Cold War describes the intense rivalry that developed after World War II (1939-1945) between groups of Communist and non-Communist nations. On one side were the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (the Soviet Union) and its Communist allies, often referred to as the Eastern bloc. On the other side were the United States and its mostly democratic allies, usually referred to as the Western bloc. The struggle was called the Cold War because it did not actually lead to fighting, or “hot” war, on a wide scale. Still, between 1945 and 1991, millions of people died in the Cold War’s “hot theaters”—that is, places where military action occurred—mainly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
The Cold War was characterized by mutual distrust, suspicion, and misunderstandings among the United States, the Soviet Union, and their allies. At times, these conditions increased the likelihood of a third world war. The United States accused the Soviet Union of seeking to expand Communism throughout the world. The Soviets, meanwhile, charged the United States with practicing imperialism and interfering with other countries. Each bloc’s vision of the world contributed to East-West tension. The United States claimed to want a world of independent, democratic nations. The Soviet Union, however, attempted to tightly control areas it considered vital to its national interest. Such areas included much of Eastern Europe. For a discussion of the principles of Communism and democracy, see Communism and Democracy.
Although the Cold War did not begin until the end of World War II, relations between the United States and the Soviet Union had been strained for decades. In 1917, a revolution in Russia established a Communist dictatorship there. From 1918 to 1920, the Communists and the anti-Communists in Russia fought a bloody civil war. Several other countries—including Canada, France, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States—sent troops to support the anti-Communists. Nevertheless, the Communists defeated their opponents. The Communist government created the Soviet Union in 1922.
During the 1920’s and the 1930’s, the Soviets called for world revolution. They wanted the destruction of capitalism, which was the economic system of the United States. After a slight lessening of tensions, the United States granted diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union in 1933.
In 1941, during World War II, Germany attacked the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union then joined the Western Allies in defeating Germany. For a time in 1945, it seemed possible that a lasting friendship might develop between the United States and the Soviet Union. However, major differences remained between the two, particularly with regard to Eastern Europe.
Two hostile blocs soon emerged. The United States led the Western bloc. By the early 1950’s, this group included Australia, Canada, France, Japan, the United Kingdom, West Germany, and many other countries. The Soviet Union led the Eastern bloc, which included Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and Romania. China joined the Eastern bloc following the Communist take-over of its government in 1949. Neutral nations—those in neither bloc—included Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Yugoslavia, and many Middle Eastern and African states.
During the late 1940’s and the 1950’s, Cold War tensions grew. Each side accused the other of wanting to rule the world. Each side believed its political and economic systems were better than the other’s. Each strengthened its armed forces. Both sides viewed the Cold War as a dispute between right and wrong. They saw every revolt and every international incident as part of the struggle. It was difficult to settle any dispute peacefully through compromise. Fear grew that a local conflict would touch off a third world war that might destroy humanity. 
The nature of the Cold War began to change in the 1960’s. Neither the East nor the West remained a monolith (united bloc). Communist China challenged Soviet leadership. France and West Germany often acted independently of U.S. policies. The Communist take-over of Cuba stirred anti-American feeling in Latin America. The rapid economic growth of China, Japan, and West Germany made them important nations in the struggle for power.
In 1970, Soviet and West German leaders signed a peace treaty. In 1971, China joined the United Nations (UN). In 1979, China and the United States established diplomatic relations.
Cold War tensions rose again in the late 1970’s, peaking with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. In the following years, however, tensions eased after economic, political, and social reforms within the Soviet Union. Tensions relaxed further after the signing of a U.S.-Soviet arms-control agreement and the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan.
Beginning with the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, democratic reforms began in Eastern Europe. In 1991, the Soviet Union broke up into a number of independent, non-Communist states. These reforms and other developments marked the end of the Cold War.
