Superpower

After the war, the USA and Soviet Union emerged as rival superpowers. Their ideological divide—capitalism in the West and communism in the Soviet Union—made each suspicious of the other’s influence. Their rivalry became the Cold War: they competed for power and influence without directly fighting a war against one another.

By 1945, the USA and USSR were emerging as the dominant superpowers. The central question was no longer simply how to defeat Hitler, but who would shape the post-war international order: the arrangements governing borders, governments, security and relations between countries. Once Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945, the common enemy that had held the alliance together disappeared.