The Cold War began after World War Two. The main enemies were the United States and the Soviet Union. The Cold War got its name because both sides were afraid of fighting each other directly.
冷战始于第二次世界大战后,战争分为两大阵营:美国和苏联。之所以叫冷战是因为双方都害怕直接交战。
In such a hot war, nuclear weapons might destroy everything. So, instead, they fought each other indirectly. They supported conflicts in different parts of the world. They also used words as weapons.
“热战”中,核武器可能会摧毁一切,因此,他们采用冷战。他们支持世界各地的冲突,还将文字作为武器。
They threatened and denounced each other. Or they tried to make each other look foolish. Over the years, leaders on both sides changed. Yet the Cold War continued.
他们互相威胁,互相指责,或者试图让对方看起来很愚蠢。多年来,双方政权更迭,然而冷战仍在继续。
It was the major force in world politics for most of the second half of the twentieth century. Historians disagree about how long the Cold War lasted.
二十世纪下半叶的大部分时间,美苏一直主导着世界政治格局。历史学家对冷战持续多长时间意见不一。
Some believe it ended when the United States and the Soviet Union improved relations during the nineteen sixties and early nineteen seventies. Others believe it ended when the Berlin Wall was torn down in nineteen eighty-nine.
The Cold War world was separated into three groups. The United States led the West. This group included countries with democratic political systems.
冷战时期,世界被分裂成三组,美国领导西方世界,包括施行民主政治制度的国家。
The Soviet Union led the East. This group included countries with communist political systems. The Non-Aligned group included countries that did not want to be tied to either the West or the East.
苏联领导东方世界,包括施行共产主义政治制度的国家。不结盟国家包括不愿与西方或东方结盟的国家。
Harry Truman was the first American president to fight the Cold War. He used several policies. One was the Truman Doctrine. This was a plan to give money and military aid to countries threatened by communism.
The Truman Doctrine effectively stopped communists from taking control of Greece and Turkey. Another policy was the Marshall Plan. This strengthened the economies and governments of countries in Western Europe.
A major event in the Cold War was the Berlin Airlift. In June nineteen forty-eight, the Soviets blocked all ways into the western part of Berlin, Germany.
冷战时期发生的重大事件是柏林空运。1948年6月,苏联封锁了通往德国柏林西部的所有道路。
President Truman quickly ordered military planes to fly coal, food, and medicine to the city. The planes kept coming, sometimes landing every few minutes, for more than a year.
The United States received help from Britain and France. Together, they provided almost two and one-half million tons of supplies on about two hundred-eighty thousand flights.
美国得到了英国和法国的援助,英法在28万次飞行中为美国提供了将近250万吨的物资。
The United States also led the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in nineteen forty-nine. NATO was a joint military group. Its purpose was to defend against Soviet forces in Europe.
The first members of NATO were Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, and the United States.
北约最初的成员国是比利时、英国、加拿大、丹麦、法国、冰岛、意大利、卢森堡、荷兰、葡萄牙和美国。
The Soviet Union and its east European allies formed their own joint military group -- the Warsaw Pact -- six years later. In nineteen fifty-three, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin died.
His death gave the new American president, Dwight Eisenhower, a chance to deal with new Soviet leaders. In July, nineteen fifty-five, Eisenhower and Nikolai Bulganin met in Geneva, Switzerland. The leaders of Britain and France also attended.
Eisenhower proposed that the Americans and Soviets agree to let their military bases be inspected by air by the other side. The Soviets later rejected the proposal. Yet the meeting in Geneva was not considered a failure.
After all, the leaders of the world's most powerful nations had shaken hands. Cold War tensions increased, then eased, then increased again over the years.
毕竟,世界上最强大国家的领导人已经握手言和。多年来,冷战紧张局势不断加剧,有所缓和,又再度加剧。
The changes came as both sides actively tried to influence political and economic developments around the world. For example, the Soviet Union provided military, economic, and technical aid to communist governments in Asia.
The United States then helped eight Asian nations fight communism by establishing the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization. In the middle nineteen fifties, the United States began sending military advisers to help south Vietnam defend itself against communist North Vietnam.
That aid would later expand into a long and bloody period of American involvement in Vietnam. The Cold War also affected the Middle East.
