The term[]
The term "cold" used in "Cold War" was chosen because there was no large-scale 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.
Historical background[]
The Cold War was a term used to describe the tensions between the USA and the USSR after the horrors of World War 2. The Origins of the Cold War were rooted in many issues of an complex and politically threatening origin. Britain, France, the United States, Canada envisioned NATO in 1947 as both a way of seeing of Soviet aggression in Europe and stopping Germany from becoming political and militarily dangerous again. The USSR formed the Warsaw Pact in May 1955 to counter NATO.
The era[]
Overview[]
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). A Neutral bloc arose with the Non-Aligned Movement; it sought good relations with both sides.
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. policy pledging to aid nations threatened by Soviet expansionism) was announced, and 1991, the year the Soviet Union collapsed.
The period 1945-1991 and more specifically the interactions, directly or through proxies, between 'the West' and 'the Communist states.'
Background[]
The Cold War was the time of Modern History spanning from the Yalta Conference on February 4, 1945, to December 31, 1991 at the formal end the Soviet Union. The Cold war was not a formal war, but a series of Proxy Wars and build-up of nuclear and and non-nuclear weapons, predominantly between the Warsaw Pact and other Communist countries and the NATO and American forces.
The East and West completed mostly over sport, science, the arts, front line military, space and atomic arms.
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 Sino-Soviet 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 Non-Aligned Movement; it sought good relations with both sides. The two superpowers never engaged directly in full-scale armed combat, but they were heavily armed in preparation for a possible all-out nuclear world war. Each side had a nuclear deterrent that discouraged an attack by the other side, on the basis that such an attack would lead to total destruction of the attacker: the doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD). Aside from the development of the two sides' nuclear arsenals, and 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 anti-communist 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 Sino-Soviet 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 a defeat of the US-backed Republic of South Vietnam, prompting further adjustments.
Post World War 2[]
The Allies disagreed about how the European map should look, and how borders would be drawn, following the war. Each side held dissimilar ideas regarding the establishment and maintenance of post-war security. The Western Allies were divided in their vision of the new post-war world.
At the Potsdam Conference, which started in late July after Germany's surrender, serious differences emerged over the future development of Germany and the rest of Central and Eastern Europe. One week after the end of the Potsdam Conference, the US bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Start of The Warsaw Pact[]
During the opening stages of World War II, the Soviet Union laid the foundation for the Eastern Bloc by invading and then annexing several countries as Soviet Socialist Republics, by agreement with Nazi Germany in the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.
As part of consolidating Stalin's control over the Eastern Bloc, the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), led by Lavrentiy Beriya, supervised the establishment of Soviet-style secret police systems in the Bloc that were supposed to crush anti-communist resistance
Beginning[]
In September 1947, the Soviets created Cominform, the purpose of which was to enforce orthodoxy within the international communist movement and tighten political control over Soviet satellites through coordination of communist parties in the Eastern Bloc. The US government's response to this announcement was the adoption of containment, the goal of which was to stop the spread of communism. Britain, France, the United States, Canada envisioned NATO in 1947 as both a way of seeing of Soviet aggression in Europe and stopping Germany from becoming political and militarily dangerous again.
In June 1947, in accordance with the Truman Doctrine, the United States enacted the Marshall Plan, a pledge of economic assistance for all European countries willing to participate, including the Soviet Union. In early 1948, following reports of strengthening "reactionary elements", Soviet operatives executed a coup d'état in Czechoslovakia, the only Eastern Bloc state that the Soviets had permitted to retain democratic structures.
Britain, France, the United States, Canada envisioned NATO in 1947 as both a way of seeing of Soviet aggression in Europe and stopping Germany from becoming political and militarily dangerous again. Britain, France, the United States, Canada and other eight western European countries signed the North Atlantic Treaty of April 1949, establishing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The USSR formed the Warsaw Pact in May 1955 to counter NATO.
In 1949, Mao Zedong's Peoples' Liberation Army defeated Chiang Kai-shek's United States-backed Kuomintang (KMT) Nationalist Government in China, and the Soviet Union promptly created an alliance with the newly formed People's Republic of China.
