In his book, The Week the World Stood Still, Sheldon M. Stern states: “Never before or since has the survival of human civilization been at stake in a few weeks of dangerous deliberations. ". This statement accurately summarizes the Cuban Missile Crisis, a 13-day period at the height of the Cold War in which the Soviet Union and the United States stood on the brink of a thermonuclear world war. While The United States threatened both the borders of the USSR and Cuba, its only ally in the west, Nikita Khrushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union, had to act Given the state of the world at the time. At the time, the Soviet placement of nuclear missiles in Cuba and negotiations were entirely reasonable, and the United States' response to these actions was irrational and dangerous. Hostility between the Soviet Union and the United States existed. well before the start of the crisis, as early as World War I. When West Germany joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which included countries such as Italy, among its members. the United Kingdom and the United States, in May 2017, In 1955, the Soviet Union took it as a threat intended for the USSR. In response to this threat, the Soviets formed the Warsaw Pact which established a united military force for the Soviet Union and its allies, making the two alliances rivals. After a brief interruption of peace during World War II, when nations allied against Germany, aggression only worsened with the start of the Cold War and the nuclear arms race for supremacy nuclear. The two nations were neck and neck in the quest to create the largest quantity and most powerful nuclear weapon. Although both countries created nuclear missiles, each pursued a very different approach...... middle of paper ......61–1968 - Milestones - Office of the Historian. " Office of the Historian. U.S. Department of State, October 31, 2013. Web. February 27, 2014. .Trueman, Chris. “What was the Cold War?" History Learning Site, 28 February 2014. Trueman, Chris. “The Nuclear Arms Race.” History Learning Site. Np, nd Web. February 28, 2014. “What was the Missile Gap?” Central Intelligence Agency. Central Intelligence Agency, nd Web. March 2, 2014. . van Hoesel, Frans. "The Soviet Union and the United States." Online exhibition of Soviet archives. Np, nd Web. March 1.. 2014. .