The Cold War from 1947 to 1968

Abstract

In 1947, the United States found itself in yet another world war, this one, however, a ``Cold War'' against the Soviet Union in which each side used every means short of direct warfare to undermine and ideally destroy the other. The Cold War would last forty-four years. During that time, the Americans and Soviets spent trillions of dollars in a conventional and nuclear arms race, fought or instigated wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and scores of other Third World countries in which millions perished, and in the Berlin, Cuban missile, and other crises marched to the brink of World War III that would have most likely resulted in a nuclear holocaust that killed hundreds of millions of peoples in both countries and beyond. Then, suddenly and dramatically, the Cold War ended in 1991 as the Soviet empire and communism imploded. The nearly five decades of Cold War profoundly shaped the world in which we live today and for all time to come.