America was greedy and wanted more military and economic power over Western Europe and Central America, then eventually the whole world. The USSR was paranoid and obsessed with political and military power over Eastern Europe and East Asia, then eventually the whole world. America regarded South East Asians and Amerindians as sub-human until the 1960s and wanted to wipe them out as part of any future war, while the Soviets were obsessed the W. Germans were unrepentant Nazis until the 1970s and wanted to wipe them out as part of any future war. The Arabs, East Asians, Latin Americans, South East Asians and the Western Europe an nations were scared of the whole thing turning in to a new global war, possibly with nukes. While the mentally ill Joseph Stalin would have cause a conflict anyhow, America's own plans for would domination would would have alienated these that came afterwards.
The Early Cold War.[]
In 1953, changes in political leadership on both sides shifted the dynamic of the Cold War. After the death of Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev became the Soviet leader following the deposition and execution of Lavrentiy Beria and the pushing aside of rivals Georgy Malenkov and Vyacheslav Molotov. the 1950–1953 Korean War was a major conflict in the Cold War and formalised the East-West split.
During November 1958, Khrushchev made an unsuccessful attempt to turn all of Berlin into an independent, demilitarized "free city", giving the United States, Great Britain, and France a six-month ultimatum to withdraw their troops from the sectors they still occupied in West Berlin, or he would transfer control of Western access rights to the East Germans. Khrushchev earlier explained to Mao Zedong that "Berlin is the testicles of the West. Every time I want to make the West scream, I squeeze on Berlin."
The period after 1956 was marked by serious setbacks for the Soviet Union, most notably the breakdown of the Sino-Soviet alliance, beginning the Sino-Soviet split.
The Cuban Missile Crisis occurred in the early 1960s and the Vietnam War scarred the decade.
Things continued to deteriorate as the Vietnam War worsened.
Late Cold War[]
Détente and Glasnost[]
By the 1970s, both sides had become interested in accommodations to create a more stable and predictable international system, inaugurating a period of détente that saw Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and the US opening relations with the People's Republic of China as a strategic counterweight to the Soviet Union. Détente collapsed at the end of the decade with the Soviet war in Afghanistan beginning in 1979. The early 1980s were another period of elevated tension, with the Soviet downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 (1983), and the "Able Archer" NATO military exercises (1983). The United States increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressures on the Soviet Union, at a time when the communist state was already suffering from economic stagnation. In the mid-1980s, the new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the liberalizing reforms of perestroika ("reorganization", 1987) and glasnost ("openness", c. 1985) and ended Soviet involvement in Afghanistan. Pressures for national independence grew stronger in Eastern Europe, especially Poland. Mikhail Gorbachev meanwhile refused to use Soviet troops to bolster the faltering Warsaw Pact regimes as had occurred in the past. The result in 1989 was a wave of revolutions that peacefully (with the exception of the Romanian Revolution) overthrew all of the communist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe.
The end[]
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union itself lost control and was banned following an abortive coup attempt in August 1991. This in turn led to the formal dissolution of the USSR in December 1991 and the collapse of communist regimes in other countries such as Mongolia, Cambodia and South Yemen. The United States remained as the world's only superpower, but Russia wished to regain superpower status and China was slowly progressing to wards becoming one.
Aftermath[]
The Cold War and its events have left a significant legacy. It is often referred to in popular culture, especially in media featuring themes of espionage (e.g. the internationally successful James Bond movie franchise) and the threat of nuclear warfare.
American and Soviet bad faith in several crises[]
American acts of bad faith[]
America condoned the Nazis and helped them despite of French warning, but turned on them once Nazi Germany went to war.
Winston Churchill warned the US that Joseph Stalin was out conquer most of Europe. The USA ignored this until the Berlin airlift was needed and then blamed the USSR for all America's woes up until the détente of the 1970s.
The USA has always hated the PRC except in the brief détente of the 1970s. OK, no one like the Tienaman Squair massacre, but things change in the 1990's over the most of the world, but the USA got jealous as China had become of a economic near superpower spewing stuffed toys, busses and (sadly often ripped of) video games. China went psycho in the late 2010s and economic enslave several 3rd world nations and got obsessed with hating both the USA and Taiwan, which the USA wanted as a precursor to war.
