Throughout history, many political, economic and social conditions have been developed causing a change in the course of history for nations and people. The Cold War was a major turning point in history. It was a time of tension between the Soviet Union and the United States. Both sides had very different policies. The United States' policy was "Containment" which consisted in the stop of communism and to keep it isolated. The Soviet Union policy was the total opposite, it was the spread and growth of communism, this policy was called "Expansion". The Cold War wasn't declared in the same sense as most wars, rather it progressed over time which led tension to increase between both nations.
Many people say that the Cold War really began with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's speech where he described an "Iron Curtain" which was an imaginary line that separated the East and the West. The East was the Soviet Union and its countries of influence. The West was the United States and their major allies being Canada, France, Britain, and Japan. The War involved the use of expensive resources on both of these sides. In 1949, the United States and other eleven Western nations created the North Atlantic Treaty organization which was a military alliance which promised to meet any attack on Nato members with armed forces. The Soviet Union and its affiliated Communist nations in Eastern Europe founded a rival military alliance in 1955, the Warsaw Pact.
In the Potsdam Conference the two sides discussed on how to deal with Germany after World War two, even though there were many disagreements, they did come to some agreement. They agreed to separate Germany. Sections of Germany under the control of the United States, France, and Britain formed the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). The land controlled by the Soviet Union became the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).