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The Cold War was a gigantic not-war between the United States and the USSR that took lace between the end of World War II and 1989. Almost every corner of the planet was involved in the power struggle for economic domination.
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Roots
The seeds of the Cold War were sown during the closing days of World War II's European theater. As Germany collapsed inward, The allied forces agreed that it was in everyone's best interests that Germany be pacified in an attempt to avoid another War. America felt that, looking back on the failure of the punitive measures taken at the close of World War I, the best course of action was not to punish Germany but to help Germany back onto its feet economically. Germany, even the burned-out shell that it was at the time, had the potential to be an economic powerhouse, and if that was inevitable, American policymakers though, then they'd rather have it on their side.
The Russians made many of the same decisions regarding Germany, with one exception: they wanted Germany under their influence. The USSR had had the largest losses of any allied power during the war, and the leadership badly wanted restitution for that. They also saw a unified, powerful Germany as a threat; the USSR had learned lessons as well from the aftermath of World War I.
At a number of conferences during and after the war, the allies bickered over what should be done with Europe. Russia's communist ideology blended seamlessly with generations of Russian paranoia about foreign influence, which also matched the mindset of Joseph Stalin. Stalin set into motion what Churchill would later call the "Iron Curtain" - The Warsaw Pact, which unified much of Eastern Europe (which the Soviets had already invaded during the war) under Soviet control. These Eastern Bloc countries maintained nominal independence, but their leadership took all marching orderes from Moscow.
At the same time, America and its western allies, in response to what they viewed as an expansionist Russian threat, established NATO. Although less strict than the Warsaw Pact, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization locked its member counties into a defensive alliance. These two alliances would come to define the entire conflict.
Germany's fate was even bleaker. Split into four quadrants after the war as a temporary measure, these divisions eventually hardened into West and East Germany. Berlin, although deep inside the Eastern half of the divided country, was also split like the biblical child before Solomon.
Europe
During the two decades immediately following World War II, Europe had billions of dollars pumped into it from both the United States and the USSR (both to their own sides, of course) with the goal to quite literally build countries from scratch. Most of the continent had been utterly destroyed during the war. Germany, while at the center of many of the disagreements that led to the Cold War in the first place, was one of the Allies greatest successes during the rebuilding phase. As the next forty years would prove, political and economic reforms defanged the previously expansionist Germans.
As the arms race began to build, Europe became the theoretical battleground that any war between east and west would take place. The average European citizen was not too thrilled about this, and for quite some time accepted the placement of NATO and American missiles and defensive installations across Europe. The Russians, whenever possible, matched this deployment across Warsaw Pact countries.
As time passed, however, and the horrific consequences that even a limited nuclear exchange would have on Europe became more obvious, America began to face more direct resistance from its allies. France, in particular, fearing that the US placed no real value in Europe outside of a battlefield not on American shores, broke early and often with NATO and US policy. By the mid-80's, peace movements across Europe were calling for the removal of all nuclear weapons from the continent.
Asia
Asia presented its own unique challenges to military planners. The end of the colonial system that World War II had hastened was a powerful destabilizing force in the region. A major piece of American rhetoric against the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe was self-determination of nations, so America had to come out against colonization in Asia; at the same time, it could ill afford to offend European allies by supporting nationalistic uprising against them in those same colonies.
Japan, however, was a much easier set-piece. Much like Germany in Europe, Japan was seen as a vital ally in the new struggle against communism. A rebuilt, economically strong Japan was exactly what strategic planners needed. Part of the reasoning that led Truman to drop the Atomic bombs at all was to end the war before Russia could enter the Pacific front and split Japan as had happened to Germany.
Just across the bay, however, was the rotting regime in China. Communist rebels had already taken over most of the eastern half of the country, despite American influxes of weapons and funding. Privately, diplomats considered the monarchy and related bureaucracy unsalvageable, but preferred an impotent China to a Communist (then seen as equivalent to Soviet-controlled) one. By 1949, however, Mao rolled into Beijing and established the People's Republic.