Putin was welcomed as a replacement for Yelstin. Putin was OK at first, but attacked Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014. No one did much and the USA cautiously condoned it. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. The would mostly condemned it and America reluctantly joined in to keep it's allies quiet. They gave Ukraine minimal aid (as a % of national reserves and industrial output) and signalled there preference for a Putin victory, whilst simultaneously blaming the EU for stating it all and not making enough sacrifices for it.
Americans expected there allies to die in heaps for them:
- Korea- The UK, Turkey, Australia, et al.
- Vietnam- Australia and the UK (some how Harold Wilson got us out of it).
They never helped there allies.
- UK and France in Suez.
- The UK in the Malay Emergency.
- The UK in the Aden Crisis.
- The UK in the Falkland's War (some how Ronald Regan got us some satellite imagery, a load of high power radios and a satellite link).
Soviet acts of bad faith[]
- Exercise Zapad-81 was in violation of the then current political norms and involved a large Soviet victory parade meant to rub NATO and Polish nosed in the shit afterwards.
- The Korean Air Flight 007 incident in 1983 involved possible and known acts of bad faith at several levels and moments of time.
Political alignment maps[]
GDP and life expectancy maps[]
- Note: Modern figures some times quote retrospectively the USSR's republics' statistics as if they were independent nations, which they were not, but because the USSR was so dominated by Russia that it's stats can be use in place of the USSR's. Modern figures some times quote retrospectively Yemen, Vietnam and Germany as if they a united and not divided in two by Cold War Geopolitics. N. Yemen, S. Vietnam and W. Germany had about 5-10 more years lifespan than S. Yemen, N. Vietnam and E. Germany.
- Note: GDP per head statistics state at various times, with some like USSR and Saudi Arabia starting in 1970. Modern figures some times quote retrospectively the USSR's republics' statistics as if they were independent nations, which they were not, but because the USSR was so dominated by Russia that it's stats per capita can be use in place of the USSR's. Modern figures some times quote retrospectively Yemen, Vietnam and Germany as if they a united and not divided in two by Cold War Geopolitics. N. Yemen, S. Vietnam and W. Germany had about 33% more economic production than S. Yemen, N. Vietnam and E. Germany. Modern figures some times quote retrospectively Ethiopia's and Eritrea's republics' statistics as if they were independent nations, which they were not, but because the old Ethiopia was so dominated by modern Ethiopia that it's stats per capita can be use in place of the old Ethiopia's. Modern figures some times quote retrospectively for Czechia, Slovakia and the former Yugoslavia as if they independent nations, which they were not, but the united figures were roughly between those of Slovakia and Czechia for Czechoslovakia and between to the of Serbia and Croatia for Yugoslavia. Modern figures some times quote retrospectively for N. Sudan and S. Sudan as if they were independent nations, which they were not, but Sudan was so dominated by N. Sudan that it's stats per capita can be use in place of Sudan's.
Videos[]
- Awsome Stuff!
- Fancy seeing many more Videos?!
Image gallery[]
Also see[]
- UN
- CND
- Sport
- Culture
- Missiles
- Berlin airlift
- Submarines
- Vietnam War
- Ordine Nuovo
- Marshall Plan
- Space Satellites
- Truman doctrine
- Cold War Timeline
- Communist parties
- 1950–1953 Korean War
- Cold War Timeline
- Was the USSR or 20th Century USA a de facto empire?
- Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base
- Seven days to the River Rhine (1979)
- Weather Underground Organization (WUO)
- Communist countries during the Cold War
- Cold War secret police organisations
- Cold War radio jamming
- Cold War radio propaganda
- Revolutionary Communist Party, USA
- Revolutionary Internationalist Movement
- Red Brigades (in Italy)
- Black Liberation Army (BLA)
- Atomic arsenals
- A political diorama
- Heidi Krieger/Andreas Krieger
- Weather modification
- Cuban Missile Crisis
- Communist old guard
- Portuguese Colonial War
- List of Korean Republics
- Popular UK Cold War era geopolitical myths and false beliefs
- Council for Mutual Economic Assistance
- Communist parties
- Major Cold War wars that killed over 250,000 people
- Daewoo Group and Daewoo Corporation
- The Korean Peninsular!
