The Cold War was the period of conflict, tension and competition between the United

States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies from the mid-1940s until the early
1990s. Throuhout the period, the rivalry between the two superpowers was played out in
multiple arenas! military coalitions" ideoloy, psycholoy, and espionae" military,
industrial, and technoloical developments, includin the space race" costly defense
spendin" a massive conventional and nuclear arms race" and many pro#y wars.
The term $%old &ar$ was introduced in 194' by (mericans )ernard )aruch and &alter
*ippmann to describe emerin tensions between the two former wartime allies. There
never was a direct military enaement between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, but there
was a half-century of military buildup, and political battles for support around the
world, includin sinificant involvement of allied and satellite nations. (lthouh the U.S.
and the Soviet Union had been allied aainst +a,i -ermany, the two sides differed on
how to reconstruct the postwar world even before the end of the &orld &ar ... /ver the
followin decades, the %old &ar spread outside 0urope to every reion of the world, as
the U.S. souht the $containment$ of communism and fored numerous alliances to this
end, particularly in &estern 0urope, the 1iddle 0ast, and Southeast (sia.
There were repeated crises that threatened to escalate into world wars but never did,
notably the 2orean &ar 31940-19456, the %uban 1issile %risis 319786, the 9ietnam &ar
31974-19'46, and the Soviet-(fhan &ar 319'9-19:96. There were also periods when
tension was reduced as both sides souht d;tente. <irect military attac=s on adversaries
were deterred by the potential for mutual assured destruction usin deliverable nuclear
weapons. The %old &ar drew to a close in the late 19:0s followin the launchin of
Soviet leader 1i=hail -orbachev>s reform prorams, perestroika and glasnost. The
Soviet Union conse?uently ceded power over 0astern 0urope and was dissolved in 1991.
The $Second %old &ar$ 319'9-19:46
The term $second %old &ar$ has been used by some historians to refer to the period of
intensive reawa=enin of %old &ar tensions in the early 19:0s. .n 19:0 @onald @eaan
defeated Aimmy %arter, vowin to increase military spendin and confront the Soviets
everywhere. )oth @eaan and )ritain>s new prime minister, 1araret Thatcher,
denounced the Soviet Union in ideoloical terms that rivaled that of the worst days of the
%old &ar in the late 1940s.
@eaan spent B8.8 trillion for the military over eiht years. 1ilitary spendin, combined
with the leacy of the economic structural problems of the 19'0s, transformed the U.S.
from the world>s leadin creditor in 19:1 to the world>s leadin debtor. Tensions
intensified in the early 19:0s when @eaan installed U.S. cruise missiles in 0urope and
announced his e#perimental $Strateic <efense .nitiative,$ nic=named $Star &ars,$ to
shoot down missiles in mid-fliht. @eaan also imposed economic sanctions to protest
the suppression of the opposition Solidarity movement in Coland.
)y the early 19:0s, the Soviet armed forces were the larest in the world by many
measuresDin terms of the numbers and types of weapons they possessed, in the number
of troops in their ran=s, and in the sheer si,e of their military-industrial base.
Mikhail Gorbachev:
)y the time 1i=hail -orbachev had ascended to power in 19:4, the Soviets suffered
from an economic rowth rate close to ,ero percent, combined with a sharp fall in hard
currency earnins as a result of the downward slide in world oil prices in the 19:0s. To
restructure the Soviet economy before it collapsed, -orbachev announced an aenda of
rapid reform. 3 perestroika and glasnost6.
.n the late 19:0s and early 1990s, the Soviet Union ?uic=ly abandoned its %old &ar
commitments as the state and %ommunist Carty rule unraveled. )y late 1991, opposition
to -orbachev>s radical reforms had triered the Soviet coup attempt of 1991, but the
failure of the coup wound up acceleratin the dissolution of the USS@. (bove,
immediately followin the failure of the coup attempt, -orbachev and )oris Eeltsin spar
over the events of the coup, with Eeltsin accusin -orbachev of failin to prevent the
crisis. *ater, -orbachev would accuse Eeltsin of tearin the Soviet Union apart out of a
desire to advance his own personal interests.