The USA and USSR were the two superpowers during the Cold War, each leading its own sphere of influence. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 A superpower is a State with a leading position in the international system and the ability to Influence events and project power on a worldwide scale Here Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev meet in 1985. Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev ( Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachyov;; born 2 March 1931 in Privolnoye Stavropol Krai) is a Russian politician

The Cold War was the period of conflict, tension and competition between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies from the mid-1940s until the early 1990s. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 Year 1940 ( MCMXL) was a Leap year starting on Monday (link will display the full 1940 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Year 1990 ( MCMXC) was a Common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1990 Gregorian calendar) Throughout this period, the rivalry between the two superpowers unfolded in multiple arenas, such as military coalitions; ideology; psychology; espionage; and military, industrial, and technological developments, which included the space race. A superpower is a State with a leading position in the international system and the ability to Influence events and project power on a worldwide scale An ideology is a set of beliefs aims and Ideas especially in politics Psychology (from Greek grc ψῡχή psȳkhē, "breath life soul" and grc -λογία -logia) is an Academic and The Space Race was a competition of space exploration between the Soviet Union and the United States, which lasted roughly from 1957 to 1975 In sports, rising tensions between the US and the USSR led to boycotts of major events. The Cold War generated for both superpowers costly defence spending, a massive conventional and nuclear arms race, and many proxy wars. The nuclear Arms race was a competition for supremacy in Nuclear warfare between the United States, the Soviet Union, and their respective A proxy war is the war that results when two powers use third parties as substitutes for fighting each other directly

While there was never a direct military engagement between the US and the Soviet Union, there was half a century of military buildup and political battles for support around the world, including significant involvement of allied and satellite nations in local "third party" wars. War is an international relations Dispute, characterized by organized Violence between National Military units Satellite state is a political term that refers to a country which is formally independent but under heavy influence or control by another country Although the US and the Soviet Union had been allied against the Axis powers, the two sides differed on how to reconstruct the postwar world even before the end of World War II. The Axis powers also known as the Axis alliance Axis nations Axis countries or sometimes just the Axis were those Countries World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including Over the following decades, the Cold War spread outside Europe to every region of the world, as the US sought the "containment" of communism and forged numerous alliances to this end, particularly in Western Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. Containment refers to a Foreign policy of the United States in the early years of the Cold War. Communism is a Socioeconomic structure that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless Society based The Middle East is a Subcontinent with no clear boundaries often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East. There were repeated crises that threatened to escalate into world wars but never did, most notably the Berlin Blockade (1948–49), the Korean War (1950–53), the Vietnam War (1959–1975), the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), and the Soviet-Afghan War (1979–89). A world war is a War affecting the majority of the world's most powerful and populous nations The Berlin Blockade (24 June 1948 – 11 May 1949 was one of the first major international crises of the Cold war. The Korean War refers to a period of military conflict between North Korean and South Korean regimes with major hostilities lasting from June 25 1950 until the The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, or the Vietnam Conflict, occurred in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation between the United States, the Soviet Union, and Cuba during the Cold War. The Soviet war in Afghanistan, also known as the Soviet-Afghan War or just the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, was a nine-year conflict involving There were also periods when tension was reduced as both sides sought détente. Détente is a French term meaning a relaxing or easing the term has been used in international politics since the early 1970s Direct military attacks on adversaries were deterred by the potential for mutual assured destruction using deliverable nuclear weapons. Mutual assured destruction ( MAD; sometimes written as mutually assured destruction) is a Doctrine of military Strategy in which a full-scale A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from Nuclear reactions either fission or a combination of fission and fusion.

The Cold War drew to a close in the late 1980s following Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's summit conferences with United States President Ronald Reagan, and Gorbachev's launching of perestroika and glasnost reform programs. The Origins of the Cold War are widely regarded to lie most directly within the immediate post- World War II relations between the two main Superpowers of the The Cold War (1947-1953 discusses the period within the Cold War from the establishment of the Truman Doctrine in 1947 to the Korean War in 1953 The Cold War (1953-1962 discusses the period within the Cold War from the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in 1953 to the Cuban Missile Crisis The Cold War (1962-1979 refers to the phase within the Cold War that spanned the period between the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis in late October 1962 through The Cold War (1979-1985 discusses the period within the Cold War between the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 to the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev as The Cold War period of 1985 to 1991 began with the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev as Soviet leader and ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 At its simplest the Cold War is said to have begun in 1947. However roots of distrust and tension which are the underlying factors in causing the Cold War can be directly traced Year 1980 ( MCMLXXX) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link displays the 1980 Gregorian calendar) Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev ( Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachyov;; born 2 March 1931 in Privolnoye Stavropol Krai) is a Russian politician (Перестройка) is the Russian term (now used in English for the economic reforms introduced in June 1987 by the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev (Гла́сность)is literally defined as publicity and sometimes figuratively interpreted as "tipping a vase to let someone see into the vase but not the bottom of the vase" After the end of the Cold War, both sides cut military expenditures dramatically and the arms race finally came to an end. Due to the severe financial problems Russia was facing, the United States became the sole superpower in a unipolar world. Polarity in international relations is a description of the distribution of power within the international system

Origins of the term

In the specific sense of the Cold War referring to the post-World War II geopolitical tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States, the term has been attributed to American financier and U. S. presidential advisor Bernard Baruch. Bernard Mannes Baruch (bəˈɹuk ( August 18, 1870 &ndash June 20, 1965) was a Jewish-American Financier, stock market Speculator ^[1] The Cassell Companion to Quotations cites a speech Baruch gave in South Carolina, April 16, 1947, in which he said, "Let us not be deceived: we are today in the midst of a cold war". South Carolina ( is a state in the southern region ( Deep South) of the United States of America. Events 1178 BC - A Solar eclipse may have marked the return of Odysseus, legendary King of Ithaca, to his kingdom Year 1947 ( MCMXLVII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1947 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The Cassell Companion notes that the phrase was actually suggested to Baruch by his speechwriter, Herbert Bayard Swope, who had been using it privately since 1940. Columnist Walter Lippmann also gave the term wide currency after his 1947 book titled Cold War. Walter Lippmann ( September 23, 1889 - December 14, 1974) was an influential American Writer, Journalist, and ^[2]

History

Background

Main article: Origins of the Cold War

Molotov signs the German-Soviet Non-aggression Pact. The Origins of the Cold War are widely regarded to lie most directly within the immediate post- World War II relations between the two main Superpowers of the Behind him are Ribbentrop and Stalin.

There is some disagreement over what constitutes the beginning of the Cold War. While most historians say that it began in the period just after World War II, some say that it began towards the end of World War I, though tensions between the Russian Empire/USSR and the British Empire and the United States date back to the middle of the 19th century. The Russian Empire ( Pre-reform Russian: Pоссійская Имперія Modern Russian: Российская Империя translit: Rossiyskaya The British Empire was the largest empire in history and for over a century was the foremost global power. ^[3]

The ideological clash between communism and capitalism began in 1917 following the Russian Revolution, when the USSR emerged as the first major communist power. Communism is a Socioeconomic structure that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless Society based Capitalism is the Economic system in which the Means of production are owned by private Persons and operated for Profit and where The October Revolution (Октябрьская революция Oktyabrskaya revolyutsiya) also known as the Soviet Revolution This was the first event which made Russian-American relations a matter of major, long-term concern to the leaders in each country. ^[3]

Several events led to suspicion and distrust between the United States and the Soviet Union: US intervention in Russia supporting the White Army in the Russian Civil War, Russia's withdrawal from World War I in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany, the Bolsheviks' challenge to capitalism,^[4] the US refusal to recognize the Soviet Union until 1933. The White movement (Beloie Dvijenie Белое движение whose military arm is known as the White Army (Belaia Armia Белая Армия or White Guard The Russian Civil War (1917–1923 was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Not to be confused with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (February 9 1918, a similar treaty involving Ukraine and the Central Powers. Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. ^[5] Other events in the period immediately before WWII increased this suspicion and distrust. The British appeasement of Germany and the German-Soviet Non-aggression Pact are two notable examples. ^[5]

World War II and Post-War (1939–47)

During the war, the Soviets strongly suspected that the Anglo-Americans had opted to let the Russians bear the brunt of the war effort, to insert themselves only at the last minute so as to influence the peace settlement and dominate Europe. ^[6] Historians such as John Lewis Gaddis dispute this claim, citing other military and strategic calculations for the timing of the Normandy invasion. John Lewis Gaddis is the Robert A Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History at Yale University. Nevertheless, Soviet perceptions (or misconceptions) of the West and vice versa left a strong undercurrent of tension and hostility between the Allied powers. ^[7]

