can anyone tell me wot cold war means???

Containment to the Korean War (1947-1953) By 1947, Truman's advisors worried time was running out to counter the influence of the Soviet Union. (Schmitz) In Europe, postwar economic recovery was faltering; shortages of food and other essential consumer goods were common. Truman's advisors feared the Soviet Union sought to weaken the position of the U.S. in a period of postwar confusion and collapse. The event that spurred Truman into formally announcing the policy of "containment" was the British government's announcement in February 1947 that it could no longer afford to finance the Greek monarchical-military regime in its civil war against communist-led insurgents. (See Greek Civil War.) Rather than viewing this war as a civil conflict revolving around domestic issues, U.S. policymakers interpreted it as a Soviet effort; the insurgents were helped by Josip Broz Tito's Yugoslavia, not Moscow. (LaFeber 1991) Secretary of State Dean Acheson accused the Soviet Union of conspiracy against the Greek royalists in an effort to 'expand' into the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, and in March 1947 the administration unveiled the "Truman Doctrine." It "must be the policy of the United States," Truman declared, "to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or outside pressures." Truman rallied Americas to spend $400 million to intervene in the civil war in Greece in his famous Truman Doctrine speech. In order to mobilize an unfriendly Republican Congress, the Democratic president painted the conflict as a contest between "free" peoples and "totalitarian" regimes, thus dramatically heightening the rhetorical stakes of the conflict. (LaFeber 1991) By aiding Greece, Truman set a precedent for U.S. aid to regimes no matter how repressive and corrupt, that request help to fight communists. (LaFeber 1991) Without the assistance of huge capital resources to rebuild industry transferred from the United States, Western European economies failed to recover from the enormous wartime destruction of the region's infrastructure. Meanwhile, Communist parties were winning large votes in free elections in countries such as France and Italy. American policymakers worried that economic conditions in Western Europe might deteriorate to the point that communist parties could seize power through free elections or coups. (Gaddis 186) Some U.S. policymakers also feared that their own economy might suffer without restoring effective demand for their exports in Western Europe. (LaFeber 2002, 68) For U.S. policymakers, threats to Europe's balance of power were not necessarily military ones, but a political and economic challenge. (Schmitz) George Kennan helped summarize the problem at the State Department Planning Staff in May 1947: "Communist activities" were not "the root of the difficulties of Western Europe" but rather "the disruptive effects of the war on the economic, political, and social structure of Europe."[8] Rather, the Communists were "exploiting the European crisis" to seize power. (Kennan, 1967) In June, following the recommendations of the State Department Planning Staff, the Truman Doctrine was complemented by the Marshall Plan, a pledge of economic assistance aimed at rebuilding the Western political-economic system and countering perceived threats to Europe's balance of power, which the U.S. had gone to war to restore, from the radical left. (Gaddis 186) After lobbying by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Generals Clay and Marshall, the Truman administration finally realized that economic recovery in Europe could not go forward without the reconstruction of the German industrial base on which it had previously had been dependent.[9] In July, Truman rescinded on "national security grounds"[10] the punitive Morgenthau plan JCS 1067, which had directed the U.S. forces of occupation in Germany to "take no steps looking toward the economic rehabilitation of Germany." It was replaced by JCS 1779, which instead stressed that "[a]n orderly, prosperous Europe requires the economic contributions of a stable and productive Germany." Also in July, Truman also reorganized the U.S. government to fight the Cold War. The National Security Act of 1947, signed by Truman on July 26, created a unified Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the National Security Council. These would become the main bureaucracies for U.S. policy in the Cold War. (Zachary Karabell) The twin policies of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan led to billions in economic and military aid to Western Europe and Greece and Turkey. With U.S. assistance, the Greek military won the civil war, and the Christian Democrats in Italy defeated the powerful Communist-Socialist alliance in the elections of 1948. (Zachary Karabell) The U.S. consolidated its new role as leader of the West. After Stalin retaliated against Western moves to reunite western Germany by blocking western access to West Berlin, Truman maintained supply lines to the enclave by flying supplies over the blockade during 1948-1949. (see Berlin Blockade) The U.S. formally allied itself to the Western European states in the North Atlantic Treaty of 1949, creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Stalin countered by tying together the economies of the Eastern bloc in a Soviet-led version of the Marshall Plan, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON), and exploding the first Soviet atomic device in August 1949. (LaFeber 1991) The U.S. took the lead in establishing the West Germany from the three Western zones of occupation in 1949. (Peter Byrd) To counter the Western reorganization of Germany, the Soviet Union proclaimed its zone of occupation in Germany as the German Democratic Republic in 1949. (Peter Byrd) In the early 1950s, the U.S. worked for the rearmament of West Germany and its full membership of NATO in 1955. (Byrd) In 1949 Mao's Red Army defeated the U.S.-backed Kuomintang regime in China. Shortly afterward, the Soviet Union concluded an alliance with the new People's Republic of China. Confronted with the Chinese Revolution and the end of the U.S. atomic monopoly in 1949, the Truman administration quickly moved to escalate and expand the "containment" policy. (LaFeber 1991) In a secret 1950 document, NSC-68, Truman administration officials proposed to reinforce pro-Western alliance systems and quadruple defense spending. (LaFeber 1991) Afterwards, U.S. officials moved to expand "containment" into Asia, Africa, and Latin America. (Schmitz) At the time, revolutionary nationalist movements, often led by Communist parties, were fighting against the restoration of Europe's colonial empires in Southeast Asia. The U.S. formalized an alliance with Japan in early 1950s, guaranteeing Washington long-term military bases; and brought other states, including Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, and the Philippines, within a series of alliances. (Byrd) To Stalin's surprise, Truman committed U.S. forces to drive back the North Koreans. (LaFeber 1991) In 1953 the Korean War ended in stalemate. But the U.S. gradually became entangled in another civil war. In Vietnam, the U.S. supported the South Vietnamese government against North Vietnam, which was backed by the Soviet Union and China.

