Yugoslavia is a somewhat unique case in the history of the Cold War in Europe. Although essentially a Communist nation, the government of Yugoslavia, led by Marshal Tito, sought to distance itself from Soviet hegemony. Tito was an ardent Yugoslavian nationalist.

The Truman Doctrine was the primary foreign policy of President Harry Truman in the years immediately after World War Two. The Truman Doctrine stated that the United States would provide economic and military aid to those countries facing a communist uprising to stop the spread of socialism and Soviet hegemony. The first two countries to be given American aid under the Truman Doctrine were Greece and Turkey, in 1947. Both countries were facing threats of Soviet hegemony and communist uprisings, so they were given financial and military support by the United States.

During the Cold War in Europe, the vast majority of countries fell into one of two groups. Western Europe was primarily capitalist and allied, through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), with the United States. NATO included France, Austria, Greece, Great Britain, West Germany, and several other countries. Communist Eastern Europe primarily fell under the influence of the Soviet Union, and was allied under the Warsaw Pact. The Warsaw Pact included Poland, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, and several other countries. Yugoslavia, itself a Communist nation, resisted the Soviet hegemony and, along with India, Egypt, and Indonesia, formed the non-alignment bloc of independent nations.

The Geneva Convention was organized in 1955 with the stated aim of reducing global tension and beginning the process towards world peace. It failed in this mission, but it represented the first of many attempts during the Cold War to try and find an entente between the East and the West. It was attended by the political leaders of the United States, France, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union.

The Warsaw Pact was an agreement signed in 1955 between the various Eastern European and Soviet-bloc countries of the Cold War. It aimed to provide for mutual cooperation and defense and was essentially created as a foil to the American- and British-lead NATO Pact, which West Germany had joined the year before.

The European Coal and Steel Community is generally considered as the initial step in the integration of European markets and politics under one umbrella organization, now called the European Union. It was initially proposed by the French government in 1950 as a means to prevent any future war in Europe between France and Germany. The aim was to make it so war was not just improbable, but rather "materially impossible" by integrating the economies of France and Germany so much that they were dependent on each other. By 1951, the ECSC was ratified by six countries: France, West Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, and Luxembourg.

The French Fourth Republic was formed in the aftermath of World War Two, but immediately ran into the same problems of the French Third Republic: an Executive Branch that was too weak, with too many diverse political parties. The government was unable to rule effectively, and the Fourth Republic crumbled after just a decade. The wartime hero, Charles de Gaulle, was called back to office to preside over the transition to the French Fifth Republic, which has continued to this day.

The Helsinki Accords were signed in 1975, by the United States and most of the European countries, to recognize the territorial gains made by the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe in the immediate aftermath of World War Two. It was seen, at the time, as a major diplomatic victory for the Soviet Union and a lessening of the tensions between the East and the West during the Cold War.

After the end of World War Two, the city of Berlin was divided into four zones of control: American, British, French, and Russian; however, the city itself was located in East Germany and thus under direct control of the Soviet Union. The American, French, and British sections were combined to form West Berlin. As the Cold War began to dominate global politics, the Soviet Union tried to control the entire city of Berlin and closed off the city to trade with the Western world. The French, British, and particularly American authorities, under the leadership of General Marshall, airlifted supplies into the Western areas of the city to keep the population from starving and also to keep them from turning in desperation to Communism.

The Algerian Crisis occurred in 1958 when a group of French generals and Algerian politicians staged a coup in Algeria in an attempt to create an independent Algerian nation free of French control. It led directly to the demise of the already weakening French Fourth Republic and precipitated the rise of the French Fifth Republic.