The "Big Three" at the Yalta Conference, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin. The Allies of World War II were the countries officially opposed to the Axis powers during the Second World War. Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC, PC (Can ( 30 November 1874 Joseph Stalin ( ნამდვილი გვარი ჯუღაშვილი|Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; March 5 1953 was General Secretary of the Communist Party

There was severe disagreement between the Allies about how Europe should look following the war. Both sides, moreover, held very dissimilar ideas regarding the establishment and maintenance of post-war security. The Americans tended to understand security in situational terms, assuming that, if US-style governments and markets were established as widely as possible, countries could resolve their differences peacefully, through international organizations. International Organization is a peer-reviewed Academic journal that covers the entire field of International affairs. ^[8] Soviet leaders, however, tended to understand security in terms of space. ^[9] This reasoning was conditioned by Russia's historical experiences, given the frequency with which the country had been invaded over the last 150 years. ^[10]

At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, the Allies attempted to define the framework for a post-war settlement in Europe but could not reach a firm consensus. The Yalta Conference, sometimes called the Crimea Conference and Codenamed the Argonaut Conference, was the wartime meeting from 4 February ^[11] Following the Allied victory in May, the Soviets effectively occupied Eastern Europe, while the US had much of Western Europe. ^[11] In occupied Germany, the US and the Soviet Union established zones of occupation and a loose framework for four-power control with the ailing French and British. ^[12]

Harry S. Truman and Joseph Stalin meeting at the Potsdam Conference on July 18, 1945. The Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern, in Potsdam, Germany, from July 16, Events 390 BC - Roman - Gaulish Wars Battle of the Allia - a Roman army is defeated by raiding Gauls, Year 1945 ( MCMXLV) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar

At the Potsdam Conference, starting in late July, serious differences emerged over the future development of Germany and Eastern Europe. The Potsdam Conference was held at Cecilienhof, the home of Crown Prince Wilhelm Hohenzollern, in Potsdam, Germany, from July 16, ^[13] At this conference Truman informed Stalin that the United States possessed a powerful new weapon. "Stalin’s only reply was to say that he was glad to hear of the bomb and he hoped [the United States] would use it. "^[14] One week after the end of the Potsdam Conference, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki led to further conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuclear attacks near the end of World War II against the Empire of Japan by the United States at Shortly after the attacks, Stalin protested to US officials when Truman offered the Soviets little real influence in occupied Japan. At the end of World War II, Japan was occupied by the Allied Powers, led by the United States with contributions also from Australia, British ^[15]

In February 1946, George F. Kennan's "Long Telegram" from Moscow helped to articulate the growing hard line that was being taken against the Soviets,^[16] and became the basis for US strategy toward the Soviet Union throughout the rest of the Cold War. George Frost Kennan (February 16 1904 &ndash March 17 2005 was an American Advisor, Diplomat, Political scientist, and Historian, best The X Article, formally titled The Sources of Soviet Conduct, was published in Foreign Affairs magazine in July 1947 ^[17] On September 6, 1946, James F. Byrnes made a speech in Germany, repudiating the Morgenthau Plan and warning the Soviets that the US intended to maintain a military presence in Europe indefinitely. Events 3114 BC - According to the Proleptic Julian calendar the current era in the Maya Long Count Calendar started Year 1946 ( MCMXLVI) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full 1946 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. James Francis Byrnes ( May 2, 1879 April 9, 1972) was an American statesman from the state of South Carolina. Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. The Morgenthau Plan was a plan for the occupation of Germany after World War II that advocated measures intended to remove Germany's ability to wage war ^[18] As Byrnes admitted one month later, "The nub of our program was to win the German people [. . . ] it was a battle between us and Russia over minds [. . . . ]"^[19] A few weeks after the release of this "Long Telegram", former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivered his famous "Iron Curtain" speech in Fulton, Missouri. Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC, PC (Can ( 30 November 1874 The " Iron Curtain " was the symbolic ideological and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II until the end Fulton is a City in Callaway County, Missouri, the United States of America ^[20] The speech called for an Anglo-American alliance against the Soviets, whom he accused of establishing an "iron curtain" from "Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic". Trieste (Trieste Slovene and Croatian: Trst; German: Triest) is a city and port in northeastern Italy very near to ^[16]

Further information: Restatement of Policy on Germany

From "Containment" through the Korean War (1947–53)

Main article: Cold War (1947–1953)

By 1947, Truman's advisors were worried that time was running out to counter the influence of the Soviet Union. " Restatement of Policy on Germany " is a famous speech by James F The Cold War (1947-1953 discusses the period within the Cold War from the establishment of the Truman Doctrine in 1947 to the Korean War in 1953 In Europe, post-war economic recovery was faltering, and shortages of food and other essential consumer goods were common. Truman's advisors feared that the Soviet Union was seeking to weaken the position of the US in a period of post-war confusion and collapse. ^[16]

The event which spurred Truman on to announce formally the US's adopting the policy of "containment"^[21] was the British government's announcement in February 1947 that it could no longer afford to finance the Greek monarchical military regime in its civil war against communist-led insurgents. Containment refers to a Foreign policy of the United States in the early years of the Cold War. Rather than view this war as a civil conflict revolving around domestic issues, US policymakers interpreted it as a Soviet effort; however, the insurgents were helped by Josip Broz Tito's Yugoslavia, not Moscow. See also Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Yugoslavia ( Serbo-Croatian ^[5] Secretary of State Dean Acheson accused the Soviet Union of conspiracy against the Greek royalists in an effort to "expand" into the Middle East, Asia, and Africa,^[22] and in March 1947 the administration unveiled the "Truman Doctrine". Dean Gooderham Acheson ( April 11, 1893 — October 12, 1971) was an American statesman and lawyer as United States The Truman Doctrine was a proclamation by US President Harry S As Truman declared during March 1947:^[23]

Further information: Greek Civil War

Truman rallied Americans in his famous "Truman Doctrine" speech to spend $400,000,000 on intervention in the civil war in Greece. The Greek Civil War (ο Eμφύλιος, "the Civil War" fought from 1946 to 1949 by the Governmental forces receiving logistical support by the United Kingdom In order to mobilize an unfriendly Republican Congress, the Democratic president painted the conflict as a contest between "free" peoples and "totalitarian" regimes, thus dramatically heightening the rhetorical stakes of the conflict. The Democratic Party is one of two major Political parties in the United States, the other being the Republican Party. ^[24] By aiding Greece, Truman set a precedent for US aid to regimes, no matter how repressive and corrupt, that requested help to fight communists. ^[5]

President Truman signs the National Security Act Amendment of 1949 with guests in the Oval Office.

Without the assistance of huge capital resources to rebuild industry transferred from the United States, Western European economies failed to recover from the enormous wartime destruction of the region's infrastructure. Communist parties, meanwhile, were winning large votes in free elections in countries such as France and Italy. American policymakers were worried that economic conditions in Western Europe might deteriorate to the point where communist parties could seize power there, too, through free elections or popular revolutions. ^[25] Some US policymakers also feared that their own economy might suffer unless effective demand for their exports in Western Europe was restored. ^[26]

For US policymakers, threats to Europe's balance of power were not necessarily military ones, but a political and economic challenge. ^[16] George Kennan helped to summarise the problem at the State Department Planning Staff in May 1947: "Communist activities" were not "the root of the difficulties of Western Europe" but rather "the disruptive effects of the war on the economic, political, and social structure of Europe". ^[27] According to this view, the Communists were "exploiting the European crisis" to gain power. ^[27] In June, following the recommendations of the State Department Planning Staff, the Truman Doctrine was complemented by the Marshall Plan, a pledge of economic assistance aimed at rebuilding the Western political-economic system and countering perceived threats to Europe's balance of power, which the US had gone to war to restore, from the radical left. The Marshall Plan (from its enactment officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was the primary plan of the United States for rebuilding and creating a stronger ^[28]

Map of Cold-War era Europe and the Near East showing countries that received Marshall Plan aid. The Marshall Plan (from its enactment officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was the primary plan of the United States for rebuilding and creating a stronger The red columns show the relative amount of total aid per nation.

