The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is an alliance created in 1949 and included the United States, the United Kingdom, France, West Germany, Canada, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Greece, and Turkey. The Western Bloc was the name of the capitalist countries led by the United States. Most of the countries on the other side were allied by the Warsaw Pact, whose most powerful country was the Soviet Union. Most of the countries on one side were allied by NATO, whose most powerful country was the United States. They spied on each other and threatened each other.Ĭonflicting countries Both sides built large militaries with many new weapons and advanced technology. Instead, they attacked each other in conflicts known as proxy wars in which powerful countries fight a foreign war but do not send their own troops.

It is called the 'Cold' War because the Americans and the Soviet Union never actually fought each other directly.

The Cold War (1947 - 1991) was the tense fighting between the United States and its allies and the Soviet Union (also called the USSR) and its allies between the end of World War II and the fall of the Soviet Union.

Why is it called a cold war