Introduction to Chapters 2 to 4

Summary

The Big Three – the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the United States – were the only global powers in 1945. They had led the worldwide alliance against National Socialist Germany, militarist Japan, and Fascist Italy to victory in World War II. At the end of the war, 10 Downing Street ruled a global empire but faced financial troubles; the Kremlin ran the militarily strong but economically destroyed Soviet Union; and the White House led the economically and militarily dominant United States. Into the 1960s, these three countries continued to shape international relations, but also experienced significant changes in their relations with each other. During this period, the Cold War spread geographically from Europe and East Asia to Southeast Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East (Chapter 1). As the Soviet Union and the United States ascended to superpower status in the late 1950s and over the course of the 1960s, the United Kingdom tried to keep up by establishing its own nuclear weapons program (see also Chapter 14).