![]() That the world tolerated this risk of destroying the entire world is politically enigmatic, but can be explained by the great political tensions between East and West. It was a policy of deterrence based on the idea of mutually assured destruction (MAD). Both states built increasingly dangerous weapons ready to be fired at a few minutes’ notice, so-called high alert. This plunged the US and the Soviet Union into a seemingly uncontrolled arms race fueled by mutual suspicion. Advanced warning systems were built to be able to identify an enemy nuclear attack and respond to the attack with a counterattack – before its own territory had time to be hit. ![]() Both states had nuclear weapons aimed at each other, ready to be fired within minutes. It was a power struggle driven by the military-industrial complexes in both countries. Uncontrolled arms raceĭuring the Cold War, there was an intense arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union that neither the United States nor the Soviet Union could or wanted to put an end to. ![]() The end points of the conflict include the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the reunification of Germany in 1990 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The period was dominated by what is known as the balance of terror and the arms race between the two large blocs that were divided into East and West. The period in between consisted of relative détente and in that case does not count as a Cold War, but nuclear armament continued throughout the time period. The second was from the beginning of the 1980s until the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The first from 1945 to the mid/late 1960s. Sometimes people talk about two cold wars. The Cold War lasted from the end of World War II in 1945 until around 1990 when the Soviet Union dissolved. The Cold War was a period of sharp antagonism between the communist Soviet Union and the capitalist United States, as well as their respective allies. ![]()
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