whole of the league of nations (mainly Americans). Thus, we could see how the post world war 2 era separated the two worlds from Communist and Capitalism, and obviously both sides tried to spread their ideology as much as they can during the whole of the Cold War.