- Why South Vietnamese women wore cardigans in Israel
- Secret service radio numbers stations
- Radio buzzers and akin stations
- Secret service radio stations
- Letter beacon
- The "La Técnica" torture center
- The rules of war
- The 1950 United Kingdom general election
- Warsaw Pact
- Ivalo Airfield
- Helsinki Vantaa Highway Strip
- Helsinki Vantaa Airport
- Hyvinkää Airfield
- Oulu Air Base
- Immola Airfield
- Directory of all Indochinese wars in the Cold War
- Popular UK Cold War era geopolitical myths and false beliefs
- Atomic warfare information notes.
- Atomic\nuclear war
- The atomic artillery peace ‘Atomic Annie’
- Atomic accidents and disasters
- The 1950 United Kingdom general election
- Super-power
- Hungarian Revolution of 1956
- Europe
- Africa
- South America
- North America
- Central America and the Caribbean
- The Middle East
- South Asia
- East Asia
- South East Asia
- Oceania
- The Arctic and the Antarctica
- Outer space
- Science
- Operation Chrome Dome
- 1950–1953 Korean War
- Vietnam War
- Portuguese Colonial War
- NATO
- Warsaw Pact
- Nukes
- Military exercises
- "Reds under the bed"
- House Committee on Un-American Activities
- Directory of all Indochinese wars in the Cold War
- Today's OTL types of economies, societies and regimes
- UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- Weather modification
- Iranian Revolution
- Organisations
- Radar
- Aircraft
- Bombers
- Navy
- Weather modification
- Missiles
- Tanks and APCs
- USSR
- Eastern Bloc
- The UN
- Communist Parties
- Nations
- Films
- Biographies
- Energy industry
- Sport
- National leaders
- Hungarian Revolution of 1956
- Arab–Israeli conflict
- North Yemen-South Yemen Border Conflict of 1972
- North Yemen Civil War
- Inner German Border
- EBU
- ECOWAS
- EU
- CACM
- India
- Pakistan
- Six-Day War
- Suez Crisis
- Aden Emergency
- Yom Kippur War
- Time line of Iraq
- 1948 Palestine war
- Iranian Revolution
- 1970s energy crises
- Minerals and fuel in central Africa
- What women should wear in the Middle East
- Mineral mining, smelting and shipping videos
- North Yemen-South Yemen Border Conflict of 1972
- Winning a hot war
- Iranian videos page
- Iran-Iraq war
- Palestine vs Israel
- 1970s energy crises
- 1953 Iranian coup d'état
- What women should wear in the Middle East
- Bourj el-Barajneh and it's refugee camp
- Six-Day War
- Suez Crisis
- Dhofar Rebellion
- Omani Civil War
- Hungarian Revolution of 1956
- The Al-Wadiah War (1969)
- October 28, 1972 Cairo Agreement
- Israel invasion of Lebanon in 1982
- Qibya massacre
- Aden Emergency
- Yom Kippur War
- Time line of Iraq
- 1948 Palestine war
- Iranian Revolution
- 1970s energy crises
- Minerals and fuel in central Africa
- What women should wear in the Middle East
- Mineral mining, smelting and shipping videos
- North Yemen-South Yemen Border Conflict of 1972
- Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf
- Hungarian Revolution of 1956
- United Nations General Assembly
- Secretary-General of the United Nations
- UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 1
- United Nations Security Council Resolution 54
- Cold War secret police organisations
- Cold War radio jamming
- Cold War radio propaganda
- Cold War Timeline
- Space Satellites
- Seven days to the River Rhine (1979)
- Berlin airlift
- Marshall Plan
- Truman doctrine
- Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base
- 1950–1953 Korean War
- Vietnam War
- Weather Underground Organization (WUO)
- Communist parties
- Revolutionary Communist Party, USA
- Revolutionary Internationalist Movement
- Red Brigades (in Italy)
- Black Liberation Army (BLA)
- Ordine Nuovo
- Eastern block tank quality and stats
- Submarines
- A political diorama
- Heidi Krieger/Andreas Krieger
- Weather modification
- Missiles
- The 'false' Cold War theory
- Cuban Missile Crisis
- Communist old guard
- Portuguese Colonial War
- Western anti-communist panics
- Popular UK Cold War era geopolitical myths and false beliefs
- Atomic warfare information notes.
