The cold war is dead and the autopsies have begun. It lasted nearly a quarter of a century, or twice as long as Hitler's thousand-year Reich. It left scarcely any nation of the earth untouched—and even extended into outer space—as America and Russia struggled over a world they thought must belong either to one or to the other. Caught in the grip of the equally powerful ideologies of communism and anti-communism, and in a consuming aspiration of world leadership, the two superpowers sought security in the elusive quest for military supremacy.