After lobbying by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Generals Clay and Marshall, the Truman administration finally realised that economic recovery in Europe could not go forward without the reconstruction of the German industrial base on which it had previously been dependent. The Joint Chiefs of Staff ( JCS) is a group comprising the Chiefs of service of each major branch of the Armed services in the United States armed forces General Lucius Dubignon Clay ( April 23 1897 &ndash April 16 1978) was an American general and military governor best known for his George Catlett Marshall Jr (December 31 1880 &ndash October 16 1959 was an American military leader Chief of Staff of the Army, Secretary of ^[29]

In July, Truman rescinded, on "national security grounds",^[29] the punitive Morgenthau plan JCS 1067, which had directed the US forces of occupation in Germany to "take no steps looking toward the economic rehabilitation of Germany". The Morgenthau Plan was a plan for the occupation of Germany after World War II that advocated measures intended to remove Germany's ability to wage war It was replaced by JCS 1779, which stressed instead that "[a]n orderly, prosperous Europe requires the economic contributions of a stable and productive Germany". ^[30]

Also in July, Truman reorganised his government to fight the Cold War. The National Security Act of 1947, signed by Truman on July 26, created a unified Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the National Security Council. The National Security Act of 1947, Pub L No 235 80 Cong 61 Stat The United States Department of Defense ( DOD or DoD) is the federal department charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government near as long as it used to be several months ago It has been actively summarized and split into sub-articles and there is a dynamic talk page discussion of all A National Security Council (NSC is usually an Executive branch governmental body responsible for coordinating policy on national security issues and advising chief These would become the main bureaucracies for US policy in the Cold War. ^[31]

The twin policies of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan led to billions in economic and military aid to Western Europe, and Greece and Turkey. With US assistance, the Greek military won its civil war,^[31] and the Italian Christian Democrats defeated the powerful Communist-Socialist alliance in the elections of 1948. The Italian Communist Party (Italian Partito Comunista Italiano, or PCI emerged as the Communist Party of Italy ( Partito Comunista d'Italia) The Italian Socialist Party ( Partito Socialista Italiano, PSI was a democratic socialist / social democratic political party founded in Genoa After World War II and the overthrow of Mussolini's fascist regime, Italy's history was dominated by the Democrazia Cristiana (DC - Christian-Democrats ^[32]

European economic alliances.

European military alliances.

The US consolidated its new role as leader of the West. In retaliation to Western moves to reunite West Germany, Stalin built blockades to block western access to West Berlin, but Truman maintained supply lines to the enclave by flying supplies in over the blockade from 1948 to '49. West Berlin was the name given to the western part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990 ^[33]

Further information: Berlin Blockade

The US formally allied itself to the Western European states in the North Atlantic Treaty of 1949, establishing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Berlin Blockade (24 June 1948 – 11 May 1949 was one of the first major international crises of the Cold war. The North Atlantic Treaty is the Treaty that brought NATO into existence signed in Washington DC on April 4, 1949. The North Atlantic Treaty ^[34] Stalin countered by tying together the economies of the Eastern bloc in a Soviet-led version of the Marshall Plan, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON), and exploding the first Soviet atomic device in August 1949. ^[5]

The US took the lead in re-establishing West Germany from the three Western zones of occupation in 1949. ^[13] To counter this Western reorganisation of Germany, the Soviet Union proclaimed its zone of occupation in Germany the "German Democratic Republic" in 1949. The German Democratic Republic ( GDR; Deutsche Demokratische Republik DDR; commonly known in English as East Germany) was a Socialist state ^[13] In the early 1950s, the US worked for the rearmament of West Germany and, in 1955, its full membership to NATO. ^[13]

A meeting between Mao and Joseph Stalin after the CPC's 1949 victory over the KMT in the Chinese Civil War. Joseph Stalin ( ნამდვილი გვარი ჯუღაშვილი|Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; March 5 1953 was General Secretary of the Communist Party The Communist Party of China ( CPC) ( also known as the Chinese Communist Party ( CCP) is the founding and ruling political party of the

In 1949 Mao's Red Army defeated the US-backed Kuomintang regime in China. Mao Zedong ( 26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976) was a Chinese Military and political leader who led Shortly afterwards, the Soviet Union created an alliance with the newly formed People's Republic of China. Talk People's Republic of China) PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA ARTICLE GUIDELINES ^[35] Confronted with the Chinese Revolution and the end of the US atomic monopoly in 1949, the Truman administration quickly moved to escalate and expand the containment policy. ^[5] In a secret 1950 document, NSC-68,^[36] Truman administration officials proposed to reinforce pro-Western alliance systems and quadruple spending on defence. NSC-68 or National Security Council Report 68 was a 58 page classified report issued in the United States on April 14 1950 during the presidency ^[5]

US officials moved thereafter to expand "containment" into Asia, Africa, and Latin America. At the same time, revolutionary nationalist movements, often led by Communist parties, were fighting against the restoration of Europe's colonial empires in South-East Asia. The US formalized an alliance with Japan in the early 1950s, thereby guaranteeing the United States a number of long-term military bases. Truman also brought other states, including Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and the Philippines, into a series of alliances. ^[13]

One of the most significant impacts of containment was the Korean War. The US and Soviet Union had been fighting proxy wars as just mentioned, on a small scale, and without US troops; but to Stalin's surprise, Truman committed US forces to drive back the North Koreans, who had invaded South Korea. ^[5] Public opinion in countries such as Great Britain, usual allies of the US, was divided for and against the war. British Attorney General Sir Hartley Shawcross repudiated the sentiment of those opposed when he said "I know there are some who think that the horror and devastation of a world war now would be so frightful, whoever won, and the damage to civilization so lasting, that it would be better to submit to Communist domination. I understand that view - but I reject it". ^[37] In 1953, the Korean War ended in stalemate. The Korean War refers to a period of military conflict between North Korean and South Korean regimes with major hostilities lasting from June 25 1950 until the ^[13]

Further information: Korean War

Crisis and escalation (1953–62)

Main article: Cold War (1953–1962)

In 1953 changes in political leadership on both sides shifted the dynamic of the Cold War. The Korean War refers to a period of military conflict between North Korean and South Korean regimes with major hostilities lasting from June 25 1950 until the The Cold War (1953-1962 discusses the period within the Cold War from the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in 1953 to the Cuban Missile Crisis ^[31] Dwight D. Eisenhower was inaugurated president in January 1953. Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (October 14 1890 – March 28 1969 was President of the United States from 1953 until 1961 and a five-star general During the last 18 months of the Truman administration, the US defence budget had quadrupled; and Eisenhower resolved to reduce military spending by brandishing the United States' nuclear superiority while continuing to fight the Cold War effectively. ^[5] In March Joseph Stalin died, and the Soviets, now led by Nikita Khrushchev, moved away from Stalin's policies. Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (April 17 1894 – September 11 1971 served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 following On the Personality Cult and its Consequences (О культе личности и его последствиях commonly known as the Secret Speech or the ^[31]

Eisenhower's secretary of state, John Foster Dulles initiated a "New Look" for the "containment" strategy, calling for a greater reliance on nuclear weapons to US enemies. John Foster Dulles ( February 25, 1888 &ndash May 24, 1959) served as U ^[31] Dulles also enunciated the doctrine of "massive retaliation," threatening a severe US response to any Soviet aggression. Possessing nuclear superiority, for example, Eisenhower curtailed Soviet threats to intervene in the Middle East during the 1956 Suez Crisis. The Suez Crisis, also referred to as the Tripartite Aggression, (أزمة السويس - العدوان الثلاثي Crise du canal de Suez מבצע קדש Kadesh ^[5]

Map of the Warsaw Pact countries. The Warsaw Pact (see Nomenclature) was an organization of Communist states in Central and Eastern Europe.

