the U.S. role in the cold war was to stop and contain the spread of communism to countries. President Truman created the Truman Doctrine stating that it would help defend countries being attacked by communist countries. In 1950 North Korea invaded South Korea and so the U.S. acted quickly to help protect south Korea but as the war continued North Korea had now been aided by China and Russia. After 3 years in Korea the war soon ended with no real decided winner. though this proved that the U.S. was determined to control communism and keep it from spreading to other countries.

the tensions between two countries has never been as tense as they were during the cold war. with the two biggest superpowers in the world with nuclear war heads pointed at each other the United States and Russia faced off on proving themselves as the greatest power in world. both nations had continued to match the others capability, and the others knowledge. the Russians early were able to create their own atomic bomb as the U.S. and test it to show to the world as much as the U.S. that they could create their own. The United States were quick to try and stay a step ahead of Russia so they had developed the hydrogen bomb a bomb that created a huge fire ball and an explosion of heat radiation, but this was only for six months till Russia had finally created their own hydrogen bomb. this made U.S. scared of the idea that Russia was capable of just as much as they could and maybe even more.

Another tension between these two great powers was the space race which was to be the first to develop the first exploration of space. Russia beat the U.S. in October 4, 1957 with having launched the first satellite, Sputnik, into space. the U.S. now was afraid as the Soviets could launch a missile from anywhere and it hit what they wanted with a missile. The U.S. finally trully caught up to russia in 1961 when Alan Shepard was the second person by 30 days to go into space but in january 31, 1961 Ham the chimp was the first mammal in space. The next part of the space race began with landing on the moon for Russia and the U.S. the U.S. had beaten russia to be the first to land on the moon, the appollo 11 program was the group to land on the moon andwalk on the moon.

The Cuban missile crisis was the most nerve racking time between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. In October 1962 the Soviet Union secretly transported nuclear war heads into Cuba. The U.S. soon found out when U-2 planes flew over Cuba and took photos of the missiles which were sent to President Kennedy. President Kennedy soon put the country on alert and sent a military force to quarantine the area but not invade the country, and Kennedy demanded if a soviet ship was going into Cuba it was to be sent back. Kennedy also stated that the Russians must take apart all nuclear missiles and return to Russia. On October 28, 1962 Russia and the U.S. reached an agreement that Russia would remove the nuclear missile from Cuba and that the U.S. would never invade Cuba again. There was a also an unwritten part of the agreement saying that the U.S. would remove its missiles from turkey and shortly later the missiles were removed from turkey.

The Bay of Pigs was a C.I.A. invasion of Cuba in 1960. This invasion was not necessarily against Russia but it was against the communist leader of Cuba, Fidel Castro. President Kennedy had only been in office for three months before this invasion occur ed. the purpose of the invasion was to overthrow Castro's government. though the invasion was a failurer and the U.S. were defeated in three days.

The Cold War still can be known in many things of the modern day such as the new "START" agreement between U.S., Russia and other countries. the agreement states that the U.S. and Russia will reduce on the amount of nuclear arms weapons. There are some countries that fear this policy like eastern european countries because they might fear countries like russia cause of their history. Though countries like the U.S. look to see it as a chance for a safer and more peaceful planet. Certain NATO countries are willing to go further with the plan, for those countries are still holding onto some nuclear weapons from past events such as the cold war.

AMERICA VS RUSSIA

at the end of world war 2 the once great allies America and Russia now found them selves in a war of governmental beliefs. Russia believed in the idea of communism and wanted to spread this idea in the world. America hated the idea of communism and wanted to eliminate this belief. it was hard to contain these beliefs from other countries adopting the idea of communism. these countries were North Korea, China, and Cuba. the U.S. in an attempt to contain communism went to war in Korea against China and North Korea.