There was also a huge amount of espionage, or spying, during the cold war, which left both sides very suspicious of each other. However, in general the period of the Cold War has been viewed as very stabilizing for the world, politically. As each superpower matched it their strength against one another, it left the world as a sort of political stalemate. Whilst progress for global society may have been very slow during this time (1945-1991), the world political scene wa considered to the very stable.