ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by examining explanations for the onset of Cold War, using different levels of analysis and different theoretical lenses. It examines how the Cold War deepened as the United States adopted the Truman Doctrine and instituted a strategy of containment to halt Soviet expansionism. The chapter looks at Russia’s evolution since the Cold War’s end, notably the heightened tension between the United States and Vladimir Putin’s Russia. At the global-system level, neorealists focus on the bipolar distribution of military power as an explanation for the Cold War. Realists, liberals, constructivists, and Marxists would analyze the sources of the Cold War differently. Early in 1947, Great Britain informed Washington that it could no longer provide financial assistance to Turkey or Greece, where a communist-led insurgency threatened the country’s stability. The dissolution of the USSR was traumatic for Russians who had been raised to believe in communism and the historic Soviet mission.
