Question: what helped the united states change back to a peacetime economy

title: History of the United States (1945–64)
text: By 1947 , the Soviets had fully absorbed the three Baltic nations , and effectively controlled Poland , East Germany , Czechoslovakia , Romania , and Bulgaria . Austria and Finland were neutral and demilitarized . The Kremlin did not control Yugoslavia , which had a separate communist regime under Marshall Tito ; They had a permanent bitter break in 1948 . The Cold War lines stabilized in Europe along the Iron Curtain , and there was no fighting . The United States helped form a strong military alliance in NATO in 1949 including most of the nations of Western Europe , and Canada . In Asia , however , there was much more movement . The United States failed to negotiate a settlement between its ally , nationalist China under Chiang Kai - shek , and the Communists under Mao Zedong . The Communists took over China in 1949 and role of the nationalist to the offshore island of Formosa ( Taiwan ) which came under American protection . Local communist movements attempted to take over all of Korea ( 1950 ) and Vietnam ( 1954 ) . Communist hegemony covered one third of the world 's land while the United States emerged as the world 's more influential superpower , and formed a worldwide network of military alliances .