From confrontation to détente (1962-1979) In the course of the 1960s and 1970s, both the U.S. and the Soviet Union struggled to adjust to a new, more complicated pattern of international relations in which the world was no longer divided into two clearly opposed blocs by the two superpowers.[17] Since the beginning of the postwar period, Western Europe and Japan rapidly recovered from the destruction of World War II and sustained strong economic growth through the 1950s and 1960s, increasing their strength compared to the United States. As a result of the 1973 oil crisis, combined with the growing influence of Third World alignments such as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the Non-Aligned Movement, less-powerful countries had more room to assert their independence and often showed themselves resistant to pressure from either superpower. (EB) Moscow, meanwhile, was forced to turn its attention inward to deal with the Soviet Union's deep-seated domestic economic problems. During this period, Soviet leaders such as Alexei Kosygin and Leonid Brezhnev embraced the notion of détente. (Karabell) Nevertheless, both superpowers resolved to reinforce their global leadership. Both the Soviet Union and the United States struggled to stave off challenges to their leadership in their own regions. President Lyndon B. Johnson landed 22,000 troops in the Dominican Republic, citing the threat of the emergence of a Cuban-style revolution in Latin America. (see Operation Power Pack) (LaFeber 1991) In Eastern Europe, the Soviets in 1968 crushed the Prague Spring reform movement in Czechoslovakia that might have threatened to take the country out of the Warsaw Pact. The U.S. continued to spend heavily on supporting friendly Third World regimes in Asia. Conflicts in peripheral regions and client states—most prominently in Vietnam—continued. (Calhoun) Johnson stationed 575,000 troops in Southeast Asia to defeat the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF) and their North Vietnamese allies, but his costly policy weakened the U.S. economy and, by 1975, ultimately culminated in a humiliating defeat of the world's most powerful superpower at the hands of one of the world's poorest nations. Brezhnev, meanwhile, faced far more daunting challenges in reviving the Soviet economy, which was declining in part because of heavy military expenditures. (LaFeber 1991) Although indirect conflict between Cold War powers continued through the late 1960s and early 1970s, tensions began to ease, as the period of détente began. (Palmowski) The Chinese had sought improved relations with the U.S. in order to gain advantage over the Soviets. In February 1972, Richard Nixon traveled Beijing and met with Mao Zedong and Chou En-Lai. Nixon and Henry Kissinger then announced a stunning rapprochement with Mao's China. Later, in June, Nixon and Kissinger met with Soviet leaders in Moscow, and announced the first of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks), aimed at limiting to limit the development of costly antiballistic missiles and offensive nuclear missiles. (Karabell) Between 1972 and 1974, the two sides also agreed to strengthen their economic ties. (LaFeber 1991) Meanwhile, these developments coincided with the "Ostpolitik" of West German Chancellor Willy Brandt. Other agreements were concluded to stabilize the situation in Europe, culminating in the Helsinki Accords signed by the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe in 1975. However, the détente of the 1970s was short-lived. The U.S. Congress limited the economic pact between Nixon and Brezhnev so much that the Soviets repudiated it in 1975. (LaFeber 1991) Indirect conflict between the superpowers continued through this period of détente in the Third World, particularly during political crises in the Middle East (see Yom Kippur War), Chile (see Chilean coup of 1973), and Angola (see Angolan Civil War). While President Jimmy Carter tried to place another limit on the arms race with a SALT II agreement in 1979, his efforts we undercut other events that year, including the Iranian Revolution and the Nicaraguan Revolution, which both ousted pro-U.S. regimes, and his retaliation against Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in December. (LaFeber 1991)

god,u taught me history,thnx