The Main military operations that stand in for this nation's major wars are simple to identify when we look back over the centuries that make up American history. America has participated in several military conflicts, winning all but a handful of them, including World Wars II, the Civil War, Korea, and World Wars I. But the conflict known as "The Cold War" was one of the most peculiar and protracted that America has fought in.
The Cold War remained a constant in many Americans' lives for many years. The absence of a battlefield, deployed soldiers, casualty counts, and significant engagements to record made it a "Cold War." Instead, from the end of World War II until the early 1990s, there was a protracted era of chilly hostility between the United States and the Soviet Union.
The odd thing was that our friendship-based relationship with the Soviet Union during World War II gave rise to the Cold War. But at the conclusion of that terrible battle, the "conflict seeds "'s were already planted. The idea of a "superpower" emerged with the development of nuclear technology. This did not cause conflict on its own until the Soviet Union also created the bomb, which led to a protracted Cold War in which both countries trained countless numbers of these weapons on one another to warn one other never to consider using those weapons.
It was a staring match that drained both economies tremendously for nearly fifty years. So that neither nation possessed more nuclear weapons than the other and the balance of power was upset and one side gained an unfair advantage, both nations were required to maintain "parity" in their nuclear arsenals. It was illogical for both nations to insist on "having parity" throughout the Cold War, despite having access to enough weapons to wipe out the planet numerous times.
It was obvious that no conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union could ever be accepted. Engaging those weapons may have resulted in the extinction of all life on Earth. But neither nation was ready to hand over its weapons and start a peacemaking process with the other. Consequently, for fifty years, the weapons kept pointing in the same directions.
As a result, the two nations engaged in a series of little wars all over the world rather than engaging in direct combat. The Soviet Unions, together with China, joyfully assisted in the devastating defeat the United States suffered in Vietnam. The Soviet Union was ultimately defeated in its occupation of Afghanistan thanks to the United States' decision to turn around and arm the Afghan Mujahideen. The Cold War lasted for decades, testing the willingness and resolve of both nations to never look away and give the other the upper hand through proxy wars, the space race, and sporadic confrontations like the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Early in the 1990s, the strain on the finances of the two nations finally began to show, especially in the Soviet Union, where the strain of waging such an expensive and fruitless war caused the Soviet economy to collapse and the collapse of the empire. By sheer willpower and obstinate refusal to yield, the United States had prevailed in the Cold War. This is a little-discussed aspect of the American spirit, but the Soviets learned the hard way not to challenge it to their own detriment. I hope no other "superpower" ever feels qualified to test it again.
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