Stalin had signed a Non-Aggression Pact with the Japanese in 1941, which both sides maintained during the conflict at Yalta, he pledged to declare war on Japan three months after the German surrender. This fact weighed heavily on the British and Americans, who were hoping for Soviet help in defeating Japan. World War Two in Europe was nearly over when Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill met at Y alta in February 1945, but the war in the Pacific was still ongoing. Interestingly, both accused their antagonist of being an empire.Įuropean military alliances during the Cold War
One side said it was protecting the world from the threat of totalitarian communist imperialism and the other said it was protecting the world from imperialist capitalism. Defending like-minded governments against a different political or economic philosophy. Creating a buffer-zone to protect the homeland. The Soviets and the Americans justified their actions in a variety of ways. To a great extent, the Cold War was a struggle by each superpower to extend its sphere of influence and block the other from doing the same. Instead, the superpowers supported or intervened in the conflicts of nations in their spheres of influence. launched attacks on the territories of the other. A defining element of the Cold War was that it did not become a hot war. When we think of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, we typically imagine the thousands of nuclear missiles each nation pointed toward the other and of a clash of ideologies as communism and capitalism battled for world supremacy.
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