The coming of the Cold War
Historians do not agree on exactly when the Cold War began. But most agree that the Yalta Conference, a meeting of Allied leaders in February 1945, marked the high point of wartime good will between the United States and the Soviet Union. Most historians also agree that relations between the two countries grew noticeably worse within the first year after the conference.
The alliance breaks up.
With Germany facing defeat in World War II, the leaders of the “Big Three” nations met at the Yalta Conference to plan for the peace that would follow the war. These leaders were President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States, Prime Minister Winston Churchill of the United Kingdom, and Premier Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union. At Yalta, the leaders agreed to set up occupation zones (areas controlled by the Allies) for postwar Germany. They also made plans to form the United Nations. In addition, Stalin promised that the Soviets would go to war against Japan within three months after Germany surrendered. 
The Allied leaders also developed the Declaration on Liberated Europe, in which they pledged to hold democratic elections in countries freed from the control of Germany and its allies. The Soviet Union failed, however, to keep this agreement. At the time it was made, Soviet forces had driven German troops out of most of Eastern Europe and had established a pro-Communist government in Poland. Despite the Declaration on Liberated Europe, Stalin was determined to maintain tight control over Eastern Europe. He especially felt that control of Poland, which had been used as a route to invade the Soviet Union, was necessary to Soviet security. The United States felt betrayed by Stalin’s refusal to carry out his promises and by his determination to establish a “sphere of influence” in Eastern Europe.
Roosevelt died in April 1945, and Harry S. Truman succeeded him as U.S. president. Germany surrendered in May. The main Allied leaders met for the final time at Potsdam, near Berlin, in July. Just before the meeting, the British Labour Party defeated Churchill’s Conservative Party in an election. Clement R. Attlee succeeded Churchill during the Potsdam Conference.
At Potsdam, the Allies agreed that the German people should be allowed to rebuild their lives “on a democratic and peaceful basis.” However, serious disagreements arose. The United Kingdom and the United States charged that the Soviet Union was turning Eastern Europe to Communism. Even before World War II ended, the Soviet Union had taken over the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania; parts of Finland, Poland, and Romania; and eastern Czechoslovakia. After the war, Soviet troops occupied a third of Germany and all of Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, and Romania. Nevertheless, the Western nations reluctantly agreed to transfer a large piece of German territory to Polish control.
The Iron Curtain descends.
During 1945 and early 1946, the Soviet Union cut off nearly all contacts between the West and the occupied territories of Eastern Europe. In March 1946, Churchill warned that “an iron curtain has descended across the Continent” of Europe. He made popular the phrase Iron Curtain to refer to Soviet barriers against the West. Behind these barriers, the Soviet Union steadily expanded its power. 
By 1945, Albania and Yugoslavia had become Communist. In 1946, the Soviets organized Communist governments in Bulgaria and Romania. In 1947, Communists took control of Hungary and Poland. Communists seized full power in Czechoslovakia early in 1948. These countries became Soviet satellites (nations under Soviet control). See the History section of the articles on each Communist country mentioned in this section.
The West holds the line
The Containment Policy.
In the fall of 1946, Greek Communists revolted against the Greek government. The United Kingdom had given military and economic aid to Greece. However, the British told the United States they could no longer give enough help to the Greeks. The British also warned that they could not help Turkey resist Communist pressure.
In March 1947, President Truman declared that the United States would help any free nation resist Communist aggression (attack). Congress granted his request for $400 million to aid Greece and Turkey. With this aid, both Greece and Turkey successfully resisted Communism. The new American policy became known as the Truman Doctrine. Aimed at Soviet expansion in Europe and the Middle East, the Truman Doctrine developed into the containment policy. The containment policy was designed to contain (hold back) the expansion of Communism throughout the world. 
Truman Doctrine
The foreign ministers of France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States met in Moscow in March and April 1947. They tried to draw up a German peace treaty. But the ministers could not agree on ways to end the occupation or on how to unify Germany.
