【美国精神】第83期

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Explanation:

  A war usually involves a lot of fighting and death. The Cold War, however, was different. The Cold War wasn’t actually a war, but instead it was a very long period of hostility¹ (or dislike) between the United States and the Soviet² Union (or the part of the world that would later become Russia and other countries). The two countries disagreed on ideology³ (or ideas about how governments should work). The United States believed that democracies were the best governments. The Soviet Union believed that communism was best.

  The Cold War began in the mid-1940s and didn’t end until the early 1990s. During that time, the United States and the Soviet Union were the world’s superpowers (or most powerful and richest countries). Many people were scared that the two superpowers would begin to actually fight each other, causing many deaths, but that never happened.

  But there were many dangerous threats (or bad things that could have happened) during that time. The two superpowers engaged (or became involved) in a nuclear arms race. This was a period of time when both superpowers made a lot of nuclear arms (or weapons) like bombs. Each country wanted to have more nuclear weapons than the other country did. The superpowers spent a lot of money making these weapons and building defense⁴ to protect themselves from each other.

  The United States was worried about the spread (or growth) of communism. The Soviet Union was helping⁵ other countries adopt (or begin to follow) communism. All those countries were said to be behind the Iron Curtain. When the Soviet Union began to be powerful in another country, the United States tried to stop the spread of communism there. At the same time, the Soviet Union sent its support to countries where there was a communist movement (or interest in becoming communist).

  In the late 1980s and early 1990s, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, the head (or leader) of the Soviet Union, began to have diplomatic⁶ discussions, or conversations between political leaders. These discussions eventually (or after a long period of time) led to the end of the Cold War.

 

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