The end of World War II was the spawn of a new war that would continue for over fifty years: The Cold War. Technically this war was not a fifty-year physical confrontation between two countries but more of a political confrontation between the world's two remaining super-powers. The dropping of the atomic bomb in 1945 on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the beginning of a new arsenal that would lead to the development of nuclear weapons.
After Japan and Germany were defeated in World War II, a solutions to prevent the future event of a third world war were taken by the establishment of the United Nations to outlaw all private wars. Another right of the United Nations was to punish those villains that were guilty of war crimes against humanity. The problem with this type of procedure is that the winners of a combat situation, whether right or wrong, are the ones that get to decide who is on the wrong side of the law and who is not.
The atom bomb, which was mentioned earlier as the "problem solver" of World War II, would prove to lead to a larger dilemma. Prior to the atomic bomb and later the hydrogen bomb, it was thought that any weapon could be defended against. The problem with the communist countries of Russia was their doctrine of totalitarianism. .
The main focus of the time was building an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), and the only countries with the resources were Russia and the United States. Russia shocked the world with the launch of Sputnik in 1957 followed by the first orbital flight around the world. It appeared that the Soviets were going to beat the Americans in the "Space Race" and reap all of the benefits from it as well: Reconnaissance, surveillance, communication, and delivery platforms for weapons.
The Russian's philosophy was built on the teachings of Clausewitz in that they maintained that war was a political means, peace was only a step towards war, and that conflict is inevitable.
