Essays on Cold War

12 March 1947 – 26 December 1991 (44 years and 9 months)

North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Soviet Union, United States, Warsaw Treaty Organization.

The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc, which began following World War II. The term cold war is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two superpowers, but they each supported major regional conflicts known as proxy wars. The Cold War was waged on political, economic, and propaganda fronts and had only limited recourse to weapons.

Cuban missile crisis, Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, Berlin crisis of 1961, collapse of the Soviet Union.

The conflict was based around the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by the two superpowers: the United States and the Soviet Union, following their temporary alliance and victory against Nazi Germany in 1945.

Both the USA and the Soviet Union built up huge arsenals of atomic weapons and ballistic missiles.
The military blocs, NATO and the Warsaw Pact were formed.
The Baltic States and some former Soviet Republics achieved independence.
America became the sole superpower of the world.
Communism collapsed worldwide.

The cold war was an unarmed conflict.
Space was an important arena for the Cold War and even led to the creation of NASA.
Millions of people were killed in the proxy wars between the US and the USSR during the Cold War.
The "hot" parts of the Cold War included the Korean War, the failed Bay of Pigs invasion into Cuba, and the Vietnam War.