Why was it called The Cold War?
375138
because there were no 'hot' bullets flying around, just a war of words, propaganda, posturing and the so called arms race.
367582
The main excuse that each president used at that time was the cold war belief that if another small country fell under the control of the Soviet Union, it wouldn't be long before all the countries in that region, and ultimately the entire world would be under communist rule.
1092644
"Duck and Cover" really did work, you know.  It's a little known fact that the Cold War between the US and Russia ended because of the scientific discoveries made because of it.\n\nDuring the mid 80's, Reagan built a missile defense shield along the entirety of the US border constructed out of grade school desks and hardcover textbooks.  This shield was utterly impenetrable, and when the Russians found out about it, they realized they'd lost and gave up.  A few months later, the Soviet Union collapsed.\n\nTrue fact.
137426
Cold War: Postwar Estrangement\n1.The Western democracies and the Soviet Union discussed the progress of World War II and the nature of the postwar settlement at conferences in Tehran (1943), Yalta (February 1945), and Potsdam (July-August 1945). After the war, disputes between the Soviet Union and the Western democracies, particularly over the Soviet takeover of East European states, led Winston Churchill to warn in 1946 that an "iron curtain" was descending through the middle of Europe. For his part, Joseph Stalin deepened the estrangement between the United States and the Soviet Union when he asserted in 1946 that World War II was an unavoidable and inevitable consequence of "capitalist imperialism" and implied that such a war might reoccur. \n\nThe Cold War was a period of East-West competition, tension, and conflict short of full-scale war, characterized by mutual perceptions of hostile intention between military-political alliances or blocs. There were real wars, sometimes called "proxy wars" because they were fought by Soviet allies rather than the USSR itself -- along with competition for influence in the Third World, and a major superpower arms race. \n\nAfter Stalin's death, East-West relations went through phases of alternating relaxation and confrontation, including a cooperative phase during the 1960s and another, termed dtente, during the 1970s. A final phase during the late 1980s and early 1990s was hailed by President Mikhail Gorbachev, and especially by the president of the new post-Communist Russian republic, Boris Yeltsin, as well as by President George Bush, as beginning a partnership between the two states that could address many global problems. \n\n\n\nCold War: Soviet Perspectives\n2.After World War II, Joseph Stalin saw the world as divided into two camps: imperialist and capitalist regimes on the one hand, and the Communist and progressive world on the other. In 1947, President Harry Truman also spoke of two diametrically opposed systems: one free, and the other bent on subjugating other nations. \n\nAfter Stalin's death, Nikita Khrushchev stated in 1956 that imperialism and capitalism could coexist without war because the Communist system had become stronger. The Geneva Summit of 1955 among Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States, and the Camp David Summit of 1959 between Eisenhower and Khrushchev raised hopes of a more cooperative spirit between East and West. In 1963 the United States and the Soviet Union signed some confidence-building agreements, and in 1967 President Lyndon Johnson met with Soviet Prime Minister Aleksei Kosygin in Glassboro, New Jersey. Interspersed with such moves toward cooperation, however, were hostile acts that threatened broader conflict, such as the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 and the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia of 1968. \n\nThe long rule of Leonid Brezhnev (1964-1982) is now referred to in Russia as the "period of stagnation." But the Soviet stance toward the United States became less overtly hostile in the early 1970s. Negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union resulted in summit meetings and the signing of strategic arms limitation agreements. Brezhnev proclaimed in 1973 that peaceful coexistence was the normal, permanent, and irreversible state of relations between imperialist and Communist countries, although he warned that conflict might continue in the Third World. In the late 1970s, growing internal repression and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan led to a renewal of Cold War hostility. \n\nSoviet views of the United States changed once again after Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in early 1985. Arms control negotiations were renewed, and President Reagan undertook a new series of summit meetings with Gorbachev that led to arms reductions and facilitated a growing sympathy even among Communist leaders for more cooperation and the rejection of a class-based, conflic
1111255
The space race was all about the cold war.  Russia launched sputnik, the first successful vehicle in space with a live crew (they sent a dog, just to show space was survivable.)  The US couldn't deal with the Russians being ahead of them.  \nIn truth, however, the Russians didn't have jack to fight with.  The Russian soldiers were walking away (literally) from the military to return to their farms because the government literally couldn't give them a dime for pay.  The whole thing was a big scare tactic, similar the the terrorism scare used more recently.\nIf you go through your history, you'll see that there is always a "boogey-man."
