7 th Grade Civics Miss Smith *pgs

 After fighting Nazi Germany as allies, USA and Soviet Union became enemies  This was because of their differences in economic systems and government  USA- market economy and representative democracy  Soviet Union- command economy and Communist regime

 Communism- economic and political system in which the means of production are owned by the government and the government decides what will be produced  The gov. owns the land, capitol, and labor

 The Soviet Union gained control of the countries along its borders and turned them into Communist governments  Satellite nations- countries that are controlled by another country  Next, the Soviet Union tried to spread to other areas to gain more power  The U.S. saw this as a threat to U.S. national security and world peace  This competition for global power and influence was the Cold War

 Truman Doctrine- the policy that the U.S. would give economic aid to countries fighting communism  Containment- U.S. policy of preventing the spread of Communism

 Civil war broke out in China after WWII  Chinese Communists defeated the government  Those defeated fled to Taiwan where they set up their own government  Taiwan maintains its independence, but China claims it as a territory

 Balance of power- situation in which countries are about equal in strength  The Soviet Union developed nuclear weapons  They built secret missile bases in Cuba  This was a threat to the U.S.  The U.S. threatened military force if the missiles weren’t removed

 Communist North Korea tried to invade noncommunist South Korea  N. Korea had help from the Soviet Union and China  S. Korea had help from the U.S. and 15 other UN member countries  Limited war- war fought without using a country’s full power, particularly nuclear weapons  The war reached a stale mate and Korea remained divided

*Do NOT write  How did the US use its containment policy to respond to problems in Vietnam?

 The Soviet Union’s economy began to fail, citizens became dissatisfied and agitated  The leader of the Soviet Union (Mikhail Gorbachev) began a series of reforms  Détente- lessening of tensions  By the start of the 1990s, communism in Eastern Europe began to fall