The players of this war were two groups in China. They were called the Kuomintang and the Communist Party of China (CPC). To Understand what happened after World War II, we need to look at what happened before it. The Kuomintang and the CPC were bitter rivals. The leader of the Kuomintang named Chiang Kai-Shek decided he wanted to get rid of the CPC. This is when the Civil War started in 1927. In 1934, the CPC decided to withdraw away from the Kuomintang and went on long marches. In the end they marched around 7,000 miles. Then World War II started and the war was put on hold. When the new war ended, the old war resumed. Only this time, the CPC was supported by the Soviet Union. The Soviets let the CPC use the guns that Japan left to use against the Kuomintang. The CPC started to dominate, and in October of 1949, the CPC controlled Beijing and and declared victory. The CPC turned China into the People's Republic of China, and the Kuomintang fled and created the Republic of China.
1947: The Red Scare
While communism grew, so did America's (and other countries') fear of it. America didn't want people giving the communists information about something that may be happening in their country. Enter Joseph McCarthy; a republican senator who absolutely hated Communism. McCarthy heavily relied on rumors to justify convictions against people who were thought to be secretly communistic. Some of the convicted ended up deported from the country. The director of the FBI at the time named J. Edgar Hoover was also heavily involved in the Red Scare. A lot of main targets of the Red Scare was a lot of people working in Hollywood. This lasted for about 10 years,
1948: The Berlin Airlift
After WWII, Berlin was being helped by the western countries (with supplies). The soviets wanted control of Berlin and blocked it off hoping to gain control. The only way to help Berlin was to airdrop the materials in. The soviets did not believe that America could not possibly execute this. They wanted Berlin to lose hope in the West and succumb to the Soviets. But the Americans prevailed in bringing over the supplies to Berlin. The United States and Great Britten flew roughly 2.3 million tons of food with around 277,000 flights over the next 10 months. The Soviet Union eventually decided to give up on May 12th, 1949 and lifted the blockade.
1950: The Korean War
After World War 2, the Korean Peninsula (used to be controlled by Japan) was split into 2. The north (North Korea) was controlled by the Soviet Union and formed a communist government. The south (South Korea) was controlled by the United States, and formed a capitalist government. North Korea started to attack South Korea on June 25th, 1950. As the war progressed, and the US being very involved, general George MacArthur was able to help South Korea advance on North Korea and together, they pushed North Korea to the 38th parallel. The rest of the war was fought mostly in this area. With the election of US President Eisenhower, he was able to sign a peace treaty, and a 2 mile demilitarized zone was established to prevent another war between the two countries.
1955: The Vietnam War
Like the Korean War, this war was fought between a nation split in two; the Communist North Vietnam, and South Vietnam. Before all this happened, and Vietnam was still a whole country controlled by the French, a communist man named Ho Chi Minh wanted freedom for his country. He rallied up supporters for his cause and slowly and started to attack the French and even asked the US to assist their cause, but the US did not want the chance of communism spreading. The French was getting destroyed and the US decided to help. The country was then later split up into two. The US preformed extreamly bad in the war. The US soldiers did not do well in the jungles of Vietnam, and they were ambushed very easily. Later, US President Nixon decided to leave the war. He started removing troops, and negotiated a ceasefire. Unfortunately for South Vietnam, they had to surrender to the North. This meant that the US officially lost.
1956: The Suez Crisis
President Nasser of Egypt at the time had a goal to modernize his country. He decided to build the Aswan Dam. But to do this, he needed money. The United States and Great Britten was going to loan money to them, but Egypt had ties with the Soviets so they reversed their decision. Egypt was livid with their decision and decided to take over the Suez Canal (controlled by the British) and make money from that. This was the reason why Great Britten, France, and Israel decided to attack Egypt. This eventually led to Egypt's airbase being bombed. Then the soviets announced that they had intentions on joining in the battle, but the United States intervened and stopped that from becoming a possibility.
1961: The Bay of Pigs
If you could describe the Bay of Pigs in one word from the perspective of the US, the word would be failure. This was an attempt to overthrow the government of Cuba (Cuba practiced Communism) with guerrilla warfare. The US thought that when they would start to invade the country, the Cubans would join their cause, but that was not the case. Also, the plans for the invasion was leaked and now everyone knew when the US was going to attack. When the invasion happened on April 17th, 1961, it was a catastrophe. The Cubans were able to use a lot of their airplanes to sink the American ships before they had a chance to start attacking. Most of the ground soldiers invading Cuba landed in the wrong spots and were captured by the Cuban soldiers. The US was forced to retreat (but more of US soldiers were captured in the process) which ended up making the US look weak and Cuba a very strong ally for the soviets.
