The Cold War was a period of hostility between the United States and the Soviet Union from 1945-1991. The main reasons for the Cold War were the ideological differences between capitalism in the Western world led by the US and communism in the Eastern bloc led by the USSR. This led both sides to form military alliances and engage in a nuclear arms race in a strategy known as containment and brinkmanship to influence other countries and prevent the spread of the opposing system. The Cold War ended in the late 1980s as communism fell in Eastern Europe.

1. Cold War
1. Reasons for the Cold War
2. Actions of the Cold War
3. The end of the Cold War

2. Part 1: Reasons
• Your goal:
Be able to explain why the Cold War
happened.

3. What does “cool” mean?
Why would a war be
called “cold”?
What does
temperature have to
do with anything?

4. What Is a Cold War?
• No actual battle between the countries at
war.
• THE Cold War was the period of hostility
between the United States and the Soviet
Union 1945-1991.

5. How did the Cold War start?

6. What are some reasons for
the USSR to dislike the US?
• The US did not join WWI until after Russia
had to quit.
• The US did not join WWII until after USSR
had lost millions of lives.

7. What are some reasons for
the US to dislike the USSR?
• The USSR signed a nonaggression pact with
Hitler.
• The USSR was communist.

8. The biggest reason for the
Cold War:
Communism
versus
Capitalism

9. Capitalism vs. Communism
• Free elections • One-party state
• Multiple political • Businesses owned
parties by the state
• Businesses owned • No different social
classes
by individuals
• Government
• Different social controls people’s
classes lives
• Freedom of speech • Strong censorship

10. Capitalism vs. Communism
• You can create a • No matter how hard
business, make lots your neighbor
of money, and have works, he will never
more things than make more money
than you.
other people.
• It’s not fair for some
• Some people get people to be
rich. It could be you! wealthy, while
others starve.

11. Which country was communist?
Which countries were capitalist?
and many
more.

13. The Cold War begins …
Yalta Conference 1945
WWII
Yes, but
isn’t over
we need
yet.
to plan
ahead.
Germany did not surrender until May 1945,
but the Allies met at Yalta in February 1945
to discuss the end of the war.

14. Yalta Conference 1945
How will
we rebuild How will we
How will punish
we keep Europe?
Germany?
world
peace?

15. Yalta Conference 1945
The three major results of this conference were:
• United Nations
• Dismemberment of Germany
• Reparations

16. United Nations
• The League of Nations failed
• The United Nations was the new and
improved version
• Differences:
– More members worldwide
– More military force to keep peace

17. How to deal with Germany:
Two main goals:
• Keep Germany weak
• Make sure it can pay for the damage

18. Keep Germany Weak
• Germany cannot be trusted
• Dismember* it so it is remains weak
• The Allies will divide Germany into four parts
and keep military control over it.
* Dismember: to take apart

19. Iron Curtain –
A term used by
Winston Churchill
to describe the
separating of
Those communist
lands of East
Europe from the
West.

20. Reparations
• After WWI, Germany had to pay 32 billion
marks.
• What was the result?
* Reparations: payment for damages

21. Reparations
• After WWII, the Allies would get “paid” by
whatever their portion of Germany produced.
• Factories, mines, labor, etc.

22. The Marshall Plan
• US Secretary of • The US would loan
State George them money to help
Marshall, 1947 them rebuild.
• He proposed
financial aid for all of • This money would
the needy European be spent on
countries. American products,
so it was profitable,
to the US.

23. The Marshall Plan

24. Keep my
neighbors
Soviet opposition communist!
• The Soviet Union did not
want countries in Eastern
Europe to accept this money.
• Economic involvement with
the United States was
dangerous to communism.

25. Soviet Fear
• The Soviet Union did not want
Germany to rebuild.
• Why wouldn’t they want that?

26. Iron Curtain –
A term used by
Winston Churchill
to describe the
separation of
communist
lands of East
Europe from the
West.

27. Iron Curtain

28. Two sides of Cold War
• NATO – North • Warsaw Pact –
Atlantic Treaty pro Soviet
Organization countries –
• USA, France, USSR, and all
Great Britain, countries
West Germany controlled by the
• CAPITALISM USSR.
• COMMUNISM

29. Cold War goals
• the United States • the Soviet Union
wanted countries to wanted countries to
be capitalist and be communist
democratic

30. NATO – North Atlantic Treaty
Organization
US alliance with Britain, France, Italy,
Canada, Belgium, Netherlands,
Luxembourg, Portugal, Norway,
Denmark, and Iceland

31. Warsaw Pact
USSR alliance with East Germany,
Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary,
Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania

32. Containment
• This was the foreign Contain
policy of US Communism!
President Harry
Truman.
Keep
communism
from spreading
to other
countries.

33. Brinkmanship*
• Going to the edge of war,
without actually starting any
fighting.
• How far can you push it,
before someone calls your
bluff?
*Brink: the edge of something

34. Why Brinkmanship?
• War between the
The superpowers want to avoid
superpowers would almost
direct war between them.
certainly involve nuclear
weapons.
• Millions would be killed.
• No one wins a nuclear war

35. Why Brinkmanship?
Mutually Assured Destruction
• The USSR eventually had
the same nuclear weapons
power as the US.
• Both sides could destroy
the other many times.
No one wins.