- Atomic\nuclear war
- The atomic artillery peace ‘Atomic Annie’
- Atomic accidents and disasters
- The 1950 United Kingdom general election
- Super-power
- Cold War radio jamming
- The Cold War Penicillin Boom
- Cold War Timeline
- Communist Leaders during the Cold War and World War 2
Latin American juntas and dictatorships! (1944-1992) | |
---|---|
Operation Condor, Operation PBFortune
and other black-opps |
Black-opps - Operation PBFortune - special-opps- Operation Condor- American collusion in Operation Condor- French collusion in Operation Condor- Argentina's "Dirty War" - Operation Soberanía - La Violencia - Colombian conflict (1964–present) - Peruvian conflict - United States involvement in regime change in Latin America - 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état - United States invasion of Panama - Panamanian 'Dignity Battalions' - Port Belgrano Naval Base |
Systems of state repression | The "La Técnica" torture center - Vill Gremadi Detention Center - Dirección Nacional de Asuntos Técnicos - Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (DINA) - Panamanian 'Dignity Battalions' - Death flight - Political disappearances |
The ones who tried to get nukes | Brazil (failed) - Chile (failed) - Argentina (failed) - Cuba (gave them up) - Cuban Missile Crisis |
Economics | Paving the Quito-Tulcán road in the early 1970s - Argentine Cold War era hyper inflation- Brazil's development of the Amazon region in the 1970s- Transamazon Highway (BR-230) (the 1970s part) |
Politics and Geo-politics | Falklands sovereignty dispute - 1982 Falklands War - Cold War - Operation Soberanía - Beagle conflict - Snipe incident - United States invasion of Panama - 1977 Torrijos–Carter Treaties |
Technology | Alacrán (Condor IAIII) missile - The Condor and Alacrán missile programs - El Torero Enojado (fake aircraft) - FMA IA 58 Pucará - FMA IAe 33 Pulqui II |
People | General Augusto Pinochet - Alfredo Stroessner - Jorge Rafael Videla - Guillermo Rodríguez (politician) - Leopoldo Galtieri - Juan Domingo Perón -Gustavo Rojas Pinilla- Luis García Meza Tejada - Juan María Bordaberry - Marcos Pérez Jiménez - Manuel Apolinario Odría - João Goulart -Dwight D. Eisenhower - Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno - Anastasio Somoza García - Rafael Trujillo - Fulgencio Batista - Fidel Castro - Carlos Castillo Armas - Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes - Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North - Omar Torrijos - Anastasio Somoza Debayle - Luis Somoza Debayle - General Oswaldo López Arellano - (General Kjell Eugenio Laugerud García - General Romeo Lucas García - General Carlos Humberto Romero |
Important places | The "La Técnica" torture center - Vill Gremadi Detention Center - Port Belgrano Naval Base |
Wars and civil wars | Colombian conflict (1964–present) - Peruvian conflict - Contras - Sandinistas - Operation Soberanía - Argentina's "Dirty War" - 1982 Falklands War - Operation Soberanía - Beagle conflict - Snipe incident - La guerra del fútbol - Guatemalan Civil War - Salvadoran Civil War - Guerrilla Army of the Poor - 1979 Nicaraguan Revolution |
Other stuff | 601 Commando Company - 602 Commando Company - 601 Air Assault Regiment - 5th Marine Battalion (Argentina) - Guatemalan genocide against the Maya - Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation |
Outside sources[]
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War
- http://cold-war-and-post-cold-war-history.wikia.com/wiki/Cold_War_and_Post_Cold_War_History_Wiki
- http://cold-war.wikia.com/wiki/Cold_War_Wiki
- http://coldwar.wikia.com/wiki/Cold_War_Wiki
- http://hungary-1956.wikia.com/wiki/Hungary_1956_Wikia
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War
- http://cold-war-and-post-cold-war-history.wikia.com/wiki/Cold_War_and_Post_Cold_War_History_Wiki
- http://cold-war.wikia.com/wiki/Cold_War_Wiki
- http://coldwar.wikia.com/wiki/Cold_War_Wiki
- http://hungary-1956.wikia.com/wiki/Hungary_1956_Wikia
- https://www.wired.com/2017/05/rare-journey-cheyenne-mountain-complex-super-bunker-can-survive-anything/?mbid=nl_62417_p1&CNDID=
Other relevant wiki[]
- Cold War and Post Cold War History Wiki [1]