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The Beginning of the Cold War Much of Europe was left in ruins at the end of the war. A massive rebuilding program would be necessary to restore order and services.
With their countries in ruins, many Europeans looked to Communist leaders, who had distinguished themselves fighting fascism, for direction in forming powerful egalitarian societies. Alarmed that communism was spreading, U.S. policymakers identified Stalin as a threat and moved to "contain" communism by preventing its spread. As a symbol of contention, the western portion of Berlin was walled up and Germany was split between the democratic West and the communist East. The Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan offered economic and military aid to wrecked nations as a means of weakening calls for communism. The United States also helped form NATO, an alliance of Western nations designed to oppose the Soviets. Moscow responded with the Warsaw Pact.
Both sides built up their arsenals of nuclear weapons. By 1960, each had the power to destroy the world and thus moved cautiously to avoid full-scale confrontations with the other. In Asia, where no clear line separated one side from the other, wars broke out regularly, beginning with the Chinese civil war and the Korean War. To help in Asian wars, the United States pressured Japan to become an active ally in the region in exchange for economic help. >> Continue to the next part of the Summary: Decolonization
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