In 1945, after the end of the second World War, an intense rivalry between communist and non-communist nations led to the Cold War. It's called the Cold War because it never led to armed or "hot" conflict. Germany was divided into four occupied zones controlled by Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States. Subsequently, Berlin was also divided into four sections. The Cold War was the result of a clash between communism and capitalism, two opposing world-views. Another cause of the build up to the Cold War was the intransigent attitude of both sides. In 1945 the US created and used the atomic bomb against Japan and the USSR was determined to create one of its own. Both the USSR and the USA built up huge arsenals of nuclear warheads leading to the nuclear arms race. In 1957 the Soviets used a missile tolaunch Sputnik 1 into orbit around the earth. The arms race evolved into a space race as the United States rushed to launch its ownsatellites. The apex point of this "war" was during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the failed coup at the Bay of Pigs in cuba. For fifty years the world lived under the shadow of the cold war, fearing a fatal confrontation between the American and Soviet Union until finally in 1991, with the dissolution of the USSR, it ended. Hypothetically speaking, how would you see the world today; if we were still living in the Cold war era and that the Soviet Union was still a superpower ?
