Notes for World History
WHAT WAS THE COLD WAR?
- Towards the end of the second world war, the harmony that had existed between the USSR, the USA, and the British Empire began to wear thin and all the old suspicions came to the fore again.
- Relations between Soviet Russia and the West soon became so difficult that, although no actual fighting took place directly between the two opposing camps, the decade after 1945 saw the phase of what became known as the Cold War.
- Instead of allowing their mutual hostility to express itself in open fighting the rival powers attacked each other with propaganda and economic measures, and with a general policy of non-cooperation.
- Both superpowers, the USA and the USSR, gathered allies around them two from two rival blocs.
- Whatever one bloc suggested or did was viewed by the other as having ulterior and aggressive motives.
- The Cold War moved into a new phase in the later 19605 when both sides took initiatives to reduce tension. This was known as Détente. However, it did not end the rivalry.
- The Cold War came to an end in 1989-91 with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
