After World War II, Europe was devasted by the war that had been fought there. Many European countries had lost power and influence over the rest of the world. The process of decolonization began where colonies became independent. This was evident throughout Africa and the middle East where countries like Britain and France withdrew their power from these places.  The Soviet Union wanted control and even more international power while the other allies wanted these countries to develop their own independence. These differences in ideologies led the Soviet Union and the United States into a tense struggle for world power that lasted for nearly half a century. The two countries’ never fought each other directly, but tensions were high.
The Soviet Union, the United States, Great Britain, and France were Allies during World War II. After the war, each had differing ideas on how to police and treat the defeated Germany. The British and French were recovering from war, so the power struggle in Germany and the rest of the world played out between the United States and the Soviet Union. Germany became divided in half with the US, Britain, and France controlling West Germany and the Soviet Union controlling East Germany. The capital of Germany, Berlin was divided the same way. Not long after in 1948, tensions between the Soviet Union and the US exploded into a full-blown crisis in the city of Berlin. Upset with the Marshall Plan where the US was providing economic aid to Western European countries and the Truman Doctrine, a promise that the US would do whatever was necessary both economically and militarily to contain the spread of communism around the world, the Soviets blockaded Berlin. The Berlin blockade saw the Soviets block all rail, road, and canal access to the US and other Western European countries. This left millions of west Berliners without access to food and other general necessities.
  	Eventually, the western powers instituted an airlift that lasted nearly a year and delivered vital supplies and relief to West Berlin. This response by the US to the Soviet Blockade became known as the Berlin Airlift and was the first major conflict of the Cold War.                  
The United States and its allies believed in Democracy and Capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system where production and goods/services are owned privately by citizens called entrepreneurs, not by the government. The Soviet Union had differing ideas. The Soviet Union believed in the political and economic system of Communism. In communism, the government controls both the government and all means of production along with goods/supplies in the economy.

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