The Cold War was the tense relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR) during the 46-year period following the World War II's end, but before the end of the Soviet Union. It refers to the time between 1945 and 1991. The war was unlike any other war, because the two countries' armies never directly went to war with each other. Many people feared that the relations would end in a nuclear war, but that never happened.
Conflicting countries
Both the United States and Soviet Union had multiple countries on their sides. These countries were known as satellite states or client states.
The United Kingdom, France, Australia, West Germany, Canada, and the Netherlands are examples of countries on the American side. East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, Poland were on the Soviet side. Cuba, North Korea, China, Mongolia and numerous other countries were friendly to the Soviets at various times .
History of the Cold War
Before the Cold War
The outbreak of the Cold War was due to the different ways of thinking - known as "ideology" - both in economy and government. The United States had adopted Capitalism as their economic and governmental system while the Soviet Union chose Communism. The United States was a democracy, while the USSR was a dictatorship. These differences led to a tense relationship between the two countries.
World War II
The USSR and the United States were allies during World War II only because neither country approved of Nazi Germany's ideology. While they were allies, neither country approved of the other's government's ideas, but thought that it was more important to work together fighting against Germany.
After World War II
After WWII left Germany in tatters, the Allies split it into four parts. One part was given to the United Kingdom, one part to France, one part to the USSR, and one part to the United States. The Eastern German city Berlin also separated, even though Berlin is located in the Eastern part of Germany, which was the Soviet compartment. The three Western countries compiled their sections of the country together to form a country known as the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland or BRD). The USSR then named their section of Germany the German Democratic Republic (Deutsche Demokratische Republik or DDR). The Western parts of Berlin were, like the country, placed together to form West Berlin: a BRD enclave inside of the DDR.
Proxy Wars
A proxy war is when two powerful countries fight indirectly. There were many proxy wars during the Cold War. For example, when a third world country was in a civil war, the United States would support the army which was anti-communist and the Soviet Union would support the army which was pro-communist. Examples of proxy wars are the Korean War and the Vietnam War.
The 1950's
In 1953, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin died and Nikita Khrushchev took his place. A period of DeStalinization began and Khrushchev was trying to reverse many of the evil things Stalin did (such as concentration camps and forced labor).
The United States created NASA to compete with the Soviet Union in the space race.
In the 1950's, the United States (under president Dwight Eisenhower) created a policy called New Look which meant to reduce military defense spending while rapidly increasing the amount of nuclear weapons it had. It was a policy of nuclear deterrence (which means that the United States built so many nuclear weapons, it intimidated the Soviet Union from attacking them).
United States Vice-President Richard Nixon engaged in several talks with Nikita Khrushchev during the 1950's, but at the end of the decade, a United States plane which spied on the Soviet Union, called U2, crashed. That was a big embarrassment for the United States and the tensions between the two countries increased.
Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)
After the United States tried to invade Cuba and failed, the Soviet Union supplied Cuba with nuclear missiles. The United States sent a large amount of ships around Cuba to stop the Soviet Union from delivering them nuclear weapons. The United States and Soviet Union came to agreement that the Soviet Union will no longer give nuclear weapons to Cuba as long as the United States does not invade Cuba again. This was the highest period of tension during the Cold War and it was the closest the world was to having a nuclear war. Something that would have caused a chain reaction that could have spread around the whole world.
Detente (1962-1981)
This time period began after the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, and ended around 1980. The word "detente" (pronounced day-tont) means less tension between two countries. In this case, it meant an improved relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union. During this time period, as China began to dislike the Soviet Union, the United States built a good relationship with China, giving the Soviet Union a disadvantage during the Cold War. During the 1970's, the United States and the Soviet Union both signed several treaties which reduced the amount of nuclear weapons each country had.
The end of the Cold War (1981-1991)
The policy of détente ended in 1981, when president Ronald Reagan ordered a massive military build-up to challenge the Soviet Union's influence around the world. The United States began to support (by giving money and weapons to them) anti-communists all over the world who wanted to overthrow their communist governments.
The Soviet Union had a bad economy during this decade and was trying to keep up with the United States in military spending, but could not. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, and the Soviet Union was having a very difficult time winning against the Afghanistan freedom fighters. The Soviet Union's failed invasion of Afghanistan is often compared to the United States' failure during the Vietnam War.
In the late 1980s the new Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev made an effort to make an ally of the United States to fix the world problems caused by the war. However, this did not take place under Gorbachev's presidency, because the people of the Soviet Union chose to abolish Communism in their country, due to its 80-year-long failure, the many global and local difficulties it caused and lack of freedom that they were forced to endure.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and without Communist rule holding the countries that compiled the Soviet Union together, the USSR broke into many smaller countries, like Russia, Ukraine, Lithuania and Georgia. The nations of Eastern Europe became democratic governments, and the period of the Cold War was over. The Soviet Union ended in December 1991.[1]
Not all historians agree on when the Cold War ended. Some think it ended when the Berlin Wall fell. Others think it ended when the Soviet Union ended.[2]
References
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