There was a slight relaxation of tensions after Stalin's death in 1953, but the Cold War in Europe remained an uneasy armed truce. ^[38] US troops seemed stationed indefinitely in West Germany and Soviet forces seemed indefinitely stationed throughout Eastern Europe. To counter West German rearmament, the Soviets established a formal alliance with the Eastern European Communist states termed the Warsaw Pact Treaty Organization or Warsaw Pact in 1955. The Warsaw Pact (see Nomenclature) was an organization of Communist states in Central and Eastern Europe. ^[13] In 1956, the status quo was briefly threatened in Hungary, when the Soviets invaded rather than allow the Hungarians to move out of their orbit. ^[39] Berlin remained divided and contested. ^[40] In 1961, the East Germans erected the Berlin Wall to prevent the movement of East Berliners into West Berlin. The Berlin Wall (Berliner Mauer was a physical barrier separating West Berlin from the German Democratic Republic (GDR ( East Germany) including ^[41]

Further information: Hungarian Revolution of 1956

In the US, Wisconsin senator Joseph McCarthy emerged as an influential proponent of a hard-line stance on the Cold War. The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 ( Hungarian: 1956-os forradalom) was a spontaneous nationwide Revolt against the Stalinist government of Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14 1908 – May 2 1957 was an American politician who served as a Republican U Although the president quietly deplored his demagoguery, the senator exploited anti-Soviet sentiment when alleging a communist conspiracy to take over the US government, leading to a massive political witch-hunt. ^[42]

During the 1950s, the Third World was an increasingly important arena of Cold War competition. Third World is a name given to nations that are generally considered to be underdeveloped economically After the Second World War, the US emerged as the predominant power in the Third World, filling the vacuum of the old imperial hegemony of its principal Cold War allies—the traditional Western European colonial powers (particularly the UK, France, and the Netherlands). ^[43] However, nationalists in many postcolonial states were often unsympathetic to the Western bloc. Postcolonialism ( postcolonial theory, post-colonial theory) is an intellectual discourse that holds together a set of theories found among the texts and ^[44] Adjusting to decolonization, meanwhile, was a difficult process economically and psychologically for European powers; and NATO suffered, as it included all the world's major colonial empires. ^[45]

Leaders of the major Non-Aligned states meet at the United Nations in New York, October 1960. From left to right: Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India, President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, President Sukarno of Indonesia and President Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia. Jawaharlal Nehru (जवाहरलाल नेहरू ʤəʋäɦəɾläl nɛɦɾu (14 November 1889 27 May 1964 was a major political leader of the Congress Party Kwame Nkrumah ( September 21, 1909 - April 27, 1972) was an influential 20th century advocate of Pan-Africanism, and the leader of Gamal Abdel Nasser (جمال عبد الناصر Gamāl ‘Abd an-Nāṣir; - January 15 1918 September 28 1970) was the second President Sukarno ( June 6, 1901 – June 21, 1970) was the first President of Indonesia.

Nationalist movements in some countries and regions, notably Guatemala, Iran, the Philippines, and Indochina were often allied with communist groups—or at least were perceived in the West to be allied with communists. Guatemala (República de Guatemala) is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west the Pacific Ocean to the southwest For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Iran topics. The Philippines ( Filipino: Pilipinas, officially known as the Republic of the Philippines (fil ''Republika ng Pilipinas'' RP Indochina, or the Indochinese Peninsula, is a region in Southeast Asia. ^[31] In this context, the US and the Soviet Union increasingly competed for influence by proxy in the Third World as decolonization gained momentum in the 1950s and early 1960s. Decolonization refers to the undoing of Colonialism, the establishment of governance or authority through the creation of settlements by another country or jurisdiction ^[46] The US government utilized the CIA in order to remove a string of unfriendly Third World governments and to support others. ^[31] The US used the CIA to overthrow governments suspected by Washington of turning pro-Soviet, including Iran's first democratically elected government under Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 and Guatemala's democratically-elected president Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán in 1954. Mohammad Mosaddeq ( (, pronounced mosæddeq}} also Mosaddegh or Mossadegh) ( May 19 1882 – 5 March 1967) was a major Colonel Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán ( September 14, 1913 &ndash January 27, 1971) was the President of Guatemala from 1951 to 1954 when ^[47] Between 1954 and 1961, the US sent economic aid and military advisors to stem the collapse of South Vietnam's pro-Western regime. ^[5]

Further information: 1953 Iranian coup d'état and 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état

Many emerging nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America rejected the pressure to choose sides in the East-West competition. The 1953 Iranian Coup d'état deposed the government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq and his cabinet, it was effected by Gen The 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état was a Covert operation organized by the United States Central Intelligence Agency to overthrow Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán In 1955, at the Bandung Conference in Indonesia dozens of Third World governments resolved to stay out of the Cold War. The first large-scale Asian-African or Afro-Asian Conference — also known as the Bandung Conference — was a meeting of Asian and African states most of which ^[48] The consensus reach at Bandung culminated with the creation of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1961. The Non-Aligned Movement ( NAM) is an International organization of states considering themselves not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc ^[31] Meanwhile, Khrushchev broadened Moscow's policy to establish ties with India and other key neutral states. India, officially the Republic of India (भारत गणराज्य inc-Latn Bhārat Gaṇarājya; see also other Indian languages) is a country Independence movements in the Third World transformed the postwar order into a more pluralistic world of decolonized African and Middle Eastern nations and of rising nationalism in Asia and Latin America. ^[5]

One of the last meetings between Mao Zedong and Nikita Khrushchev before the Sino-Soviet Split. The Sino-Soviet split was a gradual divergence of diplomatic ties between the People's Republic of China (PRC and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR

During the 1950s, the US and the USSR pursued nuclear rearmament and developed long-range weapons with which they could strike the territory of the other. ^[13] In August 1957, the Soviets successfully launched the world's first intercontinental ballistic missile^[49] and, in October, launched the first earth satellite. ^[50] However, the period after 1956 was marked by serious setbacks for the Soviet Union, most notably the breakdown of the Sino-Soviet alliance. Before Khrushchev's ousting in 1964,^[51] the Soviets focused on a bitter rivalry with Mao's China for leadership of the global communist movement. Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (April 17 1894 – September 11 1971 served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 following ^[52]

Further information: Sino-Soviet Split

The nuclear arms race brought the two superpowers to the brink of nuclear war. The Sino-Soviet split was a gradual divergence of diplomatic ties between the People's Republic of China (PRC and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR The nuclear Arms race was a competition for supremacy in Nuclear warfare between the United States, the Soviet Union, and their respective Khrushchev formed an alliance with Fidel Castro after the Cuban Revolution in 1959. Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (born August 13 1926 is a Cuban revolutionary leader who was prime minister of Cuba from December 1959 to December 1976 and then president until ^[53] In 1962, President John F. Kennedy responded to the installation of nuclear missiles in Cuba with a naval blockade—a show of force that brought the world close to nuclear war. John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy (May 29 1917&ndashNovember 22 1963 often referred to by his initials JFK, was the thirty-fifth President of ^[54] The Cuban Missile Crisis showed that neither superpower was ready to use nuclear weapons for fear of the other's retaliation, and thus of mutually assured destruction. The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation between the United States, the Soviet Union, and Cuba during the Cold War. Mutual assured destruction ( MAD; sometimes written as mutually assured destruction) is a Doctrine of military Strategy in which a full-scale ^[55] The aftermath of the crisis led to the first efforts at nuclear disarmament and improving relations. ^[38]

From confrontation through détente (1962–79)

Main article: Cold War (1962–1979)

In the course of the 1960s and 1970s, both the US and the Soviet Union struggled to adjust to a new, more complicated pattern of international relations in which the world was no longer divided into two clearly opposed blocs by the two superpowers. The Cold War (1962-1979 refers to the phase within the Cold War that spanned the period between the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis in late October 1962 through ^[56] Since the beginning of the postwar period, Western Europe and Japan rapidly recovered from the destruction of World War II and sustained strong economic growth through the 1950s and 1960s, increasing their strength compared to the United States. As a result of the 1973 oil crisis,^[57] combined with the growing influence of Third World alignments such as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the Non-Aligned Movement, less-powerful countries had more room to assert their independence and often showed themselves resistant to pressure from either superpower. The 1973 oil crisis began on October 17 1973 when the members of Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC consisting of the Arab members of The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries ( OPEC) is a Cartel of thirteen countries made up of Algeria, Angola, Ecuador (EB) Moscow, meanwhile, was forced to turn its attention inward to deal with the Soviet Union's deep-seated domestic economic problems. During this period, Soviet leaders such as Alexei Kosygin and Leonid Brezhnev embraced the notion of détente. Alexey Nikolayevich Kosygin (Алексе́й Никола́евич Косы́гин Aleksej Nikolajevič Kosygin; February 20 1904 - December Détente is a French term meaning a relaxing or easing the term has been used in international politics since the early 1970s ^[31]

Brezhnev and Nixon during Brezhnev's June 1973 visit to Washington; this marked a high-water mark in détente between the United States and the Soviet Union.

On April 29, 1975, the last US helicopters remove Americans and friends from Saigon as South Vietnam falls. Events 1429 - Joan of Arc arrives to relieve the Siege of Orleans. Year 1975 ( MCMLXXV) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar.

