The Cold War, which lasted from 1947 to 1991, was a conflict between the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (US) to become the world’s superpower. The aftermath of World War 2 left both the Soviet Union and the United States as the two most powerful countries in the world, but they were polar opposites. Capitalist America felt very threatened by communist Russia, and tension and miscommunication led to military, political, and economic struggles. The unique aspect of this war is that there was no direct military engagement whatsoever. Although nuclear threats were made by both countries, there was not one recorded casualty. However, Americans and Russians lived in constant fear, their only security being the process of containment in order to prevent “Mutually Assured Destruction” (Hewitt 807) The first to test an atomic bomb was the United States, on July 15, 1945. Soon after, on August 6th and 9th, we dropped two bombs in Japan to end the Pacific War. Russia felt very threatened by this, and by 1949 they had and built and tested their own atomic bomb. In order to ‘one-up’ the Soviets, the US created and tested the world’s first hydrogen bomb in 1952. Three years later, the USSR unsurprisingly built and tested their own hydrogen bomb. Neither of the countries spoke about this, but they both knew what they other had. Some historians argue that the main cause of the Cold War was the lack of communication between the US and the Soviets, therefore both countries shared responsibility. The first noticeable tensions began to surface during the 1945 Potsdam Conference, when President Harry Truman informed Premier Joseph Stalin that the first atomic bomb had been successfully tested three days earlier. This wasn’t new news to Stalin, thanks to the Soviet intelligence network. The United States falsely assumed that this information would mean they would be given more bargaining power, but Stalin held firm his positions and this made negotiations difficult. This conference was the last time the United States spoke to Russia in a semi-friendly way until halfway through the Cold War (The Potsdam Conference, 1937-1945). The speaking