Sabre Aircraft

After World War II ended, the United States and the Soviet Union began competing for primacy in a global struggle pitting democracy against communism. As the Soviets seized military and political control in Eastern Europe and the Baltics, turning them into a series of satellite states, the United States and Britain could see that a new Cold War had begun. Tensions between the two superpowers led to such confrontations as the Berlin blockade, the downing of an American U-2 spy plane, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. "Hot" wars erupted in Korea and Vietnam.