The failure of the conference convinced U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall that the Soviet Union would not help Europe recover from World War II. In June 1947, Marshall proposed giving U.S. economic aid to all European nations that would cooperate in plans for their own recovery. This proposal grew into the European Recovery Program, or Marshall Plan, which began in 1948. The United States believed that a strong, stable Western Europe would block the spread of Communism. Meanwhile, in September 1947, Stalin and other Communist party leaders set up the Cominform (Communist Information Bureau), a Soviet-dominated organization of Communist parties in Europe.
Czechoslovakia and Poland wanted to take part in the Marshall Plan, but the Soviet Union would not let them accept U.S. aid. Instead, the Soviets set up the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) in January 1949. This organization was designed to unite the East European satellites economically and politically.
In June 1948, the Western Allies announced plans to unify their German occupation zones and establish the West German Federal Republic (West Germany). West Germany was formally established in September 1949. It had independence in some of its internal affairs, and it joined the Marshall Plan.
Also in June 1948, the Soviet Union harshly criticized Josip Tito, the Communist leader of Yugoslavia. Tito then began to develop his own style of Communism for Yugoslavia, free from Soviet control.
The Berlin blockade
was the Soviet answer to the West’s plans for West Germany. In June 1948, Soviet troops blocked all railroad, highway, and water traffic through East Germany to West Berlin. The city lay 110 miles (177 kilometers) inside the Soviet occupation zone. The Soviet leaders thought their blockade would force the West to leave Berlin. Instead of pulling out of West Berlin, the Americans, British, and French set up the Berlin Airlift. For 11 months, they supplied West Berlin with food and fuel entirely by airplanes. The Soviets lifted the blockade in May 1949, and the airlift ended in September. 
The West rearms.
Military strength became more and more important in the late 1940’s. During the Berlin blockade, the United States pledged continuing military aid to Western Europe. The United States, Canada, and 10 Western European nations signed the North Atlantic Treaty in April 1949. This mutual defense treaty set up the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a military alliance. The goals of the alliance included the prevention of Soviet expansion and the defense of West Germany. In September 1951, the United States signed the ANZUS mutual defense treaty with Australia and New Zealand.
The nuclear arms race began on Aug. 29, 1949, when the Soviet Union tested an atomic bomb. Until then, the United States had been the only nation that knew how to make the atomic bomb.
Communist expansion in Asia.
During the 1940’s, Communist strength increased in the Far East. The Soviet Red Army occupied Manchuria just before the end of World War II. After the army left in 1946, Chinese Communists took over most of northern Manchuria. The Soviets also set up a North Korean “people’s republic.”
In China, Mao Zedong’s Communist troops fought the Nationalist armies of Chiang Kai-shek. The United States gave military aid to Chiang. Late in 1949, Chiang and his government fled to the island of Taiwan, near the mainland of China. The conquest of China by Mao’s forces put China into the Communist bloc.
The Korean War.
At the end of World War II, Soviet troops occupied North Korea and U.S. forces occupied South Korea. The North Koreans had a strong army, receiving Soviet military aid even after Soviet troops withdrew late in 1948. The United States withdrew from South Korea in June 1949. 
The Korean War began with the North Korean invasion of South Korea on June 25, 1950. On June 27, President Truman sent U.S. forces to aid the South Koreans. At the request of the United States, the United Nations Security Council voted to send UN troops to help South Korea. The Soviet delegation was boycotting (not attending) the council and missed a chance to veto the decision. Sixteen UN member nations sent troops to help South Korea. Chinese Communist troops aided North Korea.
Peace talks began in July 1951. They went on for two years while bloody fighting continued. Finally, in July 1953, representatives of the UN and the Communists signed an armistice (temporary peace). In 1954, representatives of both sides met in Geneva, Switzerland, to discuss a political settlement. However, they could not agree on a way to unite North and South Korea. Today, Korea remains divided.
