Rivalry, mistrust and accord

The WWII partnership of the USA, USSR and Britain against Nazi Germany — a marriage of convenience, not a true friendship.

An economy where the government, not the market, plans and controls what is produced and at what price. The USSR used one.

An economy where prices and production are set by supply and demand, with private businesses owning factories and farms. The USA used one.

USA: free elections, private ownership, market prices. USSR: one-party rule, state ownership, planned economy. Opposite in almost every way.

The West did not invade Western Europe until June 1944 (D-Day). Stalin suspected his allies let the USSR bleed while they waited.

The USA alone had the bomb and used it on Japan without warning the USSR. Stalin saw it as a threat aimed at the Soviet Union too.

A belt of friendly, controlled states in Eastern Europe to shield the USSR from another invasion from the West.

Leaders Roosevelt, Stalin, Churchill agreed: a new UN, Germany split into four zones, free elections in liberated Europe, and USSR to fight Japan.

Truman, Stalin and Attlee. They clashed over reparations, Poland's communist government and borders, and grew more distrustful after the atomic bomb.

At Fulton, Missouri, Churchill warned an 'iron curtain' had fallen across Europe, with Eastern nations under Soviet control.

US diplomat George Kennan warned Moscow that the USSR was hostile and untrustworthy, and that the USA must firmly resist Soviet expansion.

Opposite ideologies plus wartime mistrust (Second Front, the bomb, the buffer zone) split the allies once their shared enemy was gone.

The US strategy of stopping communism spreading further (not rolling it back), delivered mainly through the Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan.

The US commitment to support free peoples resisting takeover; it gave ~$400m aid to Greece and Turkey and framed the world as free vs totalitarian.

The European Recovery Program: ~$13bn of US economic aid to rebuild Western Europe so poverty would not feed communism.

The Communist Information Bureau — a Soviet body to coordinate and discipline communist parties across Europe and keep them loyal to Moscow.

The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance — the Soviet economic bloc linking the USSR and Eastern Europe, answering the Marshall Plan.

The Western merger of zones (Bizonia) and the new Deutschmark currency in June 1948, which signalled a rebuilt, capitalist West Germany.

Stalin cut off all road, rail and canal routes into West Berlin to force the Western powers out; it lasted from June 1948 to May 1949.

The Western operation supplying West Berlin entirely by air for ~11 months until Stalin lifted the blockade in May 1949.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization — a Western defensive alliance where an attack on one member is an attack on all.

The Soviet military alliance of the USSR and its Eastern European satellites, created in response to West Germany rearming and joining NATO.

The Federal Republic of Germany (FRG / West Germany) from the Western zones, and the German Democratic Republic (GDR / East Germany) from the Soviet zone.

Economic: Marshall Plan vs Comecon. Military: NATO (1949) vs Warsaw Pact (1955). States: FRG vs GDR (both 1949).

Only the USA — the four-year US atomic monopoly. It had used the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

In 1949, far sooner than the West expected, ending the US monopoly and starting the arms race.

A nuclear weapon hundreds of times more powerful than the 1945 atomic bombs. The USA tested it in 1952, the USSR in 1953.

Both sides would be destroyed in any nuclear war, so neither dares attack first. This balance helped keep the Cold War 'cold'.

A relaxing of tension and improved relations between rival powers — here, between the USA and USSR in the 1970s.

SALT I limited the number of nuclear missiles; the ABM Treaty limited anti-missile defences, preserving the MAD balance.

An agreement by 35 nations to accept Europe's borders and respect human rights — a high point of détente.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, followed by Reagan's arms build-up and his 'Evil Empire' rhetoric.

An 'Evil Empire' — tough rhetoric that, with his arms build-up, marked the hard-line Second Cold War.

Gorbachev's reforms: glasnost ('openness', more free speech) and perestroika ('restructuring' of the economy).

It was the first treaty to actually destroy a whole class of nuclear weapons, not just limit them — a major breakthrough.

Berlin Wall falls (1989) → German reunification (1990) → collapse of the USSR (1991).