Foreign Policy Provcast

On March 5, 1946—75 years ago—Winston Churchill delivered the “Sinews of Peace” at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. The terms “special relationship” to describe US-UK relations and “Iron Curtain” both become household terms after the speech, and some, particularly Russian historians, point to this moment as the official start to the Cold War. At the time, Churchill was serving as leader of the opposition in Parliament after losing the UK general election in 1945. The world was recovering from the Second World War and ready for peace. Many in the United States and elsewhere were optimistic about future relations with the Soviet Union, an American and British ally just a few months before, and the possible peace that might come from the United Nations, whose Security Council started its first session in London in January 1946. Yet the former and future prime minister delivered a startling message to Americans who were largely unprepared to countenance the prospect of a looming, decades-long conflict ag