I'm not sure the post-WW2 had to pick sides. There were plenty of non-aligned states, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Aligned_Movement https://en.wikiped

I'm not sure the post-WW2 had to pick sides. There were plenty of non-aligned states, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Aligned_Movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Aligned_Movement for one example, but there were plenty of others. Picking sides (and swapping sides) was often useful to get patronage and to play the sides against each other, but it wasn't necessary.