STARTING IN 1947, THE UNITED STATES FOUND itself in a pitched battle for global leadership against the Soviet Union, aka the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), a federation of fifteen republics, with Moscow, the capital of the Russian republic, the center of power. Two superpowers. Two warring ideologies (state control of everything versus capitalism). Two economies (“command” or government controlled versus free market). Two nations with enough nuclear weapons to destroy the planet several times over. A head-on confrontation would result in Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).
