-
Yalta Conference
Divided Germany into 4 parts and FDR gave portion of land to Soviets This is where the three leaders agreed to demand Germany's unconditional surrender and began plans for a post-war world. -
Potsdam Conference
Was talk to establish council of Foreign Ministers and focused on post war Europe At the conference Russian armies occupied most of Eastern Europe, including nearly half of Germany, and Stalin showed no inclination to remove his control of the region. Truman arrived at the meeting determined to be “tough” with Stalin. -
Long Telegram
Written by Knnan where he outlined his opinion and views on the Soviets -
The Iron Curtain
An ideological barrier created by the Soviet Union to seal off itself and its allies from contact with the West and other noncommunist areas. -
Containment Policy
Policy created by the US to try and prevent the spread of Communism. This was a response to moves by the Soviet Union to enlarge its communist sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. -
Truman Doctorine
It provided political, military and economical assistance to all domestic nations under threat for external and internal forces. This pulled U.S. foreign policy, away from its usual stance of withdrawal from regional conflicts not directly involving the United States -
Marshall Plan
Involved over $13 Billion to finance the economic recovery in Europe. Sparked economic recovery, of restoring the confidence of the European people in the economic future of their own countries and of Europe as a whole. The Soviet Union saw the Marshall Plan as an attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of other states which lead them to refused to participate. Eventually the Soviets prevented Poland and Czechoslovakia from taking part in it. -
Soviet Blockade in Berlin
The Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control. American officials were furious, while most of the world waited to see if the US and Soviets would come to war. -
Berlin Airlift
When the Soviet forces blockaded rail road, and water access to Allied-controlled areas of Berlin. The US and UK responded by airlifting food and fuel to Berlin from Allied airbases in western Germany. The crisis was a result of competing occupation policies and rising tensions between Western powers and the Soviet Union. -
NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)
The United States and 11 other Western nations to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The Soviet Union and its affiliated Communist nations in Eastern Europe founded a rival alliance, the Warsaw Pact. This lead to the alignment provided the framework for the military standoff that continued throughout the Cold War. -
UN Atomic Energy Commission
That the United States should continue to expand its atomic bomb arsenal rather than develop hydrogen bombs, which the committee deemed to be too destructive to have any purely military purpose. But many did not agree. -
NSC-68
(National Security Council) The US objectives and programs for national security. Its authors argued that one of the most pressing threats confronting the United States was the “hostile design” of the Soviet Union. They sought that the Soviets would be in control as they built up more weapons and nuclear forces. The US reaction was the same as the built up their weaponry and military. -
The Korean War
North Korean People’s Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet-backed Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. (Was the first military action of the cold war) -
Warsaw Pact
The Soviet Union and its European satellites sign a treaty (Warsaw Pact) a mutual defense organization that put the Soviets in command of the armed forces of the member states. US and the other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) decided to make West Germany a member of NATO. Soviets saw this as a threat and ended up creating the Warsaw Pact. -
Brinkmanship
A term during the Cold War to describe the tactic of seeming to approach the verge of war in order to persuade one's opposition to retreat. When one or both parties force the interaction between them to the threshold of confrontation in order to gain an advantageous negotiation position over the other. -
Mutual Assured Destruction
A doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two or more opposing sides would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender. -
U2 Spy Plane
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) shot down an American U-2 spy plane in Soviet air space and captured its pilot. This lead to President Dwight D. Eisenhower having to admit to the Soviets that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had been flying spy missions over the USSR for several years. -
United Nations
Was made by a need of better arbitrating international conflict and negotiating peace. Made a structure to better maintain peace and respect equal rights and self determination of all other people.