Hot and Cold Running Conflicts

The years after World War II weren’t peaceful, but they didn’t erupt into World War III

either (knock on wood). For much of the era, major world powers were preoccupied

with a game of nuclear standoff.

The post-war major powers, by the way, turned out to be the U.S. and the Soviet

Union. The U.S. expected to enjoy its nuclear monopoly for 20 years or more, but the

Soviets surprised everyone by developing their own atomic bomb in 1949. Although

they were allies on the winning side of WWII, the nations soon became bitter rivals.

Soviet foreign policy reflected Josef Stalin’s viciously paranoid behavior toward any

rival — real or imagined, internal or abroad (see more about Stalin in “Not really

progress for the people” earlier in this chapter), and it became increasingly

exclusionary and closed off. Soviet goals included maintaining control over satellite

Communist states, several of which were set up in Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe in

the wake of World War II, while keeping out foreign cultural and economic influences.

The U.S. emerged as leader of the West — meaning Western Europe, the Western

Hemisphere, and developed nations anywhere that resisted communism and promoted

(or at least permitted) the private pursuit of profit in their trade policies.