Question: who started the cold war us or soviet union

title: Cold War
text: In January 1977 , four years prior to becoming president , Ronald Reagan bluntly stated , in a conversation with Richard V. Allen , his basic expectation in relation to the Cold War . `` My idea of American policy toward the Soviet Union is simple , and some would say simplistic , '' he said . `` It is this : We win and they lose . What do you think of that ? '' In 1980 , Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter in the 1980 presidential election , vowing to increase military spending and confront the Soviets everywhere . Both Reagan and new British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher denounced the Soviet Union and its ideology . Reagan labeled the Soviet Union an `` evil empire '' and predicted that Communism would be left on the `` ash heap of history , '' while Thatcher inculpated the Soviets as `` bent on world dominance . ''