Nevertheless, both superpowers resolved to reinforce their global leadership. Both the Soviet Union and the United States struggled to stave off challenges to their leadership in their own regions. President Lyndon B. Johnson landed 22,000 troops in the Dominican Republic, citing the threat of the emergence of a Cuban-style revolution in Latin America. The Dominican Republic ( Spanish: República Dominicana;) is a nation located in the Caribbean region and shares the island of Hispaniola with ^[5]

Further information: Operation Power Pack

In Eastern Europe, the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia during 1968,^[58] in order to crush the Prague Spring reform movement, that might have threatened to take the country out of the Warsaw Pact. Czechoslovakia may also refer to what is now the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The Prague Spring ( Czech: Pražské jaro, Slovak: Pražská jar) was a period of political liberalization in Czechoslovakia during ^[59] The invasion sparked intense protests from Yugoslavia, Romania and China, and from other Western European communist parties. ^[60]

Mao greets United States President Richard Nixon during his visit to China in 1972. The 1972 Nixon visit to China was the first step in formally normalizing relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China.

The US continued to spend heavily on supporting friendly Third World regimes in Asia. Conflicts in peripheral regions and client states—most prominently in Vietnam—continued. ^[54] Johnson stationed 575,000 troops in Southeast Asia to defeat the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF) and their North Vietnamese allies, but his costly policy weakened the US economy and, by 1975, ultimately culminated in what most of the world saw as a humiliating defeat of the world's most powerful superpower at the hands of one of the world's poorest nations. Brezhnev, meanwhile, faced far more daunting challenges in reviving the Soviet economy, which was declining in part because of heavy military expenditures. ^[5]

Further information: Vietnam War

Although indirect conflict between Cold War powers continued through the late 1960s and early 1970s, tensions began to ease, as the period of détente began. The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, or the Vietnam Conflict, occurred in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia ^[38] The Chinese had sought improved relations with the US in order to gain advantage over the Soviets. In February 1972, Richard Nixon traveled to Beijing and met with Mao Zedong and Chou En-Lai. Mao Zedong ( 26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976) was a Chinese Military and political leader who led Zhou Enlai ( (5 March 1898 – 8 January 1976 was the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, serving from 1949 until his death in January 1976 Nixon and Henry Kissinger then announced a stunning rapprochement with Mao's China. Henry Alfred Kissinger (born Heinz Alfred Kissinger on May 27, 1923) is a German -born American bureaucrat diplomat and 1973 ^[61]

Leonid Brezhnev and Jimmy Carter sign SALT II treaty, June 18, 1979, in Vienna. James Earl "Jimmy" Carter Jr (born October 1 1924 was the thirty-ninth President of the United States, serving from 1977 to 1981 and the recipient of the 2002 Events 618 - Coronation of the Chinese governor Li Yuan as Emperor Gaozu of Tang, the new Emperor of China, initiating three centuries Year 1979 ( MCMLXXIX) was a Common year starting on Monday (link displays the 1979 Gregorian calendar) Vienna ( in Wien; see also other names) is the Capital of Austria, and is also one of the nine States of Austria.

Later, in June, Nixon and Kissinger met with Soviet leaders in Moscow,^[62] and announced the first of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, aimed at limiting the development of costly antiballistic missiles and offensive nuclear missiles. ^[31] Between 1972 and 1974, the two sides also agreed to strengthen their economic ties. ^[5] Meanwhile, these developments coincided with the "Ostpolitik" of West German Chancellor Willy Brandt. Ostpolitik ( German for Eastern Politics) describes the politics of the "Change Through Rapprochement" principle &mdash as verbalized by Egon Bahr Willy Brandt, born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm (18 December 1913 - 8 October 1992 was a German politician Chancellor of West Germany 1969&ndash1974 ^[63] Other agreements were concluded to stabilize the situation in Europe, culminating in the Helsinki Accords signed by the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe in 1975. The Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, known as the Helsinki Final Act, Helsinki Accords or Helsinki Declaration, was ^[64]

However, the détente of the 1970s was short-lived. The US Congress limited the economic pact between Nixon and Brezhnev so much that the Soviets repudiated it in 1975. ^[5] Indirect conflict between the superpowers continued through this period of détente in the Third World, particularly during political crises in the Middle East, Chile and Angola. ^[65] While President Jimmy Carter tried to place another limit on the arms race with a SALT II agreement in 1979,^[66] his efforts were undercut by the other events that year, including the Iranian Revolution and the Nicaraguan Revolution, which both ousted pro-US regimes, and his retaliation against Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in December. The Iranian Revolution' (mostly known as the Islamic Revolution, Persian: انقلاب اسلامی Enghelābe Eslāmi was the Revolution that transformed The Nicaraguan Revolution ( Revolución Nicaragüense or Revolución Popular Sandinista, also RPS) embodies a major historical part not only to Nicaragua ^[5]

Further information: Yom Kippur War, Chilean coup of 1973, and Angolan Civil War

"Second Cold War" (1979–85)

Main article: Cold War (1979–1985)

This map shows the two essential global spheres during the Cold War in 1980 - the US in blue and the USSR in red. The Yom Kippur War, Ramadan War or October War (מלחמת יום הכיפורים transliterated: Milkhemet Yom HaKipurim or מלחמת יום The Chilean coup d'état of 1973 is a landmark in the History of Chile and the Russo-American Cold War. The Angolan Civil War began in Angola after the end of the war for independence from Portugal in 1975 The Cold War (1979-1985 discusses the period within the Cold War between the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 to the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev as Consult the legend on the map for more details.

In November 1982 American ten-year-old Samantha Smith wrote a letter to the Soviet leader Yuri Andropov expressing her fear of nuclear war, and pleading with him to work toward peace. Samantha Reed Smith (June 29 1972 in Houlton Maine – August 25 1985 in Lewiston - Auburn, Maine) was an American schoolgirl from Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov (Ю́рий Влади́мирович Андро́пов Yuri Vladimirovich Andropov) ( &ndash 9 February 1984 was a Soviet politician Andropov himself replied, and gave her a personal invitation to visit the country. Smith's visit was one of few prominent attempts to improve relations between the superpowers during Andropov's brief leadership from 1982–1984 at a dangerously low point in US-Soviet relations.

The term second Cold War has been used by some historians to refer to the period of intensive reawakening of Cold War tensions and conflicts in the early 1980s. Tensions greatly increased between the major powers with both sides becoming more militaristic. ^[4]

During December 1979, about 75,000 Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan, in order to support the Marxist government led by Prime-minister Nur Muhammad Taraki. The Soviet war in Afghanistan, also known as the Soviet-Afghan War or just the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, was a nine-year conflict involving Nur Muhammad Taraki ( July 15, 1913 – September 14, 1979) was an ethnic Pashtun Politician from Afghanistan ^[67] As a result to this, US President Jimmy Carter, withdrew the SALT II treaty from the Senate, decided to impose embargoes on grain and technology shipments to the USSR, demanded a significant increase in military spendings and further announced that the United States would boycott the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics. The United States Senate is the Upper house of the bicameral United States Congress, the Lower house being the House of Representatives The 1980 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXII Olympiad, were an International Multi-sport event held in Moscow in the Soviet Also, he described the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan as the most serious threat to the peace since the Second World War. ^[68]

Further information: Soviet war in Afghanistan

In 1980 Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter, vowing to increase military spending and confront the Soviets everywhere. The Soviet war in Afghanistan, also known as the Soviet-Afghan War or just the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, was a nine-year conflict involving James Earl "Jimmy" Carter Jr (born October 1 1924 was the thirty-ninth President of the United States, serving from 1977 to 1981 and the recipient of the 2002 ^[69] Both Reagan and Britain's new prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, denounced the Soviet Union in ideological terms that rivaled that of the worst days of the Cold War in the late 1940s. Margaret Hilda Thatcher Baroness Thatcher LG, OM, PC, FRS (born 13 October 1925 ^[70]

With the background of the build-up of tension between the Soviet Union and the United States, and the deployment of Soviet SS-20 ballistic missiles targeting Western Europe, NATO decided, under the impetus of the Carter presidency, to deploy Pershing II and cruise missiles in Europe, primarily West Germany. A ballistic missile is a Missile that follows a Sub-orbital ballistic flightpath with the objective of delivering a warhead to a predetermined target ^[71] This deployment would have placed missiles just 10 minutes striking distance from Moscow. ^[72] Yet support for the deployment was wavering and many doubted whether the push for deployment could be sustained. But on September 1, 1983, the Soviet Union shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007, a Boeing 747 with 269 people aboard when it violated Soviet airspace just past the west coast of Sakhalin Island—an act which Reagan characterized as a "massacre". Events 462 - Possible start of first Byzantine indiction cycle. Year 1983 ( MCMLXXXIII) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays the 1983 Gregorian calendar) Korean Air Lines Flight 007, also known as KAL 007, was a Korean Air Lines civilian Airliner shot down by Soviet jet interceptors WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout Sakhalin (Сахали́н səxʌˈlʲin Japanese:nihongo|樺太|karafuto or; Chinese: 庫頁 Kùyè also Saghalien, is a large elongated This act, galvanized support for the deployment—which stood in place until the later accords between Reagan and Mikhael Gorbachev. ^[73]

