The Cold War

One historian defines the Cold War as "a period of East-West competition, tension, and conflict short of full-scale war, characterized by mutual perceptions of hostile intention between military-political alliances or blocs," (Cold 2003, 1). Despite numerous books claiming either the U.S. or the Soviet Union is responsible for the start of the Cold War and its continuation, this is not accurate. Both the United States and the Soviet Union must share the responsibility for the start and continuation of the Cold War in the period between 1945 and 1963.

During World War II, the U.S. and the Soviets were allies committed to the defeat of mutual enemies - Japan and Germany. At the end of the War, as the Allies struggled to reconfigure the European polity and establish a new order in the East, the interests of the Soviet Union and the United States came into direct collision. For western leaders and their diplomats, World War II had a successful but hardly "neat" ending; too many questions were left unanswered, such as the future of Poland and Germany, which had been opened at Yalta and Potsdam but left unresolved. For the Allies of the West, Soviet determination to retain physical and political control over territories captured during the War was suspect. Had Russia liberated Eastern Europe, or merely replaced Germany as its master? That was the critical question being asked in 1945; Truman and others in the West objected to Stalin's plans to retain control of Po

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Category: History - T