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The end of World War II in 1945 ushered the might and power of the United States onto the global stage. Europe had been decimated by World War I and had suffered through a world-wide economic depression. World War II, Germany’s second attempt at domination, flattened the region yet again. Among the Western allies, the Soviet Union began to flex its power by rapidly annexing nations that abutted it, including Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Hungary. Within a short time, the Soviet Union’s fierce grip became the enemy of the United States and the West. This new, uncomfortable antagonism was dubbed the Cold War because the next few decades were spent posturing and threatening but with limited conventional warfare. Both the United States and the Soviet Union created massive arsenals of intercontinental nuclear weapons with neither superpower willing to be the first to launch a war that could destroy the entire planet. Early in the Cold War, DISA’s predecessor, the Defense Communications Agency was tasked to create a hotline between the US President in Washington, DC and the Soviet President in the Kremlin, Moscow, Russia. Such a precarious balance of power was called “brinksmanship” and this hotline was created to make communication between the two leaders secure, reliable and fast. It was called the Moscow-Washington hotline or the MOLINK. DCA created and maintained the MOLINK and continues to do so today.
| Date Taken: | 01.14.2026 |
| Date Posted: | 01.20.2026 06:51 |
| Category: | Series |
| Video ID: | 993134 |
| VIRIN: | 260114-O-WH300-2511 |
| Filename: | DOD_111482446 |
| Length: | 00:00:59 |
| Location: | US |
| Downloads: | 3 |
| High-Res. Downloads: | 3 |
This work, DISA History Minute - MOLINK, by Nicholas Kurtz, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
