ABSTRACT
It was relatively easy for policy-makers in the United States and the Soviet Union to arrive at definitions of their interests in Europe. Having by 1948 abandoned the attempt to produce a joint and comprehensive settlement, they sought to stabilize their influence within their respective spheres of interest. Their methods of control differed greatly, but geography, history, and the needs of the moment combined to make division the least unacceptable alternative to open conflict. The Iron Curtain was as much a psychological as a political barrier. It defined the limits of the possible with painful clarity, particularly after the Soviet acquisition of the atom bomb. The bomb raised the potential costs of a breach in the line by either side, with the result that mutual antagonism was displaced into the nuclear arms race, the propaganda war, and the espionage war.
