Key takeaways
- Wikipedia defines the Cold War as the geopolitical rivalry between the US and the Soviet Union and their blocs, from the aftermath of 1945 to the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991.
- It was 'cold' because the two superpowers never fought each other directly, though each backed opposing sides in proxy wars.
- Truman's speech to Congress on 12 March 1947, says the Office of the Historian, reoriented US policy towards possible intervention far from home.
- Kennan's 1947 'X-Article' called for 'long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment' of Soviet expansion.
- Bush and Gorbachev declared the Cold War over at Malta on 3 December 1989; the USSR dissolved on 25 December 1991.
The Cold War was the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, and their allies, that began in the aftermath of the Second World War and ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Wikipedia explains the name: the two superpowers never fought each other directly, but each supported opposing sides in regional "proxy wars," and they competed through an arms race, espionage, propaganda, embargoes and the Space Race.
That covers 46 years, from 1945 to 1991. This page breaks them into phases, with the events that mark each turn, and links out to the crises that have their own pages.
Where the name and the strategy came from
Wikipedia records that George Orwell used "cold war" as a general term in an essay of 19 October 1945, and that its first use for the US–Soviet confrontation came in a speech by Bernard Baruch on 16 April 1947, written by Herbert Bayard Swope: "we are today in the midst of a cold war." Walter Lippmann's book The Cold War made the phrase common.
The American strategy had a name too. The Office of the Historian credits the diplomat George F. Kennan with formulating "containment." Wikipedia notes that his "Long Telegram" from Moscow in February 1946 helped articulate Washington's hardening line; the Office of the Historian says his ideas first came to public attention in the anonymous "X-Article" of 1947: US policy "must be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies." It notes the idea was controversial from the start; Walter Lippmann attacked it for failing to distinguish vital from peripheral interests.
1945–1949: the lines are drawn
Wartime allies became rivals quickly. Wikipedia describes the Soviet Union installing satellite governments in Eastern Europe and North Korea by 1949, and Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech of 5 March 1946 accusing it of dividing Europe. On 12 March 1947, the Office of the Historian records, Truman asked a joint session of Congress to support Greece, after Britain announced it would end aid to the Greek government in its civil war, and Turkey. The resulting Truman Doctrine, it says, reoriented US policy from withdrawal to possible intervention in far-off conflicts.
Economic aid followed with the Marshall Plan in 1948. The Berlin Blockade of 1948–49 was an early confrontation; NATO was founded in 1949; and the Soviet Union tested its first nuclear weapon in 1949 — 1949 − 1945 = four years after the US used its own on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The People's Republic of China was proclaimed the same year.
1950–1962: hot wars and the nuclear brink
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1950–53 | The Korean War, ending in stalemate |
| 1955 | The Soviet-led Warsaw Pact is founded |
| 1956 | Soviet forces crush the Hungarian Revolution |
| 1957 | Sputnik opens the Space Race |
| 1959 | The Cuban Revolution installs the first communist regime in the Western Hemisphere |
| 1961 | The Berlin Wall goes up; Sino-Soviet relations have broken down |
| 1962 | The Cuban Missile Crisis |
Wikipedia calls the missile crisis "widely considered the closest the Cold War came to escalating into nuclear war." It also describes the spread of the rivalry into the newly independent states, where "nearly all the colonial states underwent decolonization" and many "became Third World battlefields" — the context in how decolonisation happened. Both powers, it notes, used economic aid to win the loyalty of non-aligned countries.
1963–1979: Vietnam, Prague and détente
Wikipedia lists the Vietnam War (1955–1975) as another major proxy conflict, ending in North Vietnamese victory. The Warsaw Pact invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968, and a Sino-Soviet border conflict in 1969 brought the two communist powers to the brink of war. In 1972 the United States opened diplomatic contacts with China, and the US and USSR signed a series of arms-limitation treaties during the period known as détente.
1979–1991: renewed tension and the collapse
Tension rose again in 1979 with the fall of US-allied governments in Iran and Nicaragua and the Soviet war in Afghanistan. In 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev became Soviet leader and, Wikipedia says, expanded political freedoms, which contributed to the revolutions of 1989.
The Office of the Historian stresses that the peaceful end "was by no means pre-ordained": Soviet tanks had crushed demonstrators in East Berlin in June 1953, in Hungary in 1956 and in Czechoslovakia in 1968. Yet two years after Reagan's 1987 call to "tear down this wall," the regimes of Eastern Europe fell, and by 1990 Germany was whole again.
Two endings, and three schools of blame
The Cold War has two common end dates, which makes it a neat example of periodisation. Wikipedia records that Bush and Gorbachev declared it over at the Malta Summit on 3 December 1989, when Gorbachev said the Soviet Union was "no longer prepared to regard the United States as an adversary"; some historians, such as Vladislav Zubok, treat that as the effective end. The Soviet Union itself dissolved on 25 December 1991, and fifteen states emerged from it — a state founded in the revolutions of 1917.
Who was responsible is still argued. Wikipedia describes three broad schools: "orthodox" accounts that blame Soviet expansion; "revisionist" writers who place more responsibility on the United States; and "post-revisionists" who seek a more balanced view. Much of the writing, it notes, weaves together two or all three.
World History Timeline Sim, our app, lets you browse 1945–1991 by year, region and category, which helps keep overlapping crises straight. Its Time Travel Mode replays turning points as what-if choices, and those outcomes are simulated rather than historical; the app supports coursework rather than replacing it. More is in education and brain training.
Good to know
Frequently asked questions
Why is it called the Cold War?
What was containment?
When did the Cold War end?
Who do historians blame for the Cold War?
Sources
- The Truman Doctrine, 1947 (opens in a new tab)Office of the Historian, US Department of State — accessed
- Kennan and Containment, 1947 (opens in a new tab)Office of the Historian, US Department of State — accessed
- The Collapse of the Soviet Union and the Fall of Communism (opens in a new tab)Office of the Historian, US Department of State — accessed
- Cold War (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia — accessed
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