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 After WWII the United States and the Soviet Union were the world’s main superpowers. From the end of WWII until the early 1990’s these two nations fought the COLD WAR. (Tensions between 2 different countries)  COLD WAR: Decades-long rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union and other Communist countries.

 British leader Winston Churchill voiced the alarm of Westerners over the Soviets actions in his famous Iron Curtain speech.  The Iron Curtain was a invisible curtain that divided Western Democracy and Eastern Communism in Europe.

 Joseph Stalin refused to give up the Eastern part of Germany, which the Soviets occupied at the end of the war. As a result Germany was split into two countries- Democratic West Germany and Communist East Germany  Germany’s capital, Berlin… which is located in the Eastern part of the country (which was also split)  Berlin was Split by the Berlin Wall. om/socialstudies/ush istory/coldwar/

YALTA (in the USSR) Date: Feb 1945 Present: Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin

 President Truman and his advisers developed the Cold War strategy known as Containment.  The goal of containment was to stop the spread of Communism. (The US would work in military and nonmilitary ways to contain communism)

 Domino Theory- View that many countries could fall to communism- like a row of dominos REACTION! TRUMAN DOCTRINE: Promised aid to people struggling to resist threats to democratic freedom.

By 1948, there was a great over growing Communist control of Eastern Europe. This led to the formation of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) The NATO alliance included the US, Canada, and ten Western Europe nations. In response the Soviet Union and Eastern European nations formed the Warsaw Pact

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (1949)  United States  Belgium  Britain  Canada  Denmark  France  Iceland  Italy  Luxemburg  Netherlands  Norway  Portugal  1952: Greece & Turkey  1955: West Germany  1983: Spain

 In response to NATO the Soviet Union and Eastern European nations formed the Warsaw Pact 

Warsaw Pact (1955) }U. S. S. R. }Albania }Bulgaria }Czechoslovakia }East Germany }Hungary }Poland }Rumania

 After WWII, Americans feared that Communism would gain strength within the US. This fear of Communism was known as the RED SCARE!  President Truman’s secretary of state John Foster Dulles rejected Truman’s containment policy.  Dulles favored a more aggressive stand and urged to overthrow Communist government.  In 1956 Dulles announced that the US would go to the brink of war to combat Communism called Brinkmanship

The Ideological Struggle Soviet & Eastern Bloc Nations [“Iron Curtain”] US & the Western Democracies GOAL  spread world- wide Communism GOAL  “Containment” of Communism & the eventual collapse of the Communist world. [George Kennan] METHODOLOGIES:  Espionage [KGB vs. CIA]  Arms Race [nuclear escalation]  Ideological Competition for the minds and hearts of Third World peoples [Communist govt. & command economy vs. democratic govt. & capitalist economy]  “proxy wars”  Bi-Polarization of Europe [NATO vs. Warsaw Pact]

Sputnik I (1957) The Russians have beaten America in space—they have the technological edge!

The Berlin Wall Goes Up (1961) Checkpoint Charlie

Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)

 The USA and the Soviet Union raced as the world watched to be the first to conquer space.

 The Cold War ( ) was one of perception where neither side fully understood the intentions and ambitions of the other. This led to mistrust and military build-ups.  United States  U.S. thought that Soviet expansion would continue and spread throughout the world.  They saw the Soviet Union as a threat to their way of life; especially after the Soviet Union gained control of Eastern Europe.

 Soviet Union  They felt that they had won World War II. They had sacrificed the most (25 million vs. 300,000 total dead) and deserved the “spoils of war.” They had lost land after WWI because they left the winning side; now they wanted to gain land because they had won.  They wanted to economically raid Eastern Europe to recoup their expenses during the war.  They saw the U.S. as a threat to their way of life; especially after the U.S. development of atomic weapons.

 U.S., Britain, and France merged their zones in 1948 to create an independent West German state.  The Soviets responded by blockading land access to Berlin. The U.S. began a massive airlift of supplies that lasted almost a year. (7,000 tons a day) In May 1949 Stalin lifted the blockade, conceding that he could not prevent the creation of West Germany.  Thus, the creation of East and West Germany

 Stalin’s aggressive actions accelerated the American effort to use military means to contain Soviet ambitions.  The U.S. joined with Canada, Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg to establish NATO, a mutual defense pact in  Pledged signers to treat an attack against one as an attack against all.  When West Germany joined NATO in 1955, the Soviet Union countered by creating its own alliance system in eastern Europe– the Warsaw Pact (1955)

 Truman was preoccupied with Europe.  Events in Asia would soon bring charges from Republicans that the Democrats were letting the Communists win.  After “losing” China, the United States sought to shore up friendly Asian regimes.