ABSTRACT
The end of World War II in 1945 did not herald the beginning of an age of peace. The various Allies who had beaten Germany and Japan soon split along political lines: one group was dominated by the United States; the other by the Soviet Union. The United States and the Soviet Union instigated the undeclared conflict known as the Cold War, which lasted until the 1980s. Thereafter ethnocentric and nationalist conflicts have plagued the international arena.
