After World War II, the Soviet Union and the United States were the only two powerful countries left. With Germany being divided between the Soviet Union and the United States, tensions began to increase between the two countries. The Cold War began. This was a war where the Soviet Union and the United States did not fight directly, but each wanted to have a bigger influence than the other over the world. The Soviet Union wanted to spread communism around the world. (Communism is the belief that the government should own the economy to make everybody equal). Truman believed in a policy called containment: that the U.S. should contain communism and stop it from spreading. Truman declared the Truman Doctrine, which said the United States should give money to Turkey and Greece so that they could be strong enough to defend themselves from communism.