"Cold war" is the term given to the competition, conducted through means short of direct military conflict, between the United States and the Soviet Union since World War II. Its roots go back to the 1890s when, after a century of friendship, Americans and Russians became rivals over the development of Manchuria. Russia sought to close off and colonize parts of East Asia, while Americans demanded open competition for markets. In 1917, with the Bolsheviks success …showed first 75 words of 550 total…

…showed last 75 words of 550 total…failures resulted in the sudden overthrow of communist regimes in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and East Germany. In the West, policymakers were reconsidering the future of both the European Economic Community and NATO in light of Germanys re-association. Fractured by rising nationalist and ethnic demands, Europe began to spin out of the superpowers path. Forty-five years (more nearly a century) of costly competition was peaking in a world that neither Russians nor Americans could control.