Alexa Zvinys
The Cold War was the struggle for global power between the United States and the Soviet Union following World War II. The Cold War began due to controversial wants and needs from the two world superpowers, the U.S. and Soviet Union. The feuds eventually kept building up, resulting in one huge war of tension. The United States and the Soviet Union both took part in the indirect fighting and a variety of "weapons" and strategies were used. Both nations tried increasing their worldwide influence by spreading their individual economic and political systems to other countries.
After WWII, it was agreed at the Yalta Conference that all European countries have the right as a nation to choose their own government and rule themselves. This is also known as self-determination. Immediately after the war, the U.S. and Soviet Union were already experiencing tensions because the U.S. was angry with the USSR for the joining the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact in 1939 and the USSR was angry at the U.S.
for not getting involved in the two front war sooner. Once the many disputes of WWII came to an end, the USSR began to act more and more like a dominating world power when it enforced the communist government on the many nations of Eastern Europe. This eventually created an "iron curtain" separation between Western and Eastern Europe. In a speech by Churchill, he announced that this "iron curtain" was because Eastern European governments adopted the communist system and fell under the control of the USSR, unlike those of Western Europe (Doc 1). In hopes of following a policy of containment in order to stop communism, President Truman of the U.S. suggested the Truman Doctrine in his March, 1947 speech. The president proposed that the U.S. give 400 million...