ABSTRACT
The essentials of the Cold War slowly came into focus in the remainder of 1945 and early 1946 as Soviet-American relations deteriorated further. The United Nations is an intergovernmental international organization created by treaty on October 24, 1945 for the purpose of promoting permanent international peace. To win the Cold War, George Kennan suggested a policy of containment, a grand strategy designed to prevent the geographic, political, and ideological expansion of an enemy. Harry Truman accepted Kennan's containment concept, which remained the foundation of American Cold War policy until the conflict itself ended in 1989. Wars of decolonization morphed into proxy wars, as the superpowers avoided all-out war between them by choosing sides in the colonial conflict. The demands for freedom spread to the other Warsaw Pact nations over the course of 1989, even into East Germany, where in November celebrating throngs dismantled the ultimate symbol of the Cold War, the Berlin Wall.
