The Cold War was a post-1945 struggle between the United States and its allies against the group of nations led by the Soviet Union. Direct military conflict did not occur between these two superpowers, but intense economic and diplomatic struggles erupted. Different interests led to mutual suspicion and hostility in an escalating ideological rivalry.

U.S. officials, concerned over Soviet pressures against Iran and Turkey, interpreted a 1946 speech by Stalin as declaring ideological war against the West. In 1947 the president proposed the Truman Doctrine, which had two objectives: to send U.S. aid to anticommunist forces in Greece and Turkey, and to create a public consensus so Americans would be willing to fight the "cold war". He achieved both goals. That same year, journalist Walter Lippmann popularized the term "cold war" in a book of the same name. In Congress there was a series of highly publicized inquiries into pro-Communist activity in the United States. The best-known investigator, Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, gave his name to an era of intense anticommunism. In 1948 the United States launched the $13 billion Marshall Plan to rebuild Western and Central Europe. The Chinese Communists signed an alliance with Stalin, but the United States refused to recognize the new regime. In Japan, then under U.S. control, economic development was accelerated to counter Asian communism. When Communist North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950, Truman sent the American military into action. The conflict ended three years later in a truce that left the prewar border intact. In 1953 Stalin died and Truman left office, but both sides continued to struggle over Europe. The USSR tried to protect Communist East Germany from serious population loss by building the Berlin Wall in 1961. Each superpower also attempted to gain influence over emerging nations in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. A serious crisis arose in 1962 when the USSR placed missiles in Cuba, their new ally. President John F. Kennedy threatened nuclear retaliation, and the Soviets withdrew the missiles in return for Kennedy's promise not to invade Cuba.

Sobered by this crisis, the Soviets were also weakened when the Chinese split from Moscow and the East Europeans grew restless. Nationalism was proving stronger than communism. The United States, meanwhile, was fighting the Vietnam War, a bloody military action that cost 57,000 American lives in a failed effort to retain South Vietnam. In addition, the postwar economic superiority of the United States was challenged by Japan and West Germany. By 1973 the two stumbling superpowers had agreed on a policy of détente; it was an attempt to cool the costly arms race and slow their competition in the Third World. Détente ended by 1980, however, as Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan to save a Marxist regime. Newly elected U.S. President Ronald Reagan began a massive arms buildup including huge stockpiles & nuclear weapons. The nuclear arms race was on again posing a threat to theentire planet if a nuclear strike and counter-attack should occur.

In 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev, representing a new generation of Soviet leaders, came to power in the USSR. He and Reagan agreed to cut back the superpowers' presence in Europe and to moderate ideological competition. Tensions eased as Soviet troops were withdrawn from Afghanistan. In the early 1990s Gorbachev largely cooperated with the U.S. military effort to defeat Iraq's aggression in the Middle East. The "cold war" ended in Europe as the newly freed East European nations elected non-Communist governments and the two Germanys became one, the arms race was cut back, and ideological competition decreased as communism was discredited. U.S. President George Bush declared the need for a new world order to replace the superpower rivalry that had divided the globe and fueled the "cold war".

According to Helen Caldicott, a nuclear oponent, she says that during the "cold war" America and Russia together have created the world's largest cover-up in the history of the world. The legacy of "cold war" nuclear bomb production translates into a hot war of contaminated food, air, and water. This is true for us and for all future generations of humans plants, and animals. Because of the "cold war" nuclear power is now by far the most expensive form of electricity production, if one calculates the cumulative cost of taxpayer subsidies to the industry at each step of the fuel chain, from uranium mining to the storage of radioactive waste. The rapid build up of nuclear weapons in the world during the Cold War contributes greatly to the problems we now face in the field of nuclear energy.




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