United Nations (UN)
This international organization created in 1945 comprising of 48 different countries intended to protect the members against aggression.
Containment
A policy that United States President Harry Truman enacted directed at blocking Soviet influence and stopping the expansion of communism. Containment policies included forming alliances and helping weak countries resist Soviet advances.
Truman Doctrine
Truman's support for countries that rejected communism.
Marshall Plan
In 1947, U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall proposed that the United States give aid to needy European countries. The United States would provide food, machinery, and other materials to rebuild Western Europe.
Cold War
a struggle over political differences carried on by means short of military action or war. Beginning in 1949, the superpowers used spying, propaganda, diplomacy, and secret operations in their dealings with each other. The Berlin Wall symbolized a world divided into rival camps.
Brinkmanship
A willingness by the United States to go to the brink, or edge, of war if the Soviet Union or its supporters attacked U.S. interests.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
The Berlin blockade heightened Western Europe's fears of Soviet aggression. As a result, in 1949, ten western European nations joined with the United States and Canada to form a defensive military alliance An attack on any NATO member would be met with armed force by all member nations.
What was the structure of the United Nations?
Each UN member nation could cast its vote on a broad range of issues. An 11-member body called the Security Council had the real power to investigate and settle disputes though. Its five permanent members were Britain, China, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union. Each could veto any Security Council action. This provision was intended to prevent any members of the Council from voting as a bloc to override the others.
Why did the United States and the Soviet Union split after the war?
The United States the world's richest and most powerful country, suffered 400,000 deaths. But its cities and factories remained intact. The Soviet Union had at least 50 times as many fatalities. One in four Soviets was wounded or killed. Also, many Soviet cities were demolished. A major goal of the Soviet Union was to shield itself from another invasion from the west. These contrasting situations, as well as political and economic differences, affected the two countries' postwar goals.
What was the purpose in forming the United Nations?
To investigate and settle disputes.
Why did the Soviets build a buffer of countries around them?
At war's end troops occupied a strip of countries along the Soviet Union's own western border. Stalin regarded these countries as a necessary buffer, or wall of protection. He ignored the Yalta agreement and installed or secured Communist governments in Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Poland, and Yugoslavia.
How did Harry S. Truman escalate the Cold War?
In 1946, Truman pressed Stalin to permit free elections in Eastern Europe. The Soviet leader refused. In a speech in early 1946, Stalin declared that communism and capitalism could not exist in the same world.
What was the Iron Curtain?
A split in Europe between East and West and the split of Germany into two sections. The Soviets controlled the eastern part including half of the capital, Berlin. Under a Communist government, East Germany was named the German Democratic Republic. The western zones became the Federal Republic of Germany in 1949.