Cold War

The Cold War (1947–1991) was a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and Soviet Union — representing capitalism vs. communism — that shaped every aspect of global politics for nearly half a century. Though the two superpowers never directly fought each other, they engaged in proxy wars (Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan), an arms race producing enough nuclear weapons to destroy civilization dozens of times over, and a space race. The Cold War produced the Marshall Plan, NATO, the Korean War, McCarthyism, the Cuban Missile Crisis (the closest the world came to nuclear war), the Vietnam War, détente, and ultimately the Soviet collapse. It divided Europe by the Iron Curtain and shaped the politics of every developing nation.