Ch 22 pg 675-689

            As a result of American and British desires to create democratic societies while Soviets insisted control over Eastern Europe, rival military alliances formed known as NATO and the Warsaw Pact.  The disagreements between Eastern and Western Europe become known as the Iron Curtain that had high tension but no shooting war occurred.  According to American authorities a communist victory meant that communist would spread further across Asia and beyond because they feared nothing considering the Soviets and Chinese were partners.  The third major military conflict of the cold war happened in Afghanistan where a Marxist party had taken power.  Though, fearing the overthrow of a new communist state, Soviets forces finally withdrew from the area.  Then not too long after America attempted to enter Cuba but the Soviets already had control over it.  So, in an attempt to keep the Americans out they threatened to fire missiles but the J.F.K maybe a compromise.  He promised not to invade Cuba if the Soviets promised to remove their missiles out of Cuba.

            During this time, many lived in fear of the deadly weapons that each country carried and threatened to use if one place stepped out of line.  This possibility, according to Strayer, is a primary reason why no shooting war of any kind occurred between the two superpowers, the United States and the Communist World.  There are two big failures that the Communist party faced.  The first is how the Soviet economy expressed no signs of improvement compared to the more advanced capitalist countries.  The second is was moral.  The horrors of Stalin’s Terror and the gulag approaching genocide in communist Cambodia tore apart communist claims to moral superiority over capitalism.