COLD War US and soviet union At the end of the Second World War, the cold war had begun the world lay divided between two great superpowers the United States and the Soviet Union it would not be a conventional war with the two sides never directly fighting instead it would be an ideological battle between communism and capitalism, the east first the west and the resulting struggle for ideological influence and power, both sides would stockpile nuclear weapons with questions over how to use control and eliminate them becoming central to the conflict from Stalin to Reagan from the arms race to the Cuban missile crisis from the berlin wall to Vietnam and Korea. this is the story of the cold war, at the end of the second world war Europe lay divided between two camps the soviet union the world's leading communist power would rule over what would become known as the eastern block after suffering almost 27 million casualties during the war soviet leader joseph Stalin had been