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cold war
The Cold War was the continuing state of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition existing after World War II (1939–1945) between the Communist World, primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies, and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States and its allies -
cold war
Despite being allies against the Axis powers, the USSR and the US disagreed about political philosophy and the configuration of the post-war world while occupying most of Europe. -
cold war
The Soviet Union created the Eastern Bloc with the eastern European countries it occupied, annexing some and maintaining others as satellite states, some of which were later consolidated as the Warsaw Pact (1955–1991). The US and its allies used containment of communism as a main strategy, establishing alliances such as NATO to that end -
cold war
The US funded the Marshall Plan to effectuate a more rapid post-War recovery of Europe, while the Soviet Union would not let most Eastern Bloc members participate -
cold war
Elsewhere, in Latin America and Southeast Asia, the USSR assisted and helped foster communist revolutions, opposed by several Western countries and their regional allies; some they attempted to roll back, with mixed results. Some countries aligned with NATO and the Warsaw Pact, and others formed the Non-Aligned Movement. -
cold war
In the 1980s, under the Reagan Doctrine, the United States increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressures on the Soviet Union, at a time when the nation was already suffering economic stagnation. In the late 1980s, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the liberalizing reforms of perestroika and glasnost -
cold war
The Cold War featured periods of relative calm and of international high tension – the Berlin Blockade (1948–1949), the Korean War (1950–1953), the Berlin Crisis of 1961, the Vietnam War (1959–1975), the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), the Soviet war in Afghanistan (1979–1989), and the Able Archer 83 NATO exercises in November 1983. -
cold war
Both sides sought détente to relieve political tensions and deter direct military attack, which would probably guarantee their mutual assured destruction with nuclear weapons. -
cold war
The Cold War ended after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, leaving the United States as the dominant military power, and Russia possessing most of the Soviet Union's nuclear arsenal. -
cold war
The Cold War and its events have had a significant impact on the world today, and it is commonly referred to in popular culture.