14.1 The Cold War Begins

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

  • Describe the origins of the Cold War
  • Analyze the effectiveness of the Truman Doctrine
  • Explain how U.S. foreign policy sought to prevent the spread of communism after World War II
  • Discuss the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact

Following the surrender of Germany in May 1945, the “Big Three” Allied nations of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States began the massive task of recovering from the European phase of World War II. However, by no means did they agree on the manner in which to do so, and their differences in goals and political ideology threatened to plunge the world back into conflict almost as soon as it had emerged from it.

The content of this course has been taken from the free World History, Volume 2: from 1400 textbook by Openstax