Cold War
From
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Cold War was a state of geopolitical tension after World War II between powers in the Eastern Bloc (the Soviet Union and its satellite
states) and powers in the Western Bloc (the United States,
its NATO allies and others). Historians do not fully agree on the dates, but a
common timeframe is the period between 1947, the year the Truman Doctrine (a U.S. foreign
policy pledging to aid nations
threatened by Soviet expansionism) was announced, and 1991, the year the Soviet Union
collapsed.
The term "cold" is used
because there was no largescale fighting directly between the two sides,
although there were major regional wars, known as
proxy wars, supported by the two sides. The Cold War split the temporary wartime
alliance against Nazi Germany, leaving the Soviet Union and the United States as two superpowers with profound
economic and political differences. The USSR was a Marxist–Leninist state ruled
by its Communist Party and
secret police, who in turn were ruled by a dictator (Stalin) or a small
committee ("Politburo"). The Party controlled the press, the military, the economy and all
organizations. It also controlled the other states in the Eastern Bloc, and
funded Communist parties around the world, sometimes in competition with
Communist China, particularly following the SinoSoviet split of the 1960s. In opposition stood the West, dominantly democratic and capitalist
with a free press and independent organizations. A small neutral bloc arose
with the NonAligned Movement; it
sought good relations with both sides. The two superpowers never engaged
directly in fullscale armed combat, but they were heavily
armed in preparation for a possible allout nuclear world war. Each side had a nuclear strategy that discouraged an attack by the
other side, on the basis that such an attack would lead to the total destruction of the attacker: the doctrine of mutually
assured destruction (MAD). Aside from the development of the two sides'
nuclear arsenals, and their deployment of conventional military forces, the
struggle for dominance was expressed via proxy wars around the globe,
psychological
warfare, massive propaganda campaigns and espionage, rivalry at sports events, and technological competitions such as the Space Race.
The first
phase of the Cold War began in the
first two years after the end of the Second World War in 1945. The USSR
consolidated its control over the states of the Eastern Bloc, while the United
States began a strategy of global containment to challenge Soviet power, extending military and financial aid to the
countries of Western Europe (for example, supporting the anticommunist side in
the Greek Civil
War) and creating the NATO alliance. The Berlin Blockade (1948–49) was the first major crisis of the Cold War. With the victory
of the communist side in the Chinese Civil War and the outbreak of the Korean War (1950–53), the conflict
expanded. The USSR and USA competed for
influence in Latin America,
and the decolonizing states of Africa and Asia. Meanwhile, the Hungarian
Revolution of 1956 was stopped by the Soviets. The
expansion and escalation sparked more crises, such as the Suez Crisis (1956), the Berlin Crisis
of 1961, and the Cuban Missile
Crisis of 1962. Following the Cuban
Missile Crisis, a new phase
began that saw the SinoSoviet split complicate relations within the communist sphere, while US allies,
particularly France, demonstrated greater independence of action. The USSR crushed the 1968 Prague Spring liberalization program in Czechoslovakia, and the Vietnam War (1955–75) ended with the defeat of the USbacked Republic of Vietnam,
prompting further adjustments.
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