Further information: Korean Air Lines Flight 007

Reagan spent $2. Korean Air Lines Flight 007, also known as KAL 007, was a Korean Air Lines civilian Airliner shot down by Soviet jet interceptors 2 trillion for the military over eight years. Military spending, combined with the legacy of the economic structural problems of the 1970s, transformed the US from the world's leading creditor in 1981 to the world's leading debtor. ^[5] Tensions intensified in the early 1980s when Reagan installed US cruise missiles in Europe and announced his experimental Strategic Defense Initiative, dubbed "Star Wars" by the media, to shoot down missiles in mid-flight. The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI was a proposal by US President Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983 to use ground and space-based systems to protect Reagan also imposed economic sanctions to protest the suppression of the opposition Solidarity movement in Poland. ^[74]

US domestic public concerns about intervening in foreign conflicts persisted from the end of the Vietnam War. ^[75] But Reagan did not encounter major public opposition to his foreign policies. The Reagan administration emphasized the use of quick, low cost counterinsurgency tactics to intervene in foreign conflicts. See also Insurgency In the context of an occupation or a Civil war, counter-insurgency (abbreviated COIN is a military term for the combat ^[75] In 1983, the Reagan administration intervened in the multisided Lebanese Civil War, invaded Grenada, bombed Libya and backed the Central American Contras—right-wing paramilitaries seeking overthrow the Soviet-aligned Sandinista government in Nicaragua. The Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990 was a multifaceted Civil war whose antecedents can be traced back to the conflicts and political compromises reached after the end Grenada (grɪˈneɪdə is an Island nation that includes the southern Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea. Libya ( ليبيا ar-Latn Lībiyā; Libyan vernacular: Lībya; Amazigh:) officially the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab The Contras is a label given to the various rebel groups opposing Nicaragua 's FSLN (Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional Sandinista Junta of National The Sandinista National Liberation Front ( Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional) is a socialist Nicaraguan Political party. ^[76] While Reagan's interventions against Grenada and Libya were popular in the US, his backing of the Contra rebels was mired in controversy. In 1985, the president authorized the sale of arms to Iran; later, administration subordinates illegally diverted the proceeds to the Contras. ^[77]

Further information: 1983 Beirut barracks bombing, Invasion of Grenada, United States bombing of Libya, and Iran-Contra

Meanwhile, the Soviets incurred high costs for their own foreign interventions. The Beirut barracks bombing was a major incident on October 23, 1983, during the Lebanese Civil War. The Invasion of Grenada, codenamed Operation Urgent Fury, was an Invasion of the nation of Grenada, an island in the Caribbean Sea 100 miles north The United States bombing of Libya (code-named Operation El Dorado Canyon) comprised the joint United States Air Force, Navy and The Iran-Contra affair was a political scandal which was revealed in November 1986 as a result of earlier events during the Reagan administration. Although Brezhnev was convinced in 1979 that the Soviet war in Afghanistan would be brief, Muslim guerrillas, aided by the US, waged a surprisingly fierce resistance against the invasion. The Soviet war in Afghanistan, also known as the Soviet-Afghan War or just the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, was a nine-year conflict involving ^[78] The Kremlin sent nearly 100,000 troops to support its puppet regime in Afghanistan, leading many outside observers to call the war the Soviets' Vietnam. ^[78] However, Moscow's quagmire in Afghanistan was far more disastrous for the Soviets than Vietnam had been for the Americans because the conflict coincided with a period of internal decay and domestic crisis in the Soviet system. A high US State Department official predicted such an outcome as early as 1980, positing that the invasion resulted in part from a "domestic crisis within the Soviet system. . . . It may be that the thermodynamic law of entropy has. In Thermodynamics (a branch of Physics) entropy, symbolized by S, is a measure of the unavailability of a system ’s Energy . . caught up with the Soviet system, which now seems to expend more energy on simply maintaining its equilibrium than on improving itself. We could," he construed, "be seeing a period of foreign movement at a time of internal decay". ^[79][80]

End of the Cold War

Main article: Cold War (1985–1991)

In a famed address, United States President Ronald Reagan challenges Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall, 12 June 1987. The Cold War period of 1985 to 1991 began with the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev as Soviet leader and ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 The President of the United States is the Head of state and Head of government of the United States and is the highest political official in United States by Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev ( Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachyov;; born 2 March 1931 in Privolnoye Stavropol Krai) is a Russian politician " Tear down this wall! " was the famous challenge from United States President Ronald Reagan to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to destroy The Berlin Wall (Berliner Mauer was a physical barrier separating West Berlin from the German Democratic Republic (GDR ( East Germany) including

By the early 1980s, the Soviet armed forces were the largest in the world by many measures—in terms of the numbers and types of weapons they possessed, in the number of troops in their ranks, and in the sheer size of their military-industrial base. The Soviet Armed Forces refers to the armed forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics from its establishment during the Russian Civil War in 1918 by the ^[81] However, the quantitative advantages held by the Soviet military often concealed areas where the Eastern bloc dramatically lagged behind the West. This led many US observers to vastly overestimate Soviet power. ^[82]

U. S. and USSR/Russian nuclear weapons stockpiles, 1945–2006

By the late years of the Cold War, Moscow had built up a military that consumed as much as twenty-five percent of the Soviet Union's gross national product at the expense of consumer goods and investment in civilian sectors. Soviet industry was usually divided into two major categories ^[83] But the size of the Soviet armed forces was not necessarily the result of a simple action-reaction arms race with the United States. ^[81] Instead, Soviet spending on the arms race and other Cold War commitments can be understood as both a cause and effect of the deep-seated structural problems in the Soviet system, which accumulated at least a decade of economic stagnation during the Brezhnev years. The term arms race, in its original usage describes a competition between two or more parties for real or apparent military supremacy Soviet investment in the defence sector was not necessarily driven by military necessity, but in large part by the interests of massive party and state bureaucracies dependent on the sector for their own power and privileges. ^[84].

Further information: Economy of the Soviet Union

By the time Mikhail Gorbachev had ascended to power in 1985,^[85] the Soviets suffered from an economic growth rate close to zero percent, combined with a sharp fall in hard currency earnings as a result of the downward slide in world oil prices in the 1980s. The economy of the Soviet Union was based on a system of State ownership, administrative planning Socialist competition and free labour Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev ( Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachyov;; born 2 March 1931 in Privolnoye Stavropol Krai) is a Russian politician ^[86] (Petroleum exports made up around 60 percent of the Soviet Union's total export earnings. )^[87] To restructure the Soviet economy before it collapsed, Gorbachev announced an agenda of rapid reform. Reform required Gorbachev to redirect the country's resources from costly Cold War military commitments to more profitable areas in the civilian sector. As a result, Gorbachev offered major concessions to the United States on the levels of conventional forces, nuclear weapons, and policy in Eastern Europe. ^[88]

Further information: Glasnost and Perestroika

Many US Soviet experts and administration officials doubted that Gorbachev was serious about winding down the arms race ^[90] but the new Soviet leader eventually proved more concerned about reversing the Soviet Union's deteriorating economic condition than fighting the arms race with the West. (Гла́сность)is literally defined as publicity and sometimes figuratively interpreted as "tipping a vase to let someone see into the vase but not the bottom of the vase" (Перестройка) is the Russian term (now used in English for the economic reforms introduced in June 1987 by the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev The Economy of the United States is the largest national economy in the world near as long as it used to be several months ago It has been actively summarized and split into sub-articles and there is a dynamic talk page discussion of all The World Factbook ( ISSN; also known as the CIA World Factbook) is an annual publication of the Central Intelligence Agency of the ^[91]

Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988.

