The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union emerged and developed after World War II , although its origins date back to the Bolshevik Revolution. in 1917. The Cold War was an ideological, economic, political and military confrontation, but it never actually took place between these two nations on a battlefield. It was a war of tensions and hostilities in which belligerents clashed across the globe but avoided direct conflict due to the disastrous consequences of such actions. As the Cold War progressed until the collapse of the Soviet Union, it had a significant impact on American society, economics, and politics. The Cold War sparked strong anti-communism in the United States. The hatred towards communism was so great that it eventually led to McCarthyism. During McCarthyism, Americans were obsessed with the process of identifying communists and eliminating those communists from American society. The strength of this obsession grew dramatically as Americans began to forget that the U.S. Constitution guaranteed all Americans the freedom to believe what they wanted to believe. Say no to plagiarism. Get a Custom Essay on "Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The goal of organizations such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the House Un-American Activities became "the elimination of communists " and laws such as the Communist Control Act were passed to facilitate the process of identifying, capturing, and expelling communists. Also introduced was the McCarran Act, which required all communist organizations to be registered with the US government and prohibited communists from holding US passports and working in defense industries. Inevitably, many were interrogated without having done anything wrong, many lost their jobs, and some even lost their lives, like the Rosenbergs, who were accused of passing secret information about atomic bombs to the Soviet Union. This Red Scare continued to dominate American society until the end of the 1950s. It is no wonder that the theme of the Cold War is still one of the best subjects in history: it brought to life many Americans in fear of the danger of war. This fear of war was fueled by the arms race. An example of this is the Cuban Missile Crisis, which caused great tension in the United States because Cuban missiles could reach the United States at any time. Until the U-2 planes found the missiles in Cuba, the fear was not significant, because people knew that the USSR's missiles would not be able to travel such a long distance to reach the United States. However, the missiles launched into Cuba threatened the security of the United States to such an extent that many Americans had to live in fear. Even though the attitude of mutual assured destruction (MAD) existed, the presence of missiles in such close proximity alarmed many Americans at that time. Besides the Cuban Missile Crisis, Americans lived in constant fear because the Cold War could turn into a hot war at any moment. This constant fear was shared by both nations, but the winner was the one who managed to gain the upper hand over the other and, in this situation, In this case, it was the United States. “The Cold War was fought as much in the imagination as on the battlefield” (The Thaw). Although no attack was ever launched, the looming threat of war.