what was the soviet non aggression pact why was it called the cold war

Stalin supposedly knew that Hitler planned to attack the U.S.S.R. Many hawks will object and claim the deal was a stall tactic by the Soviet Union. The pact’s effects were horrifying it kick-started the German invasion of Poland on September 1 it divided Eastern Europe between the Nazis and the Soviets it allowed Hitler to avoid a two-front war until June 22, 1941. The Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact made the two totalitarian goliaths allies for the first-third of World War II. That dubious distinction belongs to an odious deal struck between Hitler and Stalin on August 23, 1939.

In short, the Munich Agreement did not cause World War II. In his fascinating book, The Devils' Alliance: Hitler’s Pact with Stalin, 1939-1941, Roger Moorhouse explodes such tidy hawkish narratives. At minimum, this is what has passed for conventional foreign policy wisdom in the United States since 1945.

In that vein, the lesson(s) of Munich seems clear: democracies must ardently oppose autocrats who bully and/or devour their neighbors lest weakness invite continued aggression. Under threat of attack by Nazi Germany, the western democracies sacrificed the Austrians, Czechs, Spaniards, and Albanians to prevent a war that came anyway. By any measure, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement was an unequivocal failure.

What was the soviet non aggression pact why was it called the cold war