The Korean War was the first war in which troops of a world organization fought an aggressor nation. It also marked the first time Americans fought a “hot war” against Communism. The Korean War extended the containment policy to the Far East. It also introduced limited warfare as a substitute to all-out—and possibly nuclear—war. Each side avoided attacking targets that could lead to expansion of the war. And each side limited the weapons it used and the territory in which it would fight.
To the brink and back
The Soviet leader Joseph Stalin died in March 1953, two months after Dwight D. Eisenhower became president of the United States. Stalin’s death changed the character of the Cold War.
The new Soviet rulers governed as a committee at first. Premier Georgi M. Malenkov and his associates adopted a softer policy toward the Soviet satellites and the West. For example, they allowed the Soviet wives of U.S. servicemen to follow their husbands to America. The Soviets also set up a cultural exchange program with the West. Soviet troops put down a revolt in East Germany in June 1953, but the Soviet Union took a softer course of action on other issues.
The arms race continued. The United States tested its first hydrogen bomb in November 1952, and the Soviet Union set off its first H-bomb in November 1955. Military alliances strengthened during this period. West Germany joined NATO in 1955. In response, the Soviets and their Eastern European satellites signed the Warsaw Mutual Defense Pact, a military alliance. In 1955, the United States announced its support of the Baghdad Pact. The pact, later called the Central Treaty Organization, was a military alliance of Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, and the United Kingdom that lasted until 1979.
In January 1954, the new U.S. secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, had outlined a new American military policy. The United States, he warned, would meet Communist aggression by “massive retaliation” with nuclear weapons. The United States, Dulles said, would strike back “at places and with means of our own choosing.” 
Cold War tensions increased in eastern Asia during 1954 and 1955. The nationalist Vietnamese in Indochina were led by Communists and supported by China. In the spring of 1954, after years of fighting, they defeated the French at Dien Bien Phu. The two sides signed a cease-fire agreement in Geneva in July 1954. It recognized the temporary division of Vietnam and gave North Vietnam to the Communists. Nationwide elections were to be held in 1956. However, neither the United States nor South Vietnam signed the agreement, and South Vietnam refused to hold the elections. The agreement also established the independence of Cambodia, Laos, and South Vietnam.
In 1954, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States, and four other nations formed an alliance called the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). SEATO lasted until 1977. Its goal was to prevent further Communist expansion in Southeast Asia. After the defeat of France in Indochina, the United States increased its aid to South Vietnam. The United States believed that if one Southeast Asian nation fell to Communism, the others would also topple over, one after another. This belief was called the “domino theory.” But even with U.S. support, South Vietnam could not defeat the Communist rebels. The rebels, called Viet Cong, were supported by North Vietnam. In 1955, the United States began sending military advisers to help the South Vietnamese government.
The United States also increased its support of the Chinese Nationalists on Taiwan. In September 1954, the Chinese Communists staged air and artillery attacks against the islands of Quemoy and Matsu. These islands, in the Formosa Strait (now called the Taiwan Strait), were held by the Nationalist Chinese. In 1955, Congress voted to let President Eisenhower use armed force if necessary to protect the Chinese Nationalists.
The spirit of Geneva.
In Europe, a “thaw” in the Cold War began in 1955. The Western Allies and the Soviet Union signed a peace treaty with Austria in May. Red Army troops left that country, and Austria became an independent, neutral nation. That same month, Nikita S. Khrushchev, the Soviet Communist Party chief, apologized to Josip Tito and resumed trade with Yugoslavia.
Eisenhower and Khrushchev met in Geneva in July. Both leaders agreed that a nuclear war would be a disaster for both sides. Political observers began to write of a “big thaw” in East-West relations and called it the “spirit of Geneva.” After the Geneva conference, the Soviet Union announced a reduction in its armed forces and in the armies of its satellites. 
In February 1956, Khrushchev called for peaceful coexistence, in which the East and West would compete in technological and economic development but avoid war. He also began a campaign of destalinization (removal of Stalinist influences) in the Soviet Union and its satellites. In April 1956, the Cominform was dissolved.
