Editing Western Europe (section)

===Cold War ===
[[File:Europe-blocs-49-89x4.svg|thumb|Political spheres of influence in Europe during the [[Cold War]]; neutral countries (shaded grey or light blue) considered informally Western-oriented but not formally aligned to the West]]
During the four [[Decade|decades]] of the [[Cold War]], the definition of East and West was simplified by the existence of the [[Eastern Bloc]]. A number of historians and social scientists view the Cold War definition of Western and Eastern Europe as outdated or relegating.<ref name="cotf.edu">"One very common, but now outdated, definition of Eastern Europe was the Soviet-dominated communist countries of Europe."http://www.cotf.edu/earthinfo/balkans/BKdef.html {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171210020555/http://www.cotf.edu/earthinfo/balkans/BKdef.html |date=10 December 2017 }}</ref><ref name="review">"Too much writing on the region has – consciously or unconsciously – clung to an outdated image of 'Eastern Europe', desperately trying to patch together political and social developments from Budapest to Bukhara or Tallinn to Tashkent without acknowledging that this Cold War frame of reference is coming apart at the seams. {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20171031132532/http://www.ce-review.org/99/1/hanley1.html Central Europe Review: Re-Viewing Central Europe By Sean Hanley, Kazi Stastna and Andrew Stroehlein, 1999]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last1=Berglund |first1=Sten |last2=Ekman |first2=Joakim |last3=Aarebrot |first3=Frank H. |title=The handbook of political change in Eastern Europe |page=2 |year=2004 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=HeRzzwzdfPkC&q=Eastern+Europe+term+outdated&pg=PA2 |access-date=5 October 2011 |quote=The term 'Eastern Europe' is ambiguous and in many ways outdated. |isbn=978-1-78195-432-4 }}</ref>

During the final stages of [[World War II]], the future of Europe was decided between the [[Allies of World War II|Allies]] in the 1945 [[Yalta Conference]], between the [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|British Prime Minister]], [[Winston Churchill]], the [[President of the United States|U.S. President]], [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]], and the [[Premier of the Soviet Union]], [[Joseph Stalin]].

Post-war Europe was divided into two major spheres: the [[Western Bloc]], influenced by the [[United States]], and the [[Eastern Bloc]], influenced by the [[Soviet Union]]. With the onset of the Cold War, Europe was divided by the [[Iron Curtain]]. This term had been used during [[World War II]] by German [[Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda|Propaganda Minister]] [[Joseph Goebbels]] and, later, Count [[Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk|Lutz Schwerin von Krosigk]] in the last days of the war; however, its use was hugely popularised by Winston Churchill, who used it in his famous "Sinews of Peace" address on 5 March 1946 at [[Westminster College (Missouri)|Westminster College]] in [[Fulton, Missouri]]:

{{blockquote|From [[Szczecin|Stettin]] in the [[Baltic Sea|Baltic]] to [[Trieste]] in the [[Adriatic Sea|Adriatic]] an ''iron curtain'' has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of [[Central and Eastern Europe]]. [[Warsaw]], [[Berlin]], [[Prague]], [[Vienna]], [[Budapest]], [[Belgrade]], [[Bucharest]] and [[Sofia]]; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.}}

Although some countries were officially [[Neutral country|neutral]], they were classified according to the nature of their political and economic systems. This division largely defines the popular perception and understanding of Western Europe and its borders with [[Eastern Europe]] on the east side. On the western side is the Atlantic ocean.

The world changed dramatically with the fall of the [[Iron Curtain]] in 1989. [[West Germany]] peacefully absorbed [[East Germany]], in the [[German reunification]]. [[Comecon]] and the [[Warsaw Pact]] were dissolved, and in 1991, the [[Dissolution of the Soviet Union|Soviet Union]] ceased to exist. Several countries which had been part of the Soviet Union regained full independence.