ABSTRACT
The Grand Alliance was a marriage of necessity, forced into existence by the threat of Adolf Hitler. The Soviet Union had shared an enemy and nothing else with Britain and the United States. The ideological conflict between them was so irreconcilable that even during the darkest days of the war disagreements and mistrust existed between the ostensible allies. While the combined efforts of these three nations defeated the threat of fascism, their victory left little optimism that the communist and capitalist worlds could work together after the war. In light of this postwar situation, it is hardly surprising that a dominant feature of the following decades was the tense, ideologically driven struggle known as the Cold War, which affected politics, economic development, and social stability around the globe.
