Cold War

Table of Contents

References & Edit History Quick Facts & Related Topics

Images & Videos

Explore technological innovations of the Cold War

How the Cold War contributed to antibiotic resistance

For Students

Wreckage of the U-2 spy plane shot down inside the Soviet Union in 1960. U-2 spy plane incident, U-2 affair, Cold War.

Comprehension Quiz: Cold War

Cold War summary

Cold War

Q: What was the Cold War?

The Cold War was an ongoing political rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies that developed after World War II . This hostility between the two superpowers was first given its name by George Orwell in an article published in 1945. Orwell understood it as a nuclear stalemate between “super-states”: each possessed weapons of mass destruction and was capable of annihilating the other. The Cold War began after the surrender of Nazi Germany in 1945, when the uneasy alliance between the United States and Great Britain on the one hand and the Soviet Union on the other started to fall apart. The Soviet Union began to establish left-wing governments in the countries of eastern Europe, determined to safeguard against a possible renewed threat from Germany. The Americans and the British worried that Soviet domination in eastern Europe might be permanent. The Cold War was solidified by 1947–48, when U.S. aid had brought certain Western countries under American influence and the Soviets had established openly communist regimes. Nevertheless, there was very little use of weapons on battlefields during the Cold War. It was waged mainly on political, economic, and propaganda fronts and lasted until 1991.

Q: How did the Cold War end?

The Cold War came to a close gradually. The unity in the communist bloc was unraveling throughout the 1960s and ’70s as a split occurred between China and the Soviet Union . Meanwhile, Japan and certain Western countries were becoming more economically independent. Increasingly complex international relationships developed as a result, and smaller countries became more resistant to superpower cajoling. The Cold War truly began to break down during the administration of Mikhail Gorbachev , who changed the more totalitarian aspects of the Soviet government and tried to democratize its political system. Communist regimes began to collapse in eastern Europe, and democratic governments rose in East Germany , Poland , Hungary , and Czechoslovakia , followed by the reunification of West and East Germany under NATO auspices. Gorbachev’s reforms meanwhile weakened his own communist party and allowed power to shift to the constituent governments of the Soviet bloc. The Soviet Union collapsed in late 1991, giving rise to 15 newly independent nations, including a Russia with an anticommunist leader.

Q: Why was the Cuban missile crisis such an important event in the Cold War?

In the late 1950s, both the United States and the Soviet Union were developing intercontinental ballistic missiles . In 1962 the Soviet Union began to secretly install missiles in Cuba to launch attacks on U.S. cities. The confrontation that followed, known as the Cuban missile crisis , brought the two superpowers to the brink of war before an agreement was reached to withdraw the missiles. The conflict showed that both superpowers were wary of using their nuclear weapons against each other for fear of mutual atomic annihilation. The signing of the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty followed in 1963, which banned aboveground nuclear weapons testing. Still, after the crisis, the Soviets were determined not to be humiliated by their military inferiority again, and they began a buildup of conventional and strategic forces that the United States was forced to match for the next 25 years.

international politics

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last Updated: Dec 21, 2024 • Article History

Quick Facts

Date:: 1947 - 1991

Participants:: North Atlantic Treaty Organization; Soviet Union; United States; Warsaw Treaty Organization

Context:: international relations

Major Events:: Cuban missile crisis; Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty; Strategic Arms Limitation Talks; Berlin crisis of 1961; collapse of the Soviet Union

Key People:: Dean Acheson; John Foster Dulles; John F. Kennedy; Kim Philby; Ronald Reagan

See all related content

What was the Cold War?

How did the Cold War end?

Why was the Cuban missile crisis such an important event in the Cold War?

News •

NORAD's Santa tracker was a Cold War morale boost. Now it attracts millions of kids • Dec. 21, 2024, 1:25 AM ET (AP)

Russian opposition figure says fears of his mother's poisoning in Berlin proved false • Dec. 17, 2024, 2:52 PM ET (AP)

Blinken and Russia's Lavrov clash on Ukraine at a security meeting in Malta • Dec. 5, 2024, 8:49 PM ET (AP)

NATO chief urges European allies to ramp up defense spending as Trump returns to White House • Dec. 4, 2024, 11:59 AM ET (AP)

Russian defense minister visits North Korea for talks with military and political leaders • Nov. 29, 2024, 4:16 AM ET (AP)

Cold War, the open yet restricted rivalry that developed after World War II between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies. The Cold War was waged on political, economic, and propaganda fronts and had only limited recourse to weapons. The term was first used by the English writer George Orwell in an article published in 1945 to refer to what he predicted would be a nuclear stalemate between “two or three monstrous super-states, each possessed of a weapon by which millions of people can be wiped out in a few seconds.” It was first used in ...(100 of 1074 words)

Access the full article

Help support true facts by becoming a member.