The Cold War dominated world affairs for half a century, with the United States and the Soviet Union doing ideological, political and economic battle, and using Third World nations (most significantly Vietnam and Afghanistan) to do indirect military battle with one another. The major events of the Cold War, from the end of World War II to the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989, can be understood only in this context of mutual fear, hatred and distrust between the two superpowers. Despite the fact they were allies in fighting Hitler's Germany, the two quickly established the Cold War as a way to exert their power at home and abroad and to prevent the other from gaining footholds in the world, again, especially in the poor, underdeveloped nations of the Third World.
Paterson writes that "Two nations with quite different ideologies emerged from the rubble of World War II" and "tried to fill vacuums of power" around the world, starting in Europe. By four years after the end of World War II, "decisions made in ... Washington and Moscow often determined whether people in other nations voted, where they could travel, how much they ate, and what they could print" (Paterson 26). The Soviets, victims of invasions throughout history, were distrustful of the Americans, having been invaded by them during their revolutionary period in 1920. The Americans saw their role as leaders of the world, and they took an activist role in shaping the post-war globe, encountering Soviet resistance at every turn. Truman and Stalin set the tone for the hostility and suspicion, which would mark American-Soviet relations to the end of the Cold War.
The Yalta Conference in 1945 concluded with the agreement of the victors to divide Germany up to prevent a recurrence of wear. The Soviets reneged immediately, making Eastern Europe its own, and the Cold War was on. The Truman Doctrine was the response to the Soviet incursion into Turkey and Greece, with containmen...