The hostility between the superpowers gave shape to the main themes that dominated the Cold War:
Expansionism and containment
After World War Two, the Soviets operated a policy of expansionismA policy or ideology that means a country wants to gain more territory. and attempted to spread communismA classless society where all property is owned publicly. throughout Eastern Europe.
The USA and its allies sought to prevent the spread of communism and operated a policy of containmentAn American policy to try and stop communism from spreading, to restrict it from spreading to other countries..
As the Cold War progressed, there were attempts by both superpowers to extend their power and influence globally – sometimes officially, sometimes not - from the jungles of Vietnam to the beaches of the Caribbean, and from Angola in south-west Africa to Afghanistan in Central Asia.
Nuclear War and the Arms Race
From the USA’s first explosion of an atomic bombA powerful and destructive bomb that gets its power from the energy released when atoms are split. in 1945, one of the most striking features of the Cold War was a growing threat of nuclear warA conflict using nuclear weapons..
The USSRUnion of Soviet Socialist Republics - collection of states, also known as the Soviet Union. had developed its own nuclear capability by 1949 ending the USA’s monopolyA market where there is only one seller of a particular good or service. on atomic weapons.
Throughout the 1950s both sides accumulated ever more powerful nuclear weapons, a process known as the arms raceA competition between America and the USSR to build more destructive and a higher number of nuclear weapons. leading to the threat of Mutually Assured DestructionSituation that developed due to the nuclear arms race where both America and Russia knew if they started a war it would destroy the world. (MAD).
The threat of MAD eventually led to a cautious willingness by both sides to limit nuclear arms production by the 1960s.