Cold War

Preface

The Cold War was a struggle for global influence between the United

States and the Soviet Union. To that end, the two countries employed a

variety of methods, all short of a direct, all-out attack on each other's

homelands. The methods they used included the creation of rival

alliances, the extension of military and economic aid to client states and

would-be client states, a massive and expensive arms race, propaganda

campaigns, espionage, guerrilla warfare, counterinsurgency warfare, and

political assassinations.

The Cold War was one of the longest conflicts in human history, over

seventy years in duration, with periodic lulls in the level of hostility. It was

also the widest in scope of all the world's wars; it was fought on every

continent on the globe and, considering...