The struggle between the U.S. and Western Europe against the Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies. It involved confrontation but no actual "hot" warfare. The Cold War began in the 1940s when the U.S. believed it was imperative to check Soviet expansionist designs on Western Europe. It reached its height during the 1950s and 1960s, when the threat of nuclear annihilation hung over the world, particularly during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. The Cold War made itself felt all over the globe; it was as if the entire world was divided into two units, East and West. No small regional Third World conflict was insignificant. The U.S. backed any regime that was anti- communist; while the Soviets tried to expand their influence anywhere they could, from Cuba and Central America to the Middle East and Africa. The Cold War eased slightly during the 1970s as a result of the U.S.-Soviet policy of detente. It finally began to wind down in the late 1980s.