The Kremlin made major military and political concessions; in response Reagan agreed to renew talks on economic issues and the scaling-back of the arms race. The East-West tensions that had reached intense new heights earlier in the decade rapidly subsided through the mid-to-late 1980s. In 1988, the Soviets officially declared that they would no longer intervene in the affairs of allied states in Eastern Europe—the so-called Sinatra Doctrine. "Sinatra Doctrine" was the name that the Soviet government of Mikhail Gorbachev used jokingly to describe its policy of allowing neighboring Warsaw ^[92] In 1989, Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan. ^[93]

In December 1989, Gorbachev and George H.W. Bush declared the Cold War officially over at a summit meeting in Malta. George Herbert Walker Bush (born June 12 1924 served as the forty-first President of the United States from 1989 to 1993 Malta, officially the Republic of Malta (Repubblika ta' Malta is a European Microstate, comprising an Archipelago of three islands ^[94] But by then, the Soviet alliance system was on the brink of collapse, and the Communist leaders of the Warsaw Pact states were losing power. In the USSR itself, Gorbachev tried to reform the party to destroy resistance to his reforms, but, in doing so, ultimately weakened the bonds that held the state and union together. By February 1990, the Communist Party was forced to surrender its 73-year old monopoly on state power. By December of the next year, the union-state also dissolved, breaking the USSR up into fifteen separate independent states. ^[95]

Further information: Dissolution of the USSR

Legacy

The Cold War was fought at a tremendous cost globally over the course of more than four decades. The Soviet Union 's collapse into independent nations began early in 1985 It cost the U. S. up to $8 trillion in military expenditures, and the lives of nearly 100,000 Americans in Korea and Vietnam. ^[96] It cost the Soviets an even higher share of their gross national product. ^[97] In Southeast Asia, local civil wars were intensified by superpower rivalry, leaving millions dead. ^[98]

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the post-Cold War world is widely considered as a unipolar world, with the United States as the world's sole remaining superpower. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 Polarity in international relations is a description of the distribution of power within the international system The United States of America —commonly referred to as the ^{[99][100][101]} In the words of Samuel P. Huntington, "The United States, of course, is the sole state with preeminence in every domain of power — economic, military, diplomatic, ideological, technological, and cultural — with the reach and capabilities to promote its interests in virtually every part of the world". '^[102]

Formation of the CIS, the official end of the USSR.

The newly created Commonwealth of Independent States on December 21, 1991, could be viewed as a successor entity to the Soviet Union and, according to leaders of Russia, its purpose was to "allow a civilized divorce" between the Soviet Republics. Events 69 - The end of the Year of the four emperors: Following Galba, Otho and Vitellius, Vespasian Year 1991 ( MCMXCI) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 The Republics of the Soviet Union were according to the Article 76 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution, Sovereign Soviet Socialist states that had united with other However, the CIS is emphatically not a state unto itself, and is more comparable to a loose confederation, similar to the European Community. A confederation is a group of empowered states or communities usually created by treaty but often later adopting a common constitution The European Community (EC is one of the Three pillars of the European Union (EU created under the Maastricht Treaty (1992 ^[103]

The end of the Cold War gave Russia the chance to cut military spending dramatically, but the adjustment was wrenching. The military-industrial sector employed at least one of every five Soviet adults. ^[104] Its dismantling left millions throughout the former Soviet Union unemployed. Russian living standards have worsened overall in the post-Cold War years, although the economy has resumed growth in recent years. In the 1990s, Russia suffered an economic downturn more severe than the U. S. or Germany had undergone six decades earlier in the Great Depression after it had embarked on capitalist economic reforms. ^[105]

The legacy of the Cold War continues to structure world affairs. ^[4] The Cold War institutionalized the role of the United States in the postwar global economic and political system. By 1989, the U. S. was responsible for military alliances with 50 countries and 1. 5 million US troops were posted in 117 countries. ^[54] The Cold War also institutionalized the commitment to a huge, permanent wartime military-industrial complex. A military-industrial complex (MIC is a concept commonly used to refer to Policy relationships between Governments national Armed forces, and industrial ^[54]

Some of the economic and social tensions that underpinned Cold War competition in parts of the Third World remain acute. The breakdown of state control in a number of areas formerly ruled by Communist governments has produced new civil and ethnic conflicts, particularly in the former Yugoslavia. See also Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Yugoslavia ( Serbo-Croatian ^[4] In some countries, the breakdown of state control was accompanied by state failure, such as in Afghanistan. A failed state is a State whose central government is so weak or ineffective that it has little practical control over much of its territory Afghanistan /æfˈgænɪstæn/ officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan ( Pashto: د افغانستان اسلامي جمهوریت, But in other areas, particularly much of Eastern Europe, the end of the Cold War was accompanied by a large growth in the number of liberal democracies. The term "liberal" in "liberal democracy" does not imply that the government of such a democracy must follow the political ideology of In areas where the two superpowers had been waging proxy wars, and subsidizing local conflicts, many conflicts ended with the Cold War; and the occurrence of interstate wars, ethnic wars, revolutionary wars, or refugee and displaced persons crises declined sharply. ^[106]

Historiography

As soon as the term "Cold War" was popularized to refer to postwar tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, interpreting the course and origins of the conflict has been a source of heated controversy among historians, political scientists, and journalists. ^[107] In particular, historians have sharply disagreed as to who was responsible for the breakdown of Soviet-U. S. relations after the Second World War; and whether the conflict between the two superpowers was inevitable, or could have been avoided. ^[108] Historians have also disagreed on what exactly the Cold War was, what the sources of the conflict were, and how to disentangle patterns of action and reaction between the two sides. ^[4]

While the explanations of the origins of the conflict in academic discussions are complex and diverse, several general schools of thought on the subject can be identified. Historians commonly speak of three differing approaches to the study of the Cold War: "orthodox" accounts, "revisionism," and "post-revisionism". Nevertheless, much of the historiography on the Cold War weaves together two or even all three of these broad categories. ^[13]

Orthodox accounts

The first school of interpretation to emerge in the U. S. was the "orthodox" one. For more than a decade after the end of the Second World War, few U. S. historians challenged the official U. S. interpretation of the beginnings of the Cold War. ^[108] This "orthodox" school places the responsibility for the Cold War on the Soviet Union and its expansion into Eastern Europe. ^[54] Thomas A. Bailey, for example, argued in his 1950 America Faces Russia that the breakdown of postwar peace was the result of Soviet expansionism in the immediate postwar years. Thomas Andrew Bailey (born December 14, 1902 - died July 26, 1983) was a professor of history at Stanford University and authored Bailey argued Stalin violated promises he had made at Yalta, imposed Soviet-dominated regimes on unwilling Eastern European populations, and conspired to spread communism throughout the world. ^[108] From this view, U. S. officials were forced to respond to Soviet aggression with the Truman Doctrine, plans to contain communist subversion around the world, and the Marshall Plan.

This interpretation has been described as the "official" U. S. version of Cold War history. ^[54] Although it lost its dominance as a mode of historical thought in academic discussions in 1960s, it continues to be influential. ^[107]

Revisionism

U. S. involvement in Vietnam in the 1960s disillusioned many historians with the premise of "containment", and thus with the assumptions of the "orthodox" approach to understanding the Cold War. ^[108] "Revisionist" accounts emerged in the wake of the Vietnam War, in the context of a larger rethinking of the U. S. role in international affairs, which was seen more in terms of American empire or hegemony. American Empire is a term referring to the political economic military and cultural influence of the United States. Hegemony (hɨˈdʒɛməni (Amer /hɨˈɡɛməni/ (Brit (ἡγεμονία hēgemonía) is a concept that has been used to describe and explain the dominance of one social ^[54]

The Wisconsin school of interpretation argues that the U. S. and the U. S. S. R. were economic rivals, making them natural adversaries, irrespective of their ideologies. ^[109] Walter LaFeber, meanwhile, argues the U. Walter LaFeber (born 1933 in Walkerton, Indiana) was a Marie Underhill Noll Professor and a Steven Weisse Presidential Teaching Fellow of History in the S. and Imperial Russia were already rivals by 1900 over the development of Manchuria. The Russian Empire ( Pre-reform Russian: Pоссійская Имперія Modern Russian: Российская Империя translit: Rossiyskaya Manchuria ( Romanized Manchu: Manju,, Маньчжурия Mongolian: Манж is a historical name given to a vast geographic region in northeast Russia, unable to compete industrially with the States, sought to close off parts of East Asia to trade with other colonial powers. Meanwhile, the U. S. demanded open competition for markets. ^[110]

While the new school of thought spanned many differences among individual scholars, the works comprising it were generally responses in one way or another to William Appleman Williams' landmark 1959 volume, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy. William Appleman Williams (1921&ndash1990 was one of the 20th century's most prominent Historians of American Diplomacy. Williams challenged the long-held assumptions of "orthodox" accounts, arguing that Americans had always been an empire-building people, even while American leaders denied it. ^[107]

Following Williams, "revisionist" writers placed more responsibility for the breakdown of postwar peace on the United States, citing a range of U. S. efforts to isolate and confront the Soviet Union well before the end of World War II. ^[54] According to Williams and later "revisionist" writers, U. S. policymakers shared an overarching concern with maintaining capitalism domestically. Capitalism is the Economic system in which the Means of production are owned by private Persons and operated for Profit and where In order to achieve that objective, they pursued an "open door" policy abroad, aimed at increasing access to foreign markets for U. Free trade is a system in which the trade of goods and services between or within countries flows unhindered by government-imposed restrictions S. business and agriculture. ^[107] From this perspective, a growing economy domestically went hand-in-hand with the consolidation of U. S. power internationally.

