Why Cold War Didnot Turn Into War

Why the Cold War didn't develop into a third world war

By Nicholas Anderson

While the origins of the Cold War can be traced back to World War I, if not farther, the term is most applicable to the continued escalation of political tensions and eventual stalemate of military might between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics from the time of the detonation of the first Soviet atomic weapon in 1949 through the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1991.

By the 1960s, the weapons and systems were in place for both nations to completely destroy one another and utterly devastate the planet and all life within an hour or so. The political differences between the two nation’s democracy and capitalism versus communism and socialism brought the world to the brink several times that the public knows about. But, the brink was never crossed for a myriad of reasons, including the assurance of absolute destruction, good men, and probably some luck, too.

The Soviet Union sought to spread communism and socialism throughout all corners of the world and grew vast in size and influence by the 1970s. The United States, however, believed that democracy and capitalism were the keys to ensuring freedom and prosperity. Since the Soviets mainly utilized military might and threat to spread control and influence, the United States found itself directly threatened. The world grew ever more divided by Western political philosophy and Eastern political philosophy, and Germany was literally divided between West and East with the Soviet Union's erection of the Berlin Wall.

While the Soviets sought empire expansion and, ultimately, world domination, the West choose to protect and defend the worlds current free nations by initiating a policy of 'containment' in which the United States would use its military might to stop any Soviet threat. By this point, the nuclear arsenals and deployment systems of the United States and Soviet Union guaranteed absolute destruction within...