Unrest in Eastern Europe.
The new Soviet policy led the peoples of Eastern Europe to expect more freedom from Soviet control. In Poland, riots and strikes broke out in June 1956. The rioters demanded a more liberal government and an end to Soviet rule. A few months later, the Soviets allowed Wladyslaw Gomulka, a Polish Communist leader, to rejoin the Polish Communist Party. The Soviet Union had jailed Gomulka in 1951 for trying to set up an independent Communist government in Poland. Khrushchev and other Soviet leaders flew to Warsaw to confer with Gomulka in October 1956. Faced with further rebellion, the Soviets agreed to relax some controls in Poland.
In Hungary, a revolt against Communism began in October 1956. A rebel government led by Imre Nagy demanded withdrawal of all Soviet troops. Early in November, Soviet tanks rolled into Hungary’s capital, Budapest. The fighting spread to all parts of the country. The Soviet Union smashed the revolt in about two weeks. Thousands of Hungarian “freedom fighters” were killed. The Soviet Union would not allow Hungary to break up the bloc of Eastern European satellites. 
The Suez Crisis.
As the Soviets dealt with unrest in Eastern Europe, trouble stirred in the Middle East. Both the Soviet Union and the West sought Egypt’s support by offering aid for its development plans. Each side offered to help build the Aswan High Dam. After Egypt courted Communist aid for the dam and bought Communist arms, the United States and the United Kingdom canceled offers to help with the project. President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt struck back by taking over the Suez Canal from international control. He said Egypt would use profits from operating the canal to build the dam “without pressure from any nation.” But he still accepted Soviet aid.
In October 1956, during the Hungarian revolt, Israel invaded Egypt. The United Kingdom and France immediately joined in the attack. They wanted to return the Suez Canal to international control. The United States and the Soviet Union supported a United Nations resolution demanding an immediate truce. In addition, the Soviets threatened to send troops to help Egypt. The UN arranged a truce after a few days of fighting. But the Soviets, by backing Egypt against Israel, had won friends among the Arab countries of the Middle East.
New challenges
Khrushchev’s power in the Soviet Union reached its peak in the late 1950’s. Sometimes his government followed a hard policy, mainly in response to China’s challenge to Soviet leadership of the Communist bloc. At other times, the Soviets stressed peaceful coexistence, giving special attention to economic aid and scientific progress. But the Soviet Union continued to encourage “wars of liberation.” As a result, the United States came to regard “peaceful coexistence” as the Communist effort to conquer countries without a major war.
The missile gap.
As the Soviet Union improved its ability to produce nuclear weapons, the Western bloc feared a missile gap—that is, that Soviet rockets and other weapons would be superior in numbers and power to those of the West. In 1957, the Soviets tested the first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). They also launched the first artificial Earth satellite, Sputnik 1. In January 1958, the United States launched its first Earth satellite. A brief thaw in the Cold War followed. The Soviets stopped testing nuclear weapons in March 1958, and the United States halted its tests in October. 
The Eisenhower Doctrine,
approved by the U.S. Congress in March 1957, pledged American financial and military aid to Middle East nations that asked for help against Communist aggression. In July 1958, a revolution ended the rule of the pro-Western government of Iraq. Nearby Lebanon feared a Communist revolution and asked the United States for aid. Eisenhower quickly sent sailors and Marines to help Lebanon. The United Kingdom sent paratroopers to protect Jordan against Iraqi pressure.
Germany.
During the late 1950’s, Europe remained the center of the Cold War. In November 1958, the Soviet Union demanded peace treaties for East and West Germany. Such treaties would have ended the military occupation, and Western troops would have had to leave. The United States refused, keeping its forces in Berlin.
The spirit of Camp David.
