What was the Cold War and why did it end?

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February 8 , 2008

What was the Cold War and how did it end

As the Second World War drew to an end , relationships between the Allied powers became increasingly strained over issues of power and influence in central and eastern Europe . The end of the War saw the growth of mutual distrust and conflict between the Allies resulting in the polarization of the world into two rival camps around the United States and the Soviet Union . The United States and the Soviet Union came to be known as the

two super powers of the world . The Cold War refers to the almost half a century of power rivalry between the two super powers in the form of indirect conflicts , political manipulations and extensive propaganda wars . Its distinctive feature was that both the super powers avoided direct confrontation or hot wars , but sought to undermine each other through indirect and clandestine conflicts and manipulations . Also termed the East-West conflict , the Cold War is defined simply as a succession of episodes , of phases (Bothwell , 1997 ,

: xi ) the end of which was marked clearly and cathartically by the jubilant celebrations atop the breached Berlin Wall

The Beginnings

The Cold War , however , is not marked by as distinct a starting point though many consider the Berlin Blockade and the airlift as the beginnings . The roots of the Cold War can be traced further back in history . In the war-time deliberations at Tehran and Yalta , the Soviet Union had insisted that it had a legitimate claim to Eastern Europe , and the Western leaders had willingly acknowledged this claim to a certain extent . In Moscow , in 1944 , Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin had bargained over their spheres of influence and the fate of several nations . Stalin was highly distrustful of both Churchill and the United States President Franklin Roosevelt the Soviet Union was also with its back to the wall because of its massive industrial losses and fears of more wars . It was therefore desperate to maintain political , military and economic control over the Eastern European countries that had been liberated from Hitler 's rule . To ensure control , the Soviet Union resorted to diplomatic pressure , political infiltration and military power to quickly establish `people 's republics ' sympathetic to the Soviet Union in country after country of Eastern Europe . The modus operandi was similar , first , states would establish coalition governments from which former Nazi sympathisers would be excluded , this would be followed by communist-dominated coalitions and ultimately by a single pro-Soviet party which took control of all positions of power . As nation after nation fell , in 1946 Winston Churchill referred to this rapid communist takeover as an `iron curtain ' descending across Europe (Coffin , et . al , 2005 ,

:1034 . By 1948 , Poland , Hungary , Romania Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia were all ruled by governments dependant on Moscow . In 1948 , in a direct violation of the Yalta guarantee , the Soviet Union crushed a Czechoslovakian coalition government headed by the liberal leaders Eduard Benes and Jan Masaryk

Germany , which...