World War II and the Cold War
War and mobilization
Neutrality Acts gave way to cash-and-carry, destroyers-for-bases, and Lend-Lease as Roosevelt aided the Allies short of war. Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941) ended the debate. The War Production Board converted factories, rationing controlled consumption, and women and minorities entered war work; Executive Order 9066 interned Japanese Americans, upheld in Korematsu (1944). Midway, Stalingrad, and D-Day turned the tide; the Manhattan Project produced the bombs used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Origins of the Cold War
Yalta and Potsdam revealed disagreements over Poland, Germany, and the atomic bomb. Kennan's Long Telegram shaped containment. The Truman Doctrine (1947) aided Greece and Turkey, the Marshall Plan rebuilt Western Europe, the Berlin Airlift defeated a blockade, and NATO (1949) formed a collective-defense alliance against the Warsaw Pact (1955). The Korean War (1950-1953) ended in stalemate near the 38th parallel.
The home front of the Cold War
Loyalty programs, HUAC, the Rosenberg trial, and McCarthy's accusations made anticommunism a political weapon. Sputnik (1957) produced NASA and the National Defense Education Act. Eisenhower combined brinkmanship with covert action; Kennedy faced the Bay of Pigs, the Berlin Wall, and the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), and Vietnam deepened under Johnson.
Traps. Containment is defensive and political, while rollback and massive retaliation are more aggressive; the Marshall Plan is economic and the Truman Doctrine was military and economic aid.
Rule of thumb. Ask whether a policy aims to contain or to reverse Soviet power.
Worked example. NATO's purpose was collective defense against Soviet expansion, not European reconstruction.