Another temporary thaw in the Cold War began in the spring of 1959. The foreign ministers of France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States met in May. In July, U.S. Vice President Richard M. Nixon visited the Soviet Union and met with Khrushchev. Two months later, Khrushchev visited the United States, meeting with Eisenhower at Camp David in Maryland. Khrushchev was so friendly that observers spoke of the “spirit of Camp David,” recalling the earlier “spirit of Geneva.” Eisenhower and Khrushchev planned a summit (top-level) conference to be held in Paris in 1960. The president accepted Khrushchev’s invitation to visit the Soviet Union after the summit meeting. 
The U-2 incident
abruptly ended the thaw. An American U-2 spy plane was shot down in Soviet territory in May 1960. The Soviet Union captured the pilot, Francis Gary Powers, who confessed he was a spy. Eisenhower accepted personal responsibility for the flight. He admitted that U-2 planes had been taking photographs over the Soviet Union for years. After the Paris conference began on May 15, Khrushchev demanded that Eisenhower apologize for the U-2 incident. Eisenhower refused, and Khrushchev angrily canceled his invitation for the president to visit the Soviet Union.
Africa.
In July 1960, Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba of Congo, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, asked the UN to mediate a revolt in his newly independent nation. He accused Belgium of aiding rebels in Congo’s Katanga Province, where Belgium had access to rich natural resources. The Soviet Union sided with Lumumba against the rebels. The UN became involved in the dispute, preventing outside military intervention. A military coup led by pro-Western Joseph Désiré Mobutu (later called Mobutu Sese Seko) then ousted Lumumba. Army forces imprisoned Lumumba and later transferred him to Katanga, where Katangan forces assassinated him. The Soviets accused the United States of backing the coup, and the UN of favoring the West. The Congo crisis was the first of several Cold War clashes in newly independent African states.
The Bay of Pigs.
In 1961, the Cuban government led by Fidel Castro became increasingly Communist. Castro condemned the United States and began to receive military aid from the Soviet Union and other Communist countries. The Cuban government seized millions of dollars’ worth of American property in Cuba, prompting the United States to end diplomatic relations. In April, Cuban exiles sponsored by the United States invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, on the south coast. They intended to overthrow Castro, but the attack failed badly. The unsuccessful invasion strengthened Castro’s control of Cuba and damaged the reputation of the U.S. government. 
The Berlin Wall.
In 1961, amid increasing tensions between the Soviet Union and United States, growing numbers of East Germans fled to West Germany. To stop this flight, the East German Communists built a wall of cement and barbed wire between East and West Berlin. They also erected walls and other barriers around the rest of West Berlin. In response, the United States sent additional troops and tanks to West Berlin. Some East Germans were able to escape after the wall was built. Others, however, were killed by Communist border guards. Loading the player...
Berlin Wall
The space race.
The Cold War rivalry between the U.S. and Soviet space programs became known as the “space race.” In 1957, the Soviets had launched the first artificial satellite to orbit Earth. Then, in April 1961, the Soviets sent the first human being into space. The Soviet pilot Yuri Gagarin completed one orbit of Earth in a flight lasting 108 minutes. Just weeks later, Alan Shepherd became the first American in space. In 1969, U.S. astronauts “won” the space race by being the first to land on the moon.
The Cuban missile crisis.
In October 1962, the United States learned that the Soviet Union had secretly installed missiles in Cuba, about 90 miles (140 kilometers) from Florida. The missiles could have been used to launch nuclear attacks on American cities. United States President John F. Kennedy demanded that the Soviets remove the missiles. He also ordered a naval blockade of Cuba. For a time, it appeared that the United States would invade Cuba to destroy the missiles. Experts believed that such an invasion would probably mean war—most likely nuclear war—with the Soviet Union. 
After a week of extreme tension, Khrushchev and Kennedy reached an agreement. The Soviets agreed to remove the missiles after Kennedy promised not to invade Cuba and to remove U.S. nuclear missiles from Turkey. The Cuban missile crisis was one of the most serious incidents of the Cold War. It brought the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of war.
