ABSTRACT
After 1945, the United States and the Soviet Union became the leading powers in international relations; the Cold War was very much seen as a contest between the two superpowers. They had made brief appearances on the European scene in 1917. Then, the United States had rejected Woodrow Wilson’s vision of its participation in world affairs; instead, it withdrew into an isolationism even more rigid than before World War I. The new communist leaders in the Kremlin had in part isolated themselves; in part, they were kept in isolation by the capitalist powers. Now, in 1945, both states were prepared to play the part in international affairs that their power suggested.
