Two rising, immense superpowers, the Soviet Union & the United States of America, confronting each other in the hope of dominating global politics for their own interests. At the same time, the Cold War was a real ideological struggle. The United States said it championed both the political freedom that democracy promised and economic freedom in the form of the capitalist system. The Soviet Union said it was fighting for the rights of workers and for economic equality, in the form of communism and socialism. Both countries felt that they had a better system, and both found allies and supporters in many places. So, when historians typically describe the events of the half-century or so after the Second World War ended in 1945 through two separate processes. The first was the Cold War, in which the United States and the Soviet Union led rival coalitions—politically active alliances—that confronted each other on every continent and ocean of the planet and the second is Decolonization. We will use this whole topic just in the first part: the Cold War. However, not everyone picked sides in the struggle. Some countries and people tried to be neutral. But because groups around the world found that they agreed with one side more, much of the world was drawn into this conflict.