The '''Cold War''' was a period of suspicion and distrust between the US and its alliances and the Soviet Union and its more or less puppet alliesafter [[World War II]], and was started by [[Josef Stalin]].<ref> [http://cnsnews.com/commentary/article/59591 CNSNews.com - U.S. Honors Stalin on Hallowed Ground – Will Saddam Hussein Be Next?] </ref> It persisted due to the natural enmity between communism Communism and most other forms of government and the incompatible goals the two sides held.
The Cold War was marked by a nuclear [[arms race]] between the two super-powers, and the unchecked [[proliferation]] of [[nuclear weapons]] was a cause for concern in many quarters. The Cold War also was marked by high levels of [[espionage]].
Although there was no direct fighting between the superpowers, each country was involved in medium-scale proxy wars, most notably in [[VietnamKorea]], [[KoreaVietnam]] and [[Afghanistan]]. The most tense moment between the two main powers came in October 1962 during the [[Cuban Missile Crisis]], which ended without escalation into warfare.
The Cold War lead to the development of the First-World (United States and its allies) Second-World (Soviet Union and its allies) and Third-World (countries not allied with either superpower and with no nuclear programprograms) system of classifying countries. "Third-World" is the only term in this system still commonly used today, and it typically denotes an unindustrialized or still industrializing country.
It was a political, economic and psychological conflict, together with regional hot wars, between the [[United States]], [[NATO]] and other allies, and the [[USSR]], [[China]] and their allies between 1947 and 1989. After 1960, China split with the Soviet Union and set up its own alliances as part of its Cold War with the U.S and it's attempt to overtake the USSR as leader of the communist movement. <ref> [https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/winter98_99/art05.html] </ref>
The tension during the Cold War fluctuated, with the super powers going through periods of heightened conflict and also periods of improved relations. It ended on November 11, 1989, with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet overseas empire. History closed the books on the Soviet Union itself on December 25, 1991. It was replaced by 15 smaller countries, especially [[Russia]], which all rejected Communism and the Cold War.
==Causes==
The success of the wartime alliance with Britain, China and the Soviet Union led Americans to reject the isolationism of the interwar years. Victory in 1945 and the demobilization of the world’s armies and navies brought a general sense of confidence that the wartime alliance would continue and form the leadership of the new [[United Nations]], Hopefully the UN would provide the basis for international law and the solution of all serious problems, but it never lived up to expectations. Instead by 1947 the wartime alliance collapsed; The basic reason being an incompatibility in the two systems that each sought to remold the world too, either in American terms of democracy, liberal government, and capitalism, or else the Soviet goals of dictatorship of the Communist party as the mechanism to destroy capitalism. In immediate terms the issue was the independence of Poland, Czechoslovakia and other central and eastern European countries that had been taken over first by the Nazis, and after 1945 by the Soviet army.
[[Harry S. Truman]] had no knowledge or interest in foreign policy before becoming president in April 1945, and depended on the State Department for foreign policy advice. In 1946, George Kennan, an American diplomat wrote the ''Long Telegram'', in which argued for the necessity of [[Containment|containing]] the Soviet Union. His cable resonated with President [[Harry Truman]]'s administration and Truman shifted from FDR's détente to [[containment]] as soon as [[Dean Acheson]] convinced him the Soviet Union was a long-term threat to American interests. They viewed communism Communism as a secular, millennial religion that informed the Kremlin's worldview and actions and made it the chief threat to American security, liberty, and world peace. They rejected the moral equivalence of democratic and Communist governments and concluded that until the regime in Moscow changed only American and Allied strength could curb the Soviets.
Following Acheson's advice, Truman in 1947 announced the [[Truman Doctrine]] of containing Communist expansion by furnishing military and economic American aid to Europe and Asia, and particularly to Greece and Turkey. He followed up with the [[Marshall Plan]], which was enacted into law as the European Recovery Program (ERP) and pumped $12.4 into the European economy, forcing the breakdown of old barriers and encouraging modernization along American lines. The State Department later promoted the Point Four program of "foreign aid" (grants with no repayment) to underdeveloped or "[[Third World]]" countries. In general. the money went to corrupt local officials and little moderization took place. The main success stories came in [[Taiwan]] and [[South Korea]].
====Containment====
In 1947 Truman, a Democrat, convinced the Republican-controlled Congress to support the [[Truman Doctrine]] by sending massive aid to the small country of Greece, threatened by a Communist takeover. The rest of Europe was still in economic ruin, which Washington feared would help the spread of Communism, so the [[Marshall Plan]] was proposed to help restore the European economies. When Stalin engineered a Communist takeover of democratic Czechoslovakia in early 1948, and forbade his satellites to accept the [[Marshall plan moneysPlan]] money, Americans realized that Winston Churchill’s warnings about an “iron curtain” had come true.
The strategy of isolationism had failed by 1941; the strategy of détente(or friendship) with Communism had failed by 1948. Some argued for a strategy of direct confrontation or "[[Rollback]]"—but this was considered too dangerous, especially when the Soviets tested their first nuclear weapon in 1950.
Washington decided on a strategy of containment, as embodied in the the [[North Atlantic Treaty Organization]] ('''NATO''') military alliance set up in 1949. The [[NSC-68]] was a secret 1950 plan adopted at the highest levels of the American government to set the overall strategy, and a further step was taken in 1951 with the establishment of the Mutual Security Agency to coordinate U.S. economic, technical and military aid abroad.
The basic goal of containment was to prevent further Communist expansion, hoping that the internal weaknesses of the Soviet system would soon lead to its collapse. The problem with containment was that it meant fighting wars against Communist expansion, especially in Korea in 1950-53, and in Vietnam 1963-73; and had the basic flaw that the enemy could choose the time and place of movement, while America and its allies had to defend everywhere at all times. In 1949 [[Mao Zedong]] and his Communists won the civil war in China which would make the objective of containment even more unobtainable(as seen in the Chinese intervention in koreaKorea).
===Korean War: 1950-1953===
* [[Marshall Plan]], 1948-51
* [[NATO]], 1949- present
* [[Josip Broz Tito]]
* [[Berlin Wall]] 1961-89
* [[Vietnam War]] (1965-75)
* [[Domino theory]]
* [[Soviet-Afghan War]], (19781979-921989)
* [[CENTO]]