Start of the Cold War

Post World War II

Europe in 1945

• 40 million dead• Cities are destroyed• Economies are in

ruins• Massive migration of

people

Threat of Communism

• Western European countries attempted to become democracies

• Internally communism posed a problem

Eastern Europe

• USSR set up communist governments as a buffer zone to protect against further aggression against its nation

Churchill’s “Iron Curtain”

• March 5, 1946• Describing an

imaginary wall dividing Europe

• "Iron Curtain"

Communism Spreads

• China- 1949 Communists force nationalists out of Mainland China

• Korea- North Korea comes under Communist control and splits with South Korea after the war ends in 1953

• African nations seek economic aid and support– Some do turn to the Soviet Union

Containment

• US policy directed at blocking Soviet influence and stopping the expansion of Communism

Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan

• Truman Doctrine- Support for countries that rejected Communism– Congress authorized $400 million in aid to Turkey

and Greece

• Marshall Plan- US policy to provide food, machinery, and materials to rebuild Western Europe

Berlin Airlift

• East and West Germany were divided• USSR did not want them united and held

Berlin hostage• US, Great Britain, and France flew in supplies

for 11 months until Soviets lifted blockade

NATO• North Atlantic Treaty Organization• Western European countries created

defensive alliance• Pro Democracy

Warsaw Pact

• Eastern European countries created a defensive alliance

• Pro Communism

Atomic Weapons

• MAD- Mutually Assured Destruction• Brinkmanship- “Poker game” of who will back

down first• H-Bomb is a device developed by Soviets-

even more powerful than the atomic weapons used on Japan