In 1945, the Cold War started as World War II ended. It lasted until the Berlin Wall between East and West Germany began coming down in 1989. Unlike any battle the world had ever seen, the dominant powers of America and Russia, the Red, White, and Blue versus the Red Army, conducted this war in the shadows.
In its essence, the fight was between the free-market capitalism of the Western world, Europe and the United States, and the communist, totalitarianism of the Soviet Union. America struggled to keep communism from spreading into Europe, Asia, and Africa. The U.S. refused to withdraw into its former isolationist attitude. World dominance and global freedom was at stake.
When the Soviet Union entered World War II between the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, mistrust between the Soviets and America was already brewing. In the 1945 Potsdam Conference, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (replaced on July 26 by Prime Minister Clement Attlee), and U.S. President Harry Truman met in Potsdam, Germany and negotiated the terms for the end of the war. One consequence was the division of Germany into four sectors or occupation zones, each under the jurisdictions of the U.S., Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union, respectively.
While the three western powers worked to lead the beleaguered former Nazi-controlled areas of West Germany into new German leadership, the Soviet Union installed a puppet government and a communist regime took control in East Germany.
Soon like-minded governments backed by Soviet military power, sprang up across Europe. Stalin desired a buffer zone to prevent direct Western invasion into Russia.
In 1946, Winston Churchill prophetically stated that an “iron curtain had descended across the continent.”
The Cold War was fully launched. The world would quiver in its grip for over 45 more years.
One of the results? A build-up of weapons—weapons of mass destruction.
Stay tuned for more next time.
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