The Cold War began as an ideological struggle between the two superpowers that emerged in the aftermath of World War Two (WWII). The destruction of the former Western European balance of power post-WWII allowed for new nations to emerge superpowers. The tensions that arose from the restructured bipolar balance of power sparked a global east/west rift that continues to exist today. From 1945 to 1991, the United States of America (USA) and the former Soviet Union (USSR) were engaged in an ideological war that resulted in a race to influence and thereby control as much of the world as possible. A costly race for better nuclear technology and more global influence ensued between the two superpowers, which created a global possibility of nuclear war. In 1945, the destructive capability of nuclear warfare was demonstrated when the USA dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan. The threat of nuclear warfare that arose seventeen years later in the Cold War thus evoked fear across the globe and heightened global tensions. The USSR and USA's respective endorsements of communism and capitalism throughout the world led them to directly implicate many countries in the Cold War and simultaneously made them susceptible to involvement in a nuclear war. The significance of the Cold War to world history is that the capitalist/communist stalemate had the potential of erupting into nuclear war, which affected not only Americans and Soviets, but implicated people across the globe. The USA and USSR's ultimate desire to end the balance of power stalemate between their respective world views of capitalism and communism caused the superpowers to pursue a race to impose their influence upon as many nations as possible, thus creating a global conflict that divided the world upon ideological lines and nearly resulted in the world's total nuclear destruction.
             A major component of the competition between the USA and USSR revolved around a costly arms race. Both ...