Conclusion

The Cold War was a remarkable period in political history and in military strategy. The Cold War demanded that the USA repudiate pre-Second World War policies of unilaterism on security issues. US troops would permanently garrison Europe as a symbol of American resolve to come to the defence of its European allies. North Atlantic Treaty Organization grew from a consultative framework into an enduring military alliance that has outlived the end of the Cold War. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was as dramatic as it was remarkable for having taken place without erupting into a war or into a war-threatening break-up of Russia itself. The United States entered the Cold War as a global economic superpower with a single potential military peer competitor. When the Cold War wound itself down and the Soviet Union disintegrated with unanticipated rapidity, the USA emerged as a singular military superpower with European and Japanese economic peer competitors.