The roots of the Cold War can be traced back to diplomatic and military tensions preceding World War II. The 1917 Russian Revolution and the subsequent Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, where Soviet Russia ceded vast territories to Germany, deepened distrust among the Western Allies.

Feb 4, 2025 · Origins of the Cold War. Following the surrender of Nazi Germany in May 1945 near the close of World War II, the uneasy wartime alliance between the United States and Great Britain on the one hand and the Soviet Union on the other began to unravel.

Oct 27, 2009 · The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension marked by competition and confrontation between communist nations led by the Soviet Union and Western democracies including the United States.

The Cold War was the global, ideological rivalry between the Soviet Union-led Eastern bloc and American-dominated “Free World.” It emerged in the aftermath of World War II and was fought on many fronts—political, economic, military, cultural, ideological, and in the Space Race.

This post is a comprehensive timeline of the Cold War, from the origins of the Russian-American conflict following World War Two to the final dissolution of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall at the end of the 20th century. Scroll down to learn more.

Learn about and revise the origins of the Cold War between 1914 and 1948 with this BBC Bitesize History (OCR A) study guide.

The Cold War had its roots in World War II, when the repeated delays in opening a second front in Europe made the Russians suspicious of the Western Allies' motives. Those concerns were heightened when the United States discontinued lend‐lease …

The Cold War developed as differences about the shape of the postwar world created suspicion and distrust between the United States and the Soviet Union. The first - and most difficult - test case was Poland, the eastern half of which had been invaded and occupied by the USSR in 1939.

The establishment in 1949 of the Western alliance, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), and the 1955 Warsaw Pact between the Soviet Union and its satellites solidified the two opposing blocs that shaped the Cold War.

Various political events between 1945 and 1947 were crucial to the Cold War's beginning. By the end of World War II (1939–45), the European powers— Great Britain, France, and Germany—had collapsed, while the U.S. and Soviet empires were thriving.