What was threatening Western Europe after WWII?

Western Europe faced numerous threats both in the immediate aftermath and in the long term after World War II. One of the most immediate threats it faced was the chaos and lawlessness once the official fighting stopped. People had been used to constant violence for years, and it took time to restore law and order in many areas. Many people wanted revenge and retribution for the losses they had suffered. Criminals used the unrest and lack of policing to carry out unlawful activities. Prisoners freed from Nazi labor camps became drunk and disorderly, and there was a thriving black market for illicit goods. In the short term, in many places curfew had to be established and military law had to be imposed.

Disease and famine were threats in many areas after the war. There were also millions of refugees, displaced people who had lost their homes and possessions. A surge of anti-Semitism hit postwar Europe as local communities resisted when Jews who survived death camps came home to reclaim their properties. Single women, many of whom were often threatened by rape, and abandoned children had difficulties in assimilating into societies that were without sufficient populations of civilian men and no longer viably functioned. The Marshall Plan, through which the United States spent over $15 billion to help Europe recover after the war, helped to mitigate these threats by restoring food production, rebuilding transportation infrastructure, and stimulating economic growth.

In the long term, the greatest threat to Western Europe after World War II was the outbreak of the Cold War, the imposition of the Iron Curtain between the Western nations and the Communist East Bloc, and the perceived threat of invasion by the East Bloc. One of the ways Western Europe and the United States countered this threat was by the establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, a military alliance meant to act as a deterrent to Soviet aggression.
http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/151464

https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/formation-of-nato-and-warsaw-pact

https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/marshall-plan-1