Until the 1960s, most historians followed the official government line – that the Cold War was the direct result of Stalin’s aggressive Soviet expansionism. Allocation of blame was simple – the Soviets were to blame!

Although the Cold War led to increased development of nuclear weapons for military engagement, the period after the war has seen more developments of nuclear technology in science, especially in the field of medicine, energy, and industry.

In the U.S., it ushered in a new era of how the entire military and defense and intelligence communities operated. The Cold War may not have been a direct war between powers in the same sense as the two World Wars, but its end brought a familiar retrenchment in defense spending and military structure.

Causes of the Cold War in 1945

• * American fear of communist attack.
• * Truman’s dislike of Stalin.
• * USSR’s fear of the American’s atomic bomb.
• * USSR’s dislike of capitalism.
• * USSR’s actions in the Soviet zone of Germany.
• * America’s refusal to share nuclear secrets.
• * USSR’s expansion west into Eastern Europe + broken election promises.

That the Cold War failed to turn hot was due not only to personalities but to circumstances too – the self-restraint of blustering but insecure Soviet politicians, the Sino-Soviet rift, the greater reluctance of America’s NATO allies to risk confrontation. Nor did the President act alone.

Overview

World War II

Iberian Religious War