1. The Cold War
The U. S. should support free peoples throughout the world who were resisting takeovers by armed minorities or outside pressures…We must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way.

2. The Cold War Truman Doctrine
By 1947, US president Harry S. Truman's advisors urged him to take immediate steps to counter the Soviet Union's influence, citing Stalin's efforts (amid post-war confusion and collapse) to undermine the US by encouraging rivalries among capitalists that could precipitate another war.

3. The Cold War Marshall Plan
In 1947, US secretary of state George Marshall announced a $13 Billion plan to help rebuild the Europeans countries devastated by war.

4. The Cold War The Marshall Plan
A pledge of economic assistance for all European countries willing to participate, including the Soviet Union. The plan's aim was to rebuild the democratic and economic systems of Europe and to counter perceived threats to Europe's balance of power, such as communist parties seizing control through elections or popular revolutions in countries like France or Italy. The plan stressed instead that European prosperity was contingent upon German economic recovery.

5. Marshall Plan
Stalin saw the Marshall Plan as a significant threat to Soviet control of Eastern Europe. He believed that economic integration with the West would allow Eastern Bloc countries to escape Soviet guidance, and that the US was trying to buy a pro-US re-alignment of Europe. Stalin therefore prevented Eastern Bloc nations from receiving Marshall Plan aid.

6. The Cold War
Analyze the cartoon. What is it’s central message.

7. Post WW2 Europe

8. Berlin Blockade ( )
As part of the economic rebuilding of Germany, in early 1948, representatives of a number of Western European governments and the United States announced an agreement for a merger of western German areas into a federal governmental system. In addition, in accordance with the Marshall Plan, they began to re-industrialize and rebuild the German economy.

9. Berlin Blockade ( )
One of the first major international crises of the Cold War.
During the multinational occupation of post-World War II Germany, the Soviet Union blocked the Western force's railway and road access to the western sectors of Berlin that they had been controlling. Their aim was to force the western powers to allow the Soviet controlled regions to start supplying Berlin with food and fuel, thereby giving them nominal control over the entire city.

10. Berlin Blockade ( )
In response, the Western Allies formed the Berlin Airlift to bring supplies to the people of Berlin.
The Berlin effort would require at least 4,000 tons a day.
The success of the Airlift was humiliating to the Soviets, who had repeatedly claimed it could never possibly work. When it became clear that it did work, the blockade was lifted.

11. Berlin Wall
Because Berlin was divided it became a hotbed of Cold War tensions.
August 12, 1961 – East German troops locked down the border and installed barbed wire and fences.

12. Alignment
In the interest of security, some countries aligned themselves with one superpower or the other. For example, Canada and Great Britain were aligned with the United States.

13. Non-Alignment
Rather than following the ideologies of the superpowers, some countries chose their own entirely different ideologies.
Many countries that had a long history European imperialism wanted to step away from the influence of the superpowers.

14. Deterrence
A method of cold war rather than hot war. It involves building up one’s capacity to fight such that neither opponent will fight because of the expected outcomes.
Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD)

15. Brinkmanship
The attempt to push a dangerous situation as far as possible without conceding anything to your opponent.

16. Detente
A reduction of tensions through the signing of treaties.

17. Proxy Wars
Conflicts in which one superpower might fight in another country or provide support to a group which opposes the rival superpower.

18. Liberation Movements
Occurs when a country rebels against the country that colonized it or otherwise oppressed it.