What was the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union?
The Glaring Contest
What was the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union?
Imagine the two strongest kids on the playground deciding they don't like each other — but instead of ever actually fighting, they spend forty-five years glaring, bragging, and trying to win everyone else over to their side. That, more or less, was the Cold War. From the late 1940s to about 1991, the United States and the Soviet Union were rivals who never went to war directly. They just made the whole world feel the tension.
It all started after a war they were on the SAME side of. In World War II, the U.S. and the Soviet Union teamed up against a common enemy. But the moment that war ended, the friendship cooled fast. They wanted opposite things for the future, and suddenly the partners realized they didn't trust each other at all.
