Bob Parker: ABC News 45-85- Start of The Cold War

What British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was talking about when he called for the need for a North Atlantic Alliance that would fight against the spread of communism in Europe, became NATO in 1949. The North Atlantic Alliance between North America and Europe. Where they would combine some of their forces to prevent a Russian invasion of Western Europe from the east. But that was just part of protecting Europe from an Russian invasion. The first part was the so-called Marshall Plan, named after U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall. Which was a large economic aid package for Western Europe to rebuild those states.

Post World War II America and Europe we get the Cold War, United Nations, NATO and Europe does something very clever with creating the European Union. That would try to promote the economic well-being of Democratic Europe, as well as foreign policy interests. The EU gets looked down upon now, but for the most part has served Democratic Europe very well in promoting economic development and trade inside of Europe and exporting European products outside of Europe. And keeping Europe strong during most of the Cold War so Russia would be crazy to try to invade them.

America and Russia were basically still allies, or at the very least partners up to the creation of NATO in the late 1940s. American President Harry Truman said that Russian President Joe Stalin was someone he could do business with. Sort of sounds like a foolish statement now, but they worked very well together in seeing that Nazism was defeated in Europe and especially in Germany. But thanks to NATO, the European Union and America emerging as the liberal democratic superpower that it was then and still is today, we haven’t had another World War since.