The Cold War originally referred to a struggle or a conflict that had not escalated into fighting and military conflict, that is, had not escalated into a hot war. Between 1945 and 1991, the United States and the Soviet Union saw each other as potential enemies, threatening each other's larger global economic, political, and military goals. The Cold War thus was global competition between the United States and the Soviet Union to shape and control the post-World War II global economic and political order. Throughout the Cold War, the United States saw the Soviet Union and communism as the…
