The addition of atomic bombs to their respective arsenals entitled them to a new title: superpowers. With the old “great powers” of Europe exhausted and battered by World War II, the United States (largely unscathed, the main creditor state in the world, and heavily industrialized) and the Soviet Union (badly beaten up but in a position to rebuild its defenses) emerged as the dominant powers. The Cold War was so named as it never featured direct military action between the two superpowers or their main allies. Its origins can be traced to several sources but it rapidly became a war of postures and proxy wars between the two heavy-hitters, the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The Cold War refers to the period of heightened tensions between the West (that is, the United States, Canada, Britain, France, and their allies) and the Soviet Union, lasting roughly from 1945 to 1991. Lambert, reads a comic book in a foxhole in Korea, 1951. A soldier with the Vandoos, Private G.U.I. A cold war followed, spreading globally and leading to a nuclear standoff.9.4 The Cold War Figure 9.14 War is mostly about waiting. By 1951, Europe was divided into two power blocs, American-led and Soviet-led, each with atomic weapons. Military alliances were formed as the West grouped together as NATO, and the East banded together as the Warsaw Pact. also offered the Marshall Plan, massive aid package aimed at supporting collapsing economies that were letting communist sympathizers gain power. pledging to prevent the communists from extending their power, a process that led to the West supporting some terrible regimes. countered with the Truman Doctrine, with its policy of containment to stop communism spreading-it also turned the world into a giant map of allies and enemies, with the U.S. The West feared a communist invasion, physical and ideological, that would turn them into communist states with a Stalin-style leader-the worst possible option-and for many, it caused fear over the likelihood of mainstream socialism, too.
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