What do you think were the 2 most significant events that increased tension during the cold war? and explain.

Alliance system and Brinkmanship.

Explanation: The cold war was a state of tension and mistrust between the United States and the Soviet Union. After World War II, the United States wanted to encourage democracy while the Soviet Union wanted to set up Communist countries.

The alliance system is when countries join forces together to achieve a certain goal. The two alliances that deepened tensions included NATO and the Warsaw Pact. NATO united many western European nations and the United States with the goal of preventing the spread of communism and protect nations attacked by the Soviet Union.

Brinkmanship is the practice of trying to achieve an advantageous outcome by pushing dangerous events to the brink of active conflict such as threatening the use of nuclear weapons. This was a constant possibility during the cold was such as in 1962 when the Soviet Union placed nuclear missiles in Cuba. This escalated tensions between the soviet union and the United States.

punish germany and keep it weak,

explanation: we can only guess at how our actions may be perceived in the future. doing something really big like killing lots of people, saving lots of people, affecting the lives of lots of people is a sure fire way of being remembered in historical records. we can also make a difference in the history records by being a small influence on something bigger, whether that is as a civil servant, scientist or artist.

of course you could argue that we all affect history just as tiny cogs in a   bigger machine.

if you mean how do people influence our opinions of things which have already happened, then simply by writing a book which looks at things form a different perspective and trying to convince people that this perspective is more accurate or truthful. people do it all the time i.e. richard the third was a terrible or was he? plenty would disagree, it's just that their views aren't the most widely known.n: