ABSTRACT
The Cold War grew out of the aftermath of a World War that decimated major European and Asian powers and involved a very real confrontation between large nations representing opposing political and economic systems.As the US assumed a role of world leadership in the late 1940s, the federal government launched an unprecedented international assistance effort and systematically mobilized the nation’s industrial, technological, and human capital to meet the military challenges of the Cold War. In contrast, the 45-year Cold War era ended with a remarkable absence of violence, crisis, or conflict among the major parties.The dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union failed to generate the sense of national purpose, solidarity, and sacrifice that forged foreign and domestic policy in the late 1940s. The end of the Cold War spawned no Marshall Plans or Committees for Economic Development, no GI Bills or Endless Frontiers, no fundamental reorientations of military, industrial, or technology policies.
