In Depth Story: The Cold War.

The Cold War is the term that is used to describe the shifting struggles for power and prestige between the United States and the Soviet Union just after the second World War in 1945. This war consisted of half a century of military build-up, political maneuvering for international support, and behind-the-scenes military assistance for allies and satellite nations. Both superpowers felt/ believed differently on the good of the society. The United States believed(and still do to this day) of Capitalism which simply means that citizens have the right to own a private buisness(s), the right to own private property and also the right to earn a profit. This way of life had a positive impact towards the citizens because they had the right to enjoy their freedom. They did not like or want communism(the belief in where the rights of the individuals were seen as less important than the good of the society), but it was very hard to stop the influences of communism on other countries especially when we had our allies, the Soviet Union, believing in the exact thing we feared most. Unemployment within the communist was a rare thing to come across, because everyone was forced by the government to work and to support their economy and if people refused to cooperate then they were sent to prison camps. When the influence of communism started sweeping the nation, Americans were doing everything they could to stop it, so we adjusted our tactics. The United States centered it's foreign policy on the "containment" of communism, both at home and all over the world. Both the Soviet Union and the United States wanted to avoid direct military action because of the threat of mutual nuclear destruction, but this time period was punctuated by tense, life changing situations that threatened to bring open the war. Those tensions include the Berlin Airlift(1948-1949), the Korean Conflict(1950-1953), the Cuban Missle Crisis(1962), the Vietnam War(1964-1975) and the Afghan Invasion(1979-1989).

The Cold War ended when the Soviet Union(a communist country) lost control of Eastern Europe. During 1989 many of the countries behind the 'Iron curtain' broke free from communist control. Iron Curtain, during this time, was a term that Winston Churchill came up with to show the tight grip that the Soviet Union/communists had on some parts of the world. In 1987, after Stalin dies and Khrushchev took his place, Khrushchev decided to shake things up a little. Or a lot in this case. He came up with a "programme" called the Perestroika Programme which allowed marketing forces to be introduced into the Soviet economy. For the first time in 60 years it was no longer illegal to buy and sell for profit, and also began to cut spending on defense. He was extremely realistic enough to recognise that his country could never hope to outspend the USA on nuclear weapons. It was time to face the facts; He took the initiative and announced that he was cutting weapon(s) spending. Two years later the USA and the USSR signed a treaty to remove most of their missiles from Europe. This is one of the things the United States had been wanting to hear throughout most of the Cold War, but to the questions about whether or not the Soviets were in fact done with all of the tensions we were never too sure.