这一援助后来扩展成美国对越南漫长血腥的军事侵略。冷战也影响了中东。
In the nineteen fifties, both East and West offered aid to Egypt to build the Aswan High Dam on the Nile River. The West cancelled its offer, however, after Egypt bought weapons from the communist government of Czechoslovakia.
Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser then seized control of the company that operated the Suez Canal. A few months later, Israel invaded Egypt. France and Britain joined the invasion.
For once, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed on a major issue. Both supported a United Nations resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire.
这一次,美国和苏联在重大问题上达成了一致。双方都支持联合国要求立即停火的决议。
The Suez crisis was a political victory for the Soviets. When the Soviet Union supported Egypt, it gained new friends in the Arab world.
苏伊士运河危机是苏联政治上的胜利。苏联支持埃及时,结交了阿拉伯新朋友。
In nineteen fifty-nine, Cold War tensions eased a little. The new Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, visited Dwight Eisenhower at his holiday home near Washington.
The meeting was very friendly. But the next year, relations got worse again. An American military plane was shot down over the Soviet Union.
此次会面很顺利。但第二年,两国关系再次恶化。美国的一架军用飞机在苏联被击落。
Eisenhower admitted that such planes had been spying on the Soviets for four years. In a speech at the United Nations, Khrushchev got so angry that he took off his shoe and beat it on a table.
John Kennedy followed Eisenhower as president in nineteen sixty-one. During his early days in office, Cuban exiles invaded Cuba. They wanted to oust the communist government of Fidel Castro.
The exiles had been trained by America's Central Intelligence Agency. The United States failed to send military planes to protect them during the invasion.
流亡者在美国中央情报局接受了培训。在入侵期间,美国未能派遣军用飞机保护他们。
As a result, almost all were killed or taken prisoner. In Europe, tens of thousands of East Germans had fled to the West. East Germany's communist government decided to stop them.
结果,几乎所有人都被杀害或俘虏。在欧洲,成千上万的东德人逃往西方。东德共产主义决定阻止他们逃走,
It built a wall separating the eastern and western parts of the city of Berlin. Guards shot at anyone who tried to flee by climbing over. During Kennedy's second year in office, American intelligence reports discovered Soviet missiles in Cuba.
The Soviet Union denied they were there. American photographs proved they were. The Cuban missile crisis easily could have resulted in a nuclear war. But it ended after a week.
苏联否认这一说法,美国的照片证明了导弹的事实。古巴导弹危机会很容易引发核战争,但一周后就结束了。
Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles if the United States agreed not to interfere in Cuba. Some progress was made in easing Cold War tensions when Kennedy was president.
如果美国同意不干涉古巴,赫鲁晓夫同意撤除导弹。肯尼迪担任总统期间,缓和冷战紧张局势取得了一些进展。
In nineteen sixty-three, the two sides reached a major arms control agreement. They agreed to ban tests of nuclear weapons above ground, under water, and in space.
1963年,双方达成了一项重要的军备控制协议,他们同意在地面、水下和太空禁止进行核武器试验,
They also established a direct telephone line between the White House and the Kremlin. Relations between East and West also improved when Richard Nixon was president. He and Leonid Brezhnev met several times.
They reached several arms control agreements. One reduced the number of missiles used to shoot down enemy nuclear weapons. It also banned the testing and deployment of long-distance missiles for five years.
A major change in the Cold War took place in nineteen eighty-five. That is when Mikhail Gorbachev became leader of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev held four meetings with President Ronald Reagan.
He withdrew Soviet forces from Afghanistan. And he signed an agreement with the United States to destroy all middle-distance and short-distance nuclear missiles.
从阿富汗撤出了苏联军队。他还与美国签署了一项协议,销毁所有中短程核导弹。
By nineteen eighty-nine, there was widespread unrest in eastern Europe. Gorbachev did not intervene as these countries cut their ties with the Soviet Union.
1989年,东欧动乱四起。随着东欧国家与苏联断绝关系,戈尔巴乔夫没有干预动乱。
The Berlin Wall, the major symbol of communist oppression, was torn down in November. In less than a year, East and West Germany became one nation again.
11月,标志共产主义压迫的柏林墙被推倒。在不到一年的时间里,东德和西德再次统一。
A few months after that, the Warsaw Pact was dissolved. The Cold War was over.