History of North America

When did the cold war start and finish?

Start: The Cold War is generally considered to have begun after World War II, with the start of the Iron Curtain and the Truman Doctrine. In Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union established communist satellite states, while the Western powers formed alliances and provided economic and military aid to non-communist countries.

End: The Cold War formally ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The process of its collapse had begun in the late 1980s, with economic reforms and political liberalization under Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 was a symbolic moment that marked the decline of Soviet power and the end of the Cold War.