1961: The Berlin Wall
When WWII ended, Germany was divided into 2 parts; A democratic west, and a communistic east (controlled but the Soviets). The capital of Germany; Berlin, was controlled by the US, the Soviets, Britten, and France. That meant there were people who did not want to be living in the communism society of East Germany started to escape to West Germany. East Germany thought that they were losing too many people and on August 12th and the 13th of 1961 (roughly 2 million people withing 10 years), they decided to build a barbed wire fence. It later became a 12 feet tall and 4 feet wide concrete wall to combat their problem. In 1987, US president Ronald Reagan asked for the wall to be destroyed.
1962: The Cuban Missile Crisis
The United States was in an uncomfortable position. After the Bay of Pigs happened, the United States decided to position nuclear weapons in Turkey and Italy that were positioned directly at Moscow (the capital of the Soviet Union). To retaliate, the Soviet Union placed nuclear Weapons in Cuba that were aimed at the US and could reach anywhere in the country. World leaders like US President John F. Kennedy were nervous of the thought that this could start World War III. Tensions continued to rise for the next couple of days, but the US and the Soviet Union were secretly negotiating with each other. They eventually came to the conclusion that the Soviets would remove the missiles from Cuba as long as the US wouldn't attack Cuba, and that the United States would remove all nuclear weapons positioned at Russia.
1973: The Yom Kippur War
The Yom Kippur War did not last a long time, although if it wasn't stopped, things could have easily gone out of control and started World War 3. It started on October 6th, and ended on October 26th. The war started with big territorial issues. The US sided with Israel and gave them weapons to help them with their cause. This whole thing started with Egyptians and Syrians attacking the Israelis on the holy day Yom Kippur, and they caught the Israelis off guard. A couple days later, the Israelis attacked back, therefore reclaiming their lost land, and advancing into Egypt. The UN had to step in and successfully negotiated a ceasefire on October 22nd on 1973. Regardless, the fighting progressed anyways. The US wanted to join in but the only think stopping them was the fear that the Soviets would join in too, thus creating another world war. Eventually, on October 25th of 1973, the war ended with another ceasefire being negociated.
1979: The Soviet Afghanistan War
The Soviet Afghanistan War started on December 24th, 1979, and was resolved on February 15th of 1989. The Soviet Union were very good friends with Afghanistan by supporting and providing aid to them. Afghanistan turned transformed into a communist country with the support of the Soviet Union. Many citizens did not love this change because the laws rebelled against the Islamic views of the country. They decided to rebel and they were called the Mujahideen. The Soviets decided to try and eliminate the rebellion. Things got worse when Hafizullah Amin decided to kill the current leader of Afghanistan to take control of the government. The Soviets believed that Amin was talking to the US, so they invaded Afghanistan, had him killed, and replaced him with a man named Babrak Karmal. Continuing with the war, now with even more Soviet influence, the Mujahideen were still frighting strong and holding off the army. The Soviets were now embarrassed of this war for not being able to destroy the Mujahideen. Then came the new leader of the Soviets; Mikhail Gorbachev. He decided to finish the war by signing a peace treaty.
1991: The Collapse of the Soviet Union
Near the end of the Soviet Union's life, the country was facing a crumbling economy. Mikhail Gorbachev ran with the intent of fixing and modernizing the country and was later elected in 1985. There were 2 plans that Gorbachev executed to try and fix the country. They were called Perestroika and Glasnost. Perestroika was a way to fix the Soviet's failing economy by allowing little citizen private property and giving the citizens more influence in the way the economy is maintained. The citizens were not used to running these things which made the situation worse. Glasnost was a way for the people to express themselves more. This was by giving the people a little more freedom to speak out. But, this allowed the media to criticize the government which slowly influenced rebellion. It later came to Gorbachev being kidnapped in an attempt to take over the government (which later failed). With pressure from the people, the Soviet Union broke apart and split the nation into 15 separate countries which ultimately marked the end of the Cold War.