Abstract/Summary

The Cold War has always been a historical stage that has attracted much attention. This historical stage has profoundly affected todays international situation and peoples perception of great power competition. The Cold War lasted for nearly forty-four years. During this nearly half a century, the US and the Soviet Union used almost all means of confrontation except direct armed conflict to achieve the effect of suppressing each other. By analyzing past historical events and cases for example, this paper mainly discusses the causes of the Cold War and how it prevent armed conflict from becoming two topics of widespread concern, and it concludes that the outbreak of the Cold War was related to the anarchy among the great powers, and also related to the differences in economic systems between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The Cold War prevented nuclear war but intensified conventional war to some extent. This paper aims to tell people that the Cold War is not an ideal state of the international community, all countries should learn lessons from the Cold War to avoid the recurrence of this unhealthy international pattern.