The ongoing conflict in Ukraine threatens to be the biggest risk to peace between the West and Russian since the end of the Cold War era.
In the late 1940s Eastern European countries became satellites of the Soviet Union – including East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Rumania. The US and the West responded with the creation of NATO in 1949.
In 1961 the Soviets built the Berlin Wall – a symbol of the Cold War. During the 1950s through to the late 1980s, the threat of nuclear war between the West and the Soviet Union hung over Europe and the rest of the world. The Cuban Missile Crisis of the 1960s was when many experts believe the world came closest to tipping over into nuclear conflict.
