On Jan 29, 2:14*pm, Stephen Sprunk wrote:

NATO wasn't formed until 1949, the Warsaw Pact until 1955, and the
standoff between those two entities was the essence of the Cold War.

The biography of James Byrnes, Truman's first Secretary of State,
describes in detail how the Cold War evolved before the guns of WW II
even got cold. There were places the Soviets had armies where they
were not supposed to be and it took pressure to get them out. The
situation in Poland was a sore spot even when FDR was still alive.

The Cold War was one of the factors in gaining Eisenhower's,
Congressional, and public support for a very large and expensive
program. They included the word "Defense" in the description for that
reason.