by Barnaby Meins

Created on: May 27, 2007

The world after World War II was dominated by two countries: the US (United States of America) and the USSR (Soviet Union) because the most dominant countries such as Britain, France and Germany were in ruins after the war. The Cold War was a term used to describe the obvious but controlled competition and hostility that developed between the US and the USSR and their respective allies straight after World War II. These two counties were allies in World War II due to the common struggle against the Axis powers, lead by Hitler. However, within a year after World War II, both of them were engaged in a new struggle, the Cold War, which lasted 45 years, from the end of World War II in 1945 to the breaking up of USSR in 1990. The US and USSR coexisted in an uncomfortable state of active yet benign hostility. Nevertheless, this state of relationships costs the economies of both countries and their associated nations heavily.

The term Cold War" was first coined by Bernard Baruch during a congressional debate in 1947. It was Cold' because the war was waged mainly by political, economic, and ideological means but short of USA and USSR actually fighting physically using weapons. It affected almost the entire world which was split into ideological differences between communism and capitalist democracy. The Cold War did not come about in a short period just after the end of World War II but rather there were already inherent causes which merely surfaced once US and USSR did not have a common enemy to collaborate and fight against. Below are some key causes of the Cold War to enable one to understand how it came about.

==1. Differences between political and economic ideologies in US and USSR==
It was obvious from the beginning that the US and USSR had a different ideology of running their countries. The US had a system of private ownership of businesses named capitalism. People in US could own properties, industries, businesses and they were responsible for whatever losses and profits that came along with them. US practices in political system of democracy where adults voted for the political party whom they thought could best govern the country.

On the other hand, USSR used Communism as the system of running the country. Under the Communism system, all industries and businesses were owned and controlled by the sate. They were managed by state officials and the profit made belonged to the state. There were elections to choose the political members to run the countries but the

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