And the Soviets saw American rebuilding efforts in Europe and Japan as the US trying to expand its markets, which by the way is exactly what we were doing. So the US feared that the USSR wanted to destroy democratic and capitalist institutions and the Soviets feared that the US wanted to use its money and power to dominate Europe and eventually destroy the Soviet system. And both parties were right to be worried. It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you. Now of course we've seen a lot of geopolitical struggles between major world powers here on Crash Course, but this time there was this special added bonus that war could lead to the destruction of the human species. That was new for world history and it's worth remembering it's still new. Here's the period of time we've discussed on Crash Course and this is how long we've had the technological capability to exterminate ourselves.