Cold War

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The Cold War took place between 1945 and 1991. The Cold War was not like any other war, because the two main enemies' armies never actually fought against each other. The term "Cold" war is used to describe the relations between the United States and the Soviet Union during the 45 year period after the end of World War II because neither country liked each other. Many people were afraid that it might end in a nuclear war, but that never happened.

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Conflicting countries

European alliances (blue) and USSR alliances (red)

The United States and Soviet Union each had many countries from around the world on their side.

The United Kingdom, France, Australia, West Germany, Canada, and the Netherlands were countries on the American side. East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, Poland were on the soviet side, and Cuba, North Korea, China, Mongolia and also other countries at different times were friendly to the Soviets.

History of the Cold War

Before the Cold War

The cold war was partially due to the different ways of thinking, both in economy and the way of governing. The United States had adopted capitalism as their economic system while the Soviet Union chose communism, the US was democratic while USSR was nearly a dictatorship. These differences lead to angry relationship between the two countries

World War II

The USSR and the United States were allies when World War II happened because neither country liked Nazi Germany. Even though they were allies, they still did not like each other. Soviets thought that the United States and the United Kingdom would not start fighting Germany until Germany had already beat the USSR. The Allies made Germany into four different parts. One part was for the United Kingdom, one part was for France, one part was for the USSR, and one part was for the United States. The city Berlin also was made separate like the country, even though Berlin was in the USSR part of Germany. The three western countries decided to put their parts of Germany back together to make a country called the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland or BRD). The USSR made their part of Germany into a country called the German Democratic Republic (Deutsche Demokratische Republik or DDR). The western parts of Berlin were put together to make a city called West Berlin, which was a BRD enclave inside of the DDR.

Complications

The Cold War was related to many local wars, such as the U.S led Korean War, Soviet invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia and the Vietnam War, also organized by the United States. These wars, when two small countries fight each other with help from powerful countries, are called proxy wars. The Cuban Missile Crisis was a part of the Cold War, and Middle East Crisis has also become much more complicated because of the cold war.

Resolutions during the Cold War

Western democracies and the Soviet Union discussed World War II at conferences in Tehran (November-December 1943), Yalta (February 1945), and Potsdam (July-August 1945).

In the end

After Stalin's death, East-West relations got better, but were never completely healed. A final phase during the late 1980s happened under the Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who hoped for a healing between the two states that could address many world problems. However, this never happened, because the peoples who lived in the Soviet Union decided to do away with Communism, since it had failed them for 80 years and denied them basic freedoms. By 1990, the Soviet Union broke apart into many countries, the Berlin Wall was torn down, the nations of Eastern Europe had multi-party democracies, and the Cold War was over.

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