Cold War
Causes
-Disagreements between the Allies during World War II
-Differing U.S. and Soviet political and economic systems
Differing goals for postwar Germany and Eastern Europe
Soviet expansion of communism in Eastern Europe
Cold War Alliances
NATO or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization consisted of the U.S.Canada and most west European countries and it was designed to counter Soviet power in Europe
On 14 May 1955, the USSR established the Warsaw Pact in response to the integration of the Federal Republic of Germany into NATO in October only nine years after the defeat of Germany that ended with the Soviet and Allied invasion of Germany in 1944/45 during World War II in Europe.
Cold War Around The World
The Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest the world ever came to nuclear war. The United States armed forces were at their highest state of readiness ever and Soviet field commanders in Cuba were prepared to use battlefield nuclear weapons to defend the island if it was invaded.
June 25, 1950, the Korean War began when 75,000 soldiers from the North Korean People’s Army poured across the 38th parallel, the boundary between the Soviet People’s Republic of Korea to the north and the pro-Western Republic of Korea to the south. This invasion was the first military action of the Cold War. By July, American troops had entered the war on South Korea’s behalf. As far as American officials were concerned, it was a war against the forces of international communism itself.
Main topic
Early Confrontations
Berlin airlift was a mission to supply the western part of Berlin solely by using aircrafts because the areawas blocked off by land, almost every 3 minutes anew aircraft would land in Berlin with supplies from the U.S.
Containment was the idea that the United States adopted in hopes to keep the Soviet Union under control so they could not spread communism
March 1947, The Truman Doctrine developed by Harry Truman was devised to "scare the hell" out of congress and he justified this by saying “I believe we must assist free peoples to work out their destinies in their own way.”
Arms Control
U.S. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy considered treaties that sought to control the production of weapons in an attempt to avoid a nuclear conflict. (Kennedy, in particular, was concerned with nuclear proliferation
. The treaty, originally signed by 62 countries, had grown to some 185 parties by the early 21st century, although declared or suspected nuclear states such as India, Pakistan, and Israel were not parties. The NPT became effective in 1970 for a 25-year period; it was extended indefinitely in 1995.