The Cold War began on the heels of World War II and ended in 1991 with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. While it lasted, this conflict raised two critical questions at the center of global history: What conditions, and whose interests, would determine the balance of power in Europe and Asia? And how would the developing nations (the European colonies in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa) gain their independence and take their places on the world stage? Cold War rivalry framed the possible answers to both questions as it drew the United States into a prolonged engagement with world affairs, unprecedented in the nation’s history, that continues to the present day.