Easing Cold War tensions
The shifting Cold War battleground
The character of the Cold War changed again in the mid-1960’s. The United States and Soviet Union each had large numbers of nuclear weapons. Each had an antimissile defense system. But both powers realized that there would be no victor in an all-out nuclear war. As a result, the two sides sought greater stability and cooperation in their relationship. Also, conflicts within both the Eastern and the Western blocs changed the two-sided nature of the balance of power.
The great blocs split.
By 1960, the Soviet Union and Communist China were quarreling bitterly and openly. The Soviet Union cut off technical aid to China. After China attacked India in 1962, the Soviets supported India. The Soviet Union again backed India when Pakistan and India fought in 1965. China threatened India and aided Pakistan.
In 1966, China launched a “cultural revolution” to eliminate all Soviet and Western influence from China. The Chinese accused the Soviet Union of betraying world Communism and secretly allying with the United States. The Chinese threat to the Soviet Union became more serious after China exploded its first hydrogen bomb in 1967. In 1969, a border dispute led to Soviet and Chinese troops fighting on an island in the Ussuri River. This river formed the border between Chinese Manchuria and Soviet Siberia, including Vladivostok, an important port on the Pacific Ocean. The fighting soon ended, but the border controversy remained unsettled.
Some Soviet satellites also shifted their loyalties. Albania sided with China in 1961. Yugoslavia remained independent. Josip Tito called for “national Communism”—the idea that each country should achieve Communism in its own way, free of Soviet influence. Other Communist nations, including Romania, Poland, and Cuba, loosened their ties with the Soviet Union.
Differences also sharpened among the Western nations. French President Charles de Gaulle challenged the leadership of the United States and the United Kingdom. France established diplomatic relations with China in 1964. France also criticized U.S. policy in the Vietnam War. At de Gaulle’s request, NATO moved its military headquarters from Paris to Brussels, and the French reduced their troop commitment to the alliance. France also blocked the United Kingdom’s entry into the European Economic Community (EEC), a forerunner of the European Union. France then sided with the Arabs against U.S.-backed Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War.
The growing strength of Europe
was another factor in the changing nature of the Cold War. More than 20 years after the end of World War II, the nations of Western Europe had prospered. The EEC, also called the European Common Market, had become a powerful economic force. Western European nations gradually increased trade with Communist countries.
Soviet-American relations
in the 1960’s reflected the changing nature of the Cold War. In 1966, the Soviet Union and the United States agreed to permit direct air service between Moscow and New York City. In January 1967, they and 60 other nations signed the first international treaty providing for the peaceful exploration and use of outer space. In June, Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin met with President Johnson to discuss the Vietnam War, the Arab-Israeli dispute, and arms control. Kosygin also addressed the UN General Assembly in New York City.
In August 1967, the Soviet Union and the United States began working on a treaty to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. The treaty also provided for international inspection and controls. The U.S. Senate approved the agreement in 1969. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons went into effect on March 5, 1970, after being ratified (formally approved) by the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, and more than 40 other nations. In 1969, Soviet and U.S. representatives began a series of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) to control the production of nuclear weapons.
Czechoslovakia.
Hopes for an easing of Cold War tensions in Europe suffered a setback in August 1968, when Soviet and Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia. The invasion halted the “Prague Spring,” a popular movement calling for greater freedom in Czechoslovakia. Soviet troops forced Czechoslovakia to remain a Soviet satellite. 
The Vietnam War
heated up the Cold War. During the early 1960’s, the United States stepped up its support of South Vietnam against the Communist Viet Cong forces. The United States blamed the struggle on Communist North Vietnam and viewed the conflict as “aggression from the north.” Many Vietnamese, however, saw the conflict as a fight for liberation from foreign domination begun against France and then continued against the United States.
