INTRODUCTION

For fifty years relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were the deciding factor in international affairs. War against Germany brought them together in 1941 in an alliance which was decisive in securing Germany’s defeat, but victory ultimately drove them apart, giving rise to the state of continuous, if fluctuating, antagonism which we know as cold war. No open hostilities took place between the United States and the Soviet Union, yet for the bulk of the period each armed against the other as if for war. Even their brief alliance against Germany was plagued by mistrust and misgivings. Since these loomed ever larger as the hot war against Germany gave way to cold war, and since the US-Soviet relationship was the determining factor in both the anti-Axis alliance and the shaping of the post-war world, it seems appropriate to view both within the same frame. In short, the upheaval of the Second World War set the geopolitical scene for the cold war.