"Revisionist" scholars challenged the widely accepted notion that Soviet leaders were committed to postwar "expansionism". They cited evidence that the Soviet Union's occupation of Eastern Europe had a defensive rationale, and that Soviet leaders saw themselves as attempting to avoid encirclement by the United States and its allies. ^[54] In this view, the Soviet Union was so weak and devastated after the end of the Second World War as to be unable to pose any serious threat to the United States; moreover, the U. S. maintained a nuclear monopoly until the U.S.S.R. tested its first atomic bomb in August 1949. The Soviet project to develop an atomic bomb began during World War II in the Soviet Union. ^[108]

Revisionist historians have also challenged the assumption that the origins of the Cold War date no further back than the immediate postwar period. ^[107] Notably, Walter LaFeber, in his landmark study, America, Russia, and the Cold War, first published in 1972, argued that the Cold War had its origins in 19th century conflicts between Russia and America over the opening of East Asia to U. Walter LaFeber (born 1933 in Walkerton, Indiana) was a Marie Underhill Noll Professor and a Steven Weisse Presidential Teaching Fellow of History in the S. trade, markets, and influence. ^[107] LaFeber argued that the U. S. commitment at the close of World War II to ensuring a world in which every state was open to U. S. influence and trade underpinned many of the conflicts that triggered the beginning of the Cold War. ^[108]

Starting with Gar Alperovitz, in his influential Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam (1965), "revisionist" scholars have focused on the U. Gar Alperovitz (born May 5 1936 is Lionel R Bauman Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland College Park Department of Government and Politics S. decision to use atomic weapons against Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the last days of World War II. ^[108] In their view, the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, in effect, started the Cold War. According to Alperovitz, the bombs were not used on an already defeated Japan to win the war, but to intimidate the Soviets, signaling that the U. S. would use nuclear weapons to structure a postwar world around U. S. interests as U. S. policymakers saw fit. ^[107] According to some revisionists, Japan had tried to surrender for several months, but the U. S. wanted to test nuclear weapons in war and, most importantly, show its power to the Soviet Union. ^[111][112]

Joyce and Gabriel Kolko's The Limits of Power: The World and U. Gabriel Kolko (born 1932 is a Historian and author Kolko received his Ph S. Foreign Policy, 1945–1954 (1972) has also received considerable attention in the historiography on the Cold War. The Kolkos argued U. S. policy was both reflexively anticommunist and counterrevolutionary. Anti-communism refers to opposition to Communism. Historically the word "communism" has been used to refer to several types of communal social organization and The U. S. was not necessarily fighting Soviet influence, but any form of challenge to the U. S. economic and political prerogatives through either covert or military means. ^[107] In this sense, the Cold War is less a story of rivalry between two blocs, and more a story of the ways by which the dominant states within each bloc controlled and disciplined their own populations and clients, and about who supported and stood to benefit from increased arms production and political anxiety over a perceived external enemy. ^[4]

Post-revisionism

The "revisionist" interpretation produced a critical reaction of its own. In a variety of ways, "post-revisionist" scholarship, before the fall of Communism, challenged earlier works on the origins and course of the Cold War. ^[108]

During the period, "post-revisionism" challenged the "revisionists" by accepting some of their findings but rejecting most of their key claims. Particularly, post-revisionist historians argued that revisionists put too much emphasis on U. S. economic considerations while ignoring domestic politics and perceptions held at the time. ^[108] Another current attempted to strike a balance between the "orthodox" and "revisionist" camps, identifying areas of responsibility for the origins of the conflict on both sides. ^[108] Thomas G. Paterson, in Soviet-American Confrontation (1973), for example, viewed Soviet hostility and U. S. efforts to dominate the postwar world as equally responsible for the Cold War. ^[108]

The seminal work of this approach was John Lewis Gaddis's The United States and the Origins of the Cold War, 1941–1947 (1972). John Lewis Gaddis is the Robert A Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History at Yale University. The account was immediately hailed as the beginning of a new school of thought on the Cold War claiming to synthesize a variety of interpretations. ^[107] Gaddis then maintained that "neither side can bear sole responsibility for the onset of the Cold War". ^[108] He did, however, emphasize the constraints imposed on U. S. policymakers due to the complications of domestic politics. ^[108] Gaddis has, in addition, criticized some "revisionist" scholars, particularly Williams, for failing to understand the role of Soviet policy in the origins of the Cold War. ^[107]

Out of the "post-revisionist" literature emerged a new area of inquiry that was more sensitive to nuance and interested less in the question of who started the conflict than in offering insight into U. S. and Soviet actions and perspectives. ^[54] From this perspective, the Cold War was not so much the responsibility of either side, but rather the result of predictable tensions between two world powers that had been suspicious of one another for nearly a century. For example, Ernest May wrote in a 1984 essay:^[113]

After the Second World War, the United States and the Soviet Union were doomed to be antagonists. . . . There probably was never any real possibility that the post-1945 relationship could be anything but hostility verging on conflict. . . Traditions, belief systems, propinquity, and convenience . . . all combined to stimulate antagonism, and almost no factor operated in either country to hold it back.

From this view of "post-revisionism" emerged a line of inquiry that examines how Cold War actors perceived various events, and the degree of misperception involved in the failure of the two sides to reach common understandings of their wartime alliance and their disputes. ^[4]

While Gaddis does not hold either side entirely responsible for the onset of the conflict, he has now argued that the Soviets should be held clearly more accountable for the ensuing problems. According to Gaddis, Stalin was in a much better position to compromise than his Western counterparts, given his much broader power within his own regime than Truman, who was often undermined by vociferous political opposition at home. Asking if it were possible to predict that the wartime alliance would fall apart within a matter of months, leaving in its place nearly a half century of cold war, Gaddis wrote in a 1997 essay, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History:^[114]

Geography, demography, and tradition contributed to this outcome but did not determine it. It took men, responding unpredictably to circumstances, to forge the chain of causation; and it took [Stalin] in particular, responding predictably to his own authoritarian, paranoid, and narcissistic predisposition, to lock it into place.

For Stalin, Gaddis continues:^[115]

World politics was an extension of Soviet politics, which was in turn an extension of Stalin's preferred personal environment: a zero-sum game, in which achieving security for himself, his regime, his country and his ideology meant depriving everyone else of it.

See also

• Timeline of events in the Cold War
• American Empire
• Soviet Empire
• Culture during the Cold War

References

Further reading

Bibliography

External links

Archives

• An archive of UK civil defence material
• CONELRAD Cold War Pop Culture Site
• CBC Digital Archives - Cold War Culture: The Nuclear Fear of the 1950s and 1960s
• The Cold War International History Project (CWIHP)
• The Cold War Files
• CNN Cold War Knowledge Bank comparison of articles on Cold War topics in the Western and the Soviet press between 1945 and 1991
• The CAESAR, POLO, and ESAU Papers - This collection of declassified analytic monographs and reference aids, designated within the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Directorate of Intelligence (DI) as the CAESAR, ESAU, and POLO series, highlights the CIA's efforts from the 1950s through the mid-1970s to pursue in-depth research on Soviet and Chinese internal politics and Sino-Soviet relations. The documents reflect the views of seasoned analysts who had followed closely their special areas of research and whose views were shaped in often heated debate.

Bibliographies

• Annotated bibliography for the arms race from the Alsos Digital Library
• Annotated bibliography from Citizendium

News

• Video and audio news reports from during the cold war

Educational Resources

• Minuteman Missile National Historic Site: Protecting a Legacy of the Cold War , a National Park Service Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) lesson plan