The U.S. military effort gradually increased. Large-scale bombing of North Vietnam began in 1965. By 1968, the United States had over 500,000 troops in Vietnam. The Viet Cong and North Vietnamese received war materials from the Soviet Union and China. 
The fighting spread throughout Indochina. Cambodia and Laos, both of which bordered South Vietnam, tried to stay neutral. But Communist forces used both countries as bases for raids into South Vietnam, and the two nations were drawn into the war. Thailand backed the West in the struggle. The United States used bases there for bombing raids on North Vietnam.
In 1969, the United States began reducing its troop numbers while training the South Vietnamese to take over the fighting. In 1973, the United States withdrew the last of its ground forces. Communist troops conquered South Vietnam in 1975, ending the war. Different Communist groups then took power in Cambodia and Laos. The defeat in Vietnam dealt a blow to the reputation of the U.S. government and its military.
The Cold War in the 1970’s
The loosening of ties among members of both the Communist and Western blocs led to new international relationships in the 1970’s. Several Communist and democratic nations developed friendlier relations, helping ease tensions. In 1970, West Germany and Poland signed a treaty to reject the use of force and to recognize the boundaries created in Europe after World War II. West Germany and the Soviet Union ratified a similar treaty in 1972.
The status of West Berlin had long been a major Cold War problem. In 1971, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States signed an agreement stating that West Berlin was not part of West Germany. The agreement also allowed free movement of traffic between West Germany and West Berlin. In 1973, after the pact took effect, East and West Germany joined the UN.
Also in 1973, the United Kingdom finally entered the economically powerful European Community, as the European Union was then called. At the same time, Japan’s prospering economy allowed it to adopt a more independent role in international relations.
China’s relations with the West improved in the early 1970’s. Canada and several other Western nations established diplomatic relations with Communist China for the first time. China was admitted to the UN in October 1971. In February 1972, U.S. President Richard Nixon met with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in China. The two agreed to increase contacts between their two countries. In 1979, the United States and China established diplomatic relations. As part of the agreement, the United States ended diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
In 1972, Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid I. Brezhnev signed two agreements, together known as SALT I. SALT limited the production of U.S. and Soviet nuclear weapons. In 1979, a second pact, SALT II, was meant to limit long-range bombers and missiles. But the United States backed away from SALT II after Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan in late 1979 and early 1980.
The Cold War after 1980
Cold War tensions increased in the early 1980’s. The renewed friction resulted in part from the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. It also came from continued American fear of Soviet and Cuban influence in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Central America. United States President Ronald Reagan and his administration adopted a policy they called linkage, tying U.S. arms agreements to the threat of Soviet expansion.
Loading the player...Ronald Reagan speaking in Berlin
Meanwhile, the United States, concerned about Soviet military power, increased its defense budget. Many observers thought the United States defense build-up would lead to a more dangerous nuclear arms race. But events in the late 1980’s led to a sharp reduction in U.S.-Soviet tensions.
In 1987, Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed a treaty to eliminate many nuclear missiles of both nations. In 1988 and 1989, Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan. Also in the late 1980’s, the Soviet Union began to reduce its conventional military forces in Eastern Europe. Within the Soviet Union, Gorbachev worked to reduce government control over the country’s economic system. He allowed more democracy and freedom of expression. He encouraged similar actions in Eastern Europe. 
Beginning in 1989, Communist rule came to an end in a number of Eastern European countries, including Poland, Hungary, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia. In addition, East Germany began to allow its people to pass freely to West Berlin through the Berlin Wall. The wall was torn down in 1989. East Germany reunited with West Germany in 1990. 
In 1991, the Soviet Communist Party lost control of the Soviet government. Later that year, the Soviet Union dissolved, and the republics that made up the country became independent states. Russia was by far the largest of these states. In 1992, Russian President Boris Yeltsin and U.S. President George H. W. Bush formally declared that their countries did not regard each other as potential enemies. These events marked the end of the Cold War.