788764
Communism is the buzzword.  But really its called Imperialism.\nWars outside of national soil are for greed and pride.\nKorea and Vietnam did not represent a threat to the US.  Not until they decided to attack first.
103457
The end of Cold War gave rise to hopes that the legacy of a nuclear arms race and confrontation between the U.S.A. and Russia was coming to an end. Both countries had the opportunity, and took steps in the early and mid 1990's, to create a new, non-deterrence based nuclear relationship that would allow for dramatic nuclear reductions.  The consolidation and dismanting of a large tactical nuclear arsenals, the cooperative denuclearization of Belarus, Ukraine and kazakhstan, the symbolic de-targeting initiavie, and most of all, the negotiation of the START i AND II agreements created further hopes for a radical de[emphasis of nuclear weapons in the bilateral relationship.\n\nDomestic events in Russia and the evolution of the post Cold War International Security structure, however thwarted efforts to persuade Russian Parliament to aprove the START II AGREEMENT...
675428
To answer your questions in order:\n\nYes, the Soviet Union (which included Russia) was an ally of the US and the British.  The USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, also called the Soviet Union.  Russia was a part of the USSR, but wasn't called Russia then), led by Stalin, signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler (leader of Germany).  This was in force until Hitler broke it and invaded the Soviet Union.  Stalin was taken unawares and unprepared, so Hitler did well at first.  Stalin therefore allied with the British and the US to fight the Germans.  The "cold war" didn't start until after WWII During the jostling for control over the states freed from the Nazis. \n\n*****\n\nThe USSR and the Japanese didn't work together.  The war in Europe against Germany) ended sooner than that in Japan (May 8, 1945 for Germany’s surrender and August 15, 1945 for Japan’s) and the USSR was free to declare war on Japan, which it did.  This was one of the reasons that the US dropped nuclear bombs on Japan.  It wanted to end the war before the Soviet Union forces entered the fighting, who would then stay and have control in that country and region.  \n\nAfter WWII Germany was divided into two halves, appropriately called West and East Germany.  The US, the United Kingdom (the British) and France controlled the West.  The Soviet Union controlled the East.  Germany was two different countries.  The US, UK and France set up a democracy in the West and then left (although the US left troops to guard against an attack from the Soviet Union, and many are still stationed there.  Now the bases are used as staging grounds for operations in the Afghanistan and Iraq).  The country they created was called the Federal Republic of Germany.\n\nThe Soviet Union established a country in the Eastern half, called the German Democratic Republic. This was not democratic though – it was communist.  The Soviet Union had many troops stationed there as well, and had a lot of influence in the Eastern half.  Vladimir Putin, the current President of the Russian Federation, worked in East Germany as a spy when he was part of the KGB (this isn’t a secret – he admits it freely and uses his excellent German in speeches).\n\n*****\nGermany played a very strong role in the War.  They were allied with Japan, but because they had some common enemies in their efforts to expand their territories.  In Europe, the war started when Germany annexed Austria and Czechoslovakia, claiming to be uniting the Germans who lived there (Austrians speak German and there were a lot of Germans in Czechoslovakia.  The moved there in the centuries that it belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Austrian Empire and the Holy Roman Empire, which were all names used at different times to describe the same Empire ruled from the Austrian city of Vienna). At this point there was a lot of nervousness in Europe, as Hitler was using rhetoric such as “Germans need more land to live, which is their birthright.” But the British made a deal with Hitler that they would let him keep those countries if he didn’t go any further.  Hitler agreed, but he invaded Poland anyway, and kept going from there. He took France, Bombed England and wanted to invade, and moved through Eastern Europe.  He also invaded the USSR, as mentioned above.\n\nThe US at this point wasn’t involved.  Hitler made an alliance with the Japanese, who were engaged in their own war of expansion, because both were fighting the British and French (the British had a lot of Colonial holdings in the Pacific, and the French had some, too).  \n\nThe US became involved when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.  The Japanese wanted the US to withdraw from the pacific, but instead the US declared war on the Japanese.  The Japanese and the Germans were allied, so Germany declared war on the US, which then also entered the European war.  It was already helping the UK and the USSR with equipment and logistical support,
123290
Cold War, term used to describe the post-World War II struggle between the United States and its allies and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and its allies. During the Cold War period, which lasted from the mid-1940s until the end of the 1980s, international politics were heavily shaped by the intense rivalry between these two great blocs of power and the political ideologies they represented: democracy and capitalism in the case of the United States and its allies, and Communism in the case of the Soviet bloc. The principal allies of the United States during the Cold War included Britain, France, West Germany, Japan, and Canada. On the Soviet side were many of the countries of Eastern Europe—including Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, East Germany, and Romania—and, during parts of the Cold War, Cuba and China. Countries that had no formal commitment to either bloc were known as neutrals or, within the Third World, as nonaligned nations (see Nonaligned Movement). \n\nAmerican journalist Walter Lippmann first popularized the term cold war in a 1947 book by that name. By using the term, Lippmann meant to suggest that relations between the USSR and its World War II allies (primarily the United States, Britain, and France) had deteriorated to the point of war without the occurrence of actual warfare. Over the next few years, the emerging rivalry between these two camps hardened into a mutual and permanent preoccupation. It dominated the foreign policy agendas of both sides and led to the formation of two vast military alliances: the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), created by the Western powers in 1949; and the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact, established in 1955. Although centered originally in Europe, the Cold War enmity eventually drew the United States and the USSR into local conflicts in almost every quarter of the globe. It also produced what became known as the Cold War arms race, an intense competition between the two superpowers to accumulate advanced military weapons.
