Question

What were the main events and factors that led to the Cold War, and how long did it last?

Answer 1

The Cold War is generally believe to have begun around 1946 in the aftermath of the Second World War and ended in 1991 with the dissolution of the former Soviet Union.. . The origins of the Cold War lie in the power vacuum that was created with the defeat of Germany in World War II and the decline of Great Britain and France as world powers due to the economic and military costs of the war. That left the Soviet Union and United States as the only two major powers and they came into conflict in terms of the terms of a post war peace settlement. Both sides also had different objectives - the Soviet Union of increasing it's security with a buffer zone of satellite states in Eastern Europe and the US with creating the basis of a long lasting peace and spreading democracy.

Answer 2

At the end of WW II, the Soviet Union had spread throughout Eastern Europe and had half of Germany, creating a series of satilite nations all governed by Soviet friendly political systems, based on Soviet style communism, ( excepting Yugoslavia - Broz Tito refused to submit to Russian influence).. Part of the reason from the Russian perspective had to do with feeling the need to create a buffer between Russia and the Western European non or anti commumist countries.. Remember Russia lost 22 million of her citizens in WW II from NAZI German aggression. . . From the end of WW II and on through the decades of the 50, 60s , 70s, on up to 1991... The US and US aligned. nations kept up a military defence using both strategic nuclear and tactical conventional forces stationed around the globe positoined to neutralize or counter Soviet military capability. . And there were scores of proxy wars where the US and Russia provided weapons and advisors to the governments of foreign countries that fought each other. . . You will want to do some reasearch on this. . It was called the cold war because beyond Korea, where we fought Chinese forces in 1951, we never actually went to war with Russia. Went on for 50 years.