1135283
A very debatable question indeed.Well if you know about the Cold War you must know that the U.S. and Russia were not exactly the best of friends.America was against the communist dictatorship in Russia and offcourse the Soviet Union.\nHowever the Cold War was last century.I believe that relations are cordial at the moment.However the two nations prefer to keep their distance.
260913
In World Politics circles, the term Third World is outdated. It was used to refer to the African and Asian nations that were newly independent following World War II. During the Cold War, it also referred to nations that refused to align with either of the rivaling world powers (US and USSR). The First World referred to the developed nations especially the United States and its allies. The Second World referred to those nations that were in the former USSR's sphere of influence as well as Russia. The current 'politically correct' but ambiguous terms to use are developed, less developed, developing, under-developed and resource-rich.
603977
The system was doomed. Even without the cold war, it would eventually have failed. True communism means "Anthill Society", kind of a wrong species model of government. Humans are not communal bugs.
321679
it was the U.S. trying to stop the spread of communism. pesidents such as Truman used this as a foreign policy. Truman created the Truman Doctrine which orignated when Greece and Hungary were being supressed by Communism. They requested help and Truman said that the U.S. would provide money for anyone trying to stop communism.\n\nNATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) was also created to stop the spread of communism. it was basically a pact between european and american countries that they would help eachother resist communism and an attack on one was an attack on all.\n\nVietnamn: we went to vietnamn to stop communism from spreading to south vietnamn. but we sucked and basically failed because saigon fell to communism after we left.\n\nthe cuban missile crisis: JFK learned that the soviets were putting missiles and bases in Cuba. HE spent 13 days negotioating with the soviet union and eventually got them to stay out of cuba if we removed our missiles from turkey and promised to stay out of cuba.\n\ni can't think of anymore right now but theres a lot.\n\nthe marshall plan was also created after world war two to keep communism out of the weak european countries.
543018
To contain communism.  That is how we got involved in the Korean and Vietmanese wars.  President Truman also got the civil rights movement going after WWII.  Maintaining our status as a superpower and stopping Russia was our primary concerns.
427332
The Cold War was an extended period of bipolar rivalry between the USSR and the USA. Most obviously, it represents a period of stability in International Relations where the world was often divided into two seperate spheres - the US and its satellites and the USSR and its satellites.\n\nIn many ways this was also a clash of values and of political systems, of a liberal democracy dedicated to free trade and market forces against a socialist authoritarian state operating on the basis of a command economy, though it is important not to overstress this. \n\nTo a large degree the Cold War was nothing more than a particular instance of bipolarity where the international order was balanced between two superpowers.
585817
Basically to take Europe out of the equation in case of Nuclear war.\n\nReally though the Soviet Union was in such deep financial chaos that they could no longer afford the development and upkeep of targeting nukes on Europe.  \n\nSo taking them off the table was mostly a financial decision.\n\nI should add that there was also a growing emphasis on Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles.  They were easier to hide and defend.
80248
Because, unlike "hot" wars, a "cold" war features relatively little direct military conflict.  The US and Soviet Union never fought directly on each other's native soil, but instead conflicted via policies, diplomatics, embargoes, and the occasional "offsite" military confrontation (e.g. Korea and Vietnam).