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Outline of the Cold War

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Overview of and topical guide to the Cold War

Cold War – period of political and military tension that occurred afterWorld War II between powers in the Western Bloc (the United States, its NATO allies and others) and powers in the Eastern Bloc (the Soviet Union and its allies in the Warsaw Pact). Historians have not fully agreed on the dates, but 1947–1991 is common. It was termed as "cold" because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two sides. Based on the principle ofmutually assured destruction, both sides developednuclear weapons to deter the other side from attacking. So they competed against each other viaespionage,propaganda, and by supporting major regional wars, known asproxy wars, in Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan.

Participants

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Cold War participants – the Cold War primarily consisted of competition between theEastern Bloc and theWestern Bloc. While countries and organizations explicitly aligned to one or the other are listed below, this does not include those involved in specific Cold War events, such asNorth Korea,South Korea, andVietnam. It also does not include countries such asChina which, while not aligned to either blocs, still played an influential part in the Cold War.

Eastern Bloc

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Eastern Bloc – the communist side of the Cold War conflict, including the Soviet Union and its satellite states inEastern Europe. Organizations that the Soviet Union created in order to solidify its control over Eastern Europe, and which tied the Eastern Bloc together, included:

Additionally, theByelorussian Soviet Socialist RepublicByelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (Byelorussia) and theUkrainian Soviet Socialist RepublicUkrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (Ukraine) were represented separately in theUnited Nations in addition to the Soviet Union. Though not parties to the Warsaw Pact, Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba, and Laos, maintained Cold War alliances with the Eastern Bloc.

Western Bloc

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Western Bloc – the United States and countries allied with it against the Soviet Union and the rest of the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War. As part of itscontainment policy, theUnited States backed a series of regional alliances:

History

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Overview articles

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Beginnings

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Origins of the Cold War – the Cold war was a major part of theaftermath of World War II, and was caused by frictions in the relations between theSoviet Union and the allies (United States,United Kingdom, andFrance) that emerged during and after the Second World War.

Creation of organizations

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Cold War organizations – throughout the Cold War a series of organizations were created to either further the goals of individual and groups of states, or to act as intermediaries in reducing the tension.

Key areas of competition

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  • Nuclear arms race – competition for supremacy innuclear warfare between the United States, the Soviet Union, and their respective allies during the Cold War.
  • Space Race – 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (US), for supremacy inspaceflight capability. It had its origins in the missile-based nuclear arms race between the two nations that occurred following World War II, enabled by captured German rocket technology and personnel.
  • Cold War espionage
  • Cold War propaganda
  • Proxy wars

Conflicts

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Conflicts related to the Cold War – there were a number of conflicts during the Cold War, and none of them escalated to direct fighting between the superpowers (which would have constituted a hot war). Some of them were:

Proxy wars

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Proxy wars of the Cold War – while the superpowers never engaged each other directly, they fought a series proxy wars throughout the period of Cold War, with one, or both sides arming or otherwise supporting one side against another.

Periods of heightened tension

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US-USSR confrontations during the Cold War – while open conflict did not break out between the two superpowers during the Cold War, there were some very intense confrontations that seemed likely to trigger World War III. As the Cold War stretched on, the main concern became the possibility of a nuclear exchange—the ultimate fear characterizing East-West tensions. Some of these confrontations included:

  • Berlin Blockade (1948–1949) – while located wholly within theSoviet zone ofAllied-occupied Germany after World War II,Berlin was not considered to be part of the Soviet zone. The major city (and former Nazi capital) was jointly occupied by the Allied powers and subdivided into four sectors. On 24 June 1948 to 12 May 1949, the Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to Berlin. Not to be outdone, the Western Allies organized a massive air lift and flew up to 8,893 tons of necessities into the city each day.[1][2][3]
  • Berlin Crisis of 1961 – the USSR demanded the withdrawal of NATO armed forces fromWest Berlin. After the West Bloc refused, the East German government put up theBerlin Wall to block traffic between the Western and Eastern sectors of Berlin.
  • Cuban Missile Crisis (October 16–28, 1962) – 13-day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union concerning Soviet ballistic missile deployment inCuba. Along with being televised worldwide, it was the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war.[4]
  • Able Archer 83 (1983) – NATO exercise mistaken by parts of theKGB,Politburo, andSoviet Armed Forces as cover for an attack. The USSR responded by readying its forces for war.

Ending

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End of the Cold War – While many observers state the 1989Malta Summit was the end of the Cold War, it was December 1991 before thePresidents of the United States and theSoviet Union formally recognized the conflict's end, with the Soviet Union also being dissolved at that time. Some key events leading up to the end include:

Aftermath

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Cold War foreign policy and diplomacy

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Influential people

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Military personnel

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National leaders

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United States

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Soviet Union

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See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ Withheld support starting in 1961 because of theSino–Soviet split. On account of the 1948Soviet-Yugoslav split, which resulted in Yugoslavia becoming the only non-aligned communist state in Europe and Albania geographically cut off from the other Warsaw Pact states. This meant Albania could not be unlike Hungary and Czechoslovakia, enjoyed the liberty to determine her own foreign policy course without. After officially withdrawing from the Warsaw Pact in 1968, Albania joined an informal Maoist oriented alliance led by China, later being joinedby Cambodia. The movement never gained traction as a viable alternative to Soviet dominance with Cambodia dropping out in 1977 and Albania following suit the following year.

References

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  1. ^Journey Across Berlin (1961).Universal Newsreel. 1957. Retrieved22 February 2012.
  2. ^Air Force Story, The – Cold War, 1948–1950 (1953).Universal Newsreel. 1953. Retrieved22 February 2012.
  3. ^Nash, Gary B. "The Next Steps: The Marshall Plan, NATO, and NSC-68."The American People: Creating a Nation and a Society. New York: Pearson Longman, 2008. P 828.
  4. ^Len Scott; R. Gerald Hughes (2015).The Cuban Missile Crisis: A Critical Reappraisal. Taylor & Francis. p. 17.ISBN 9781317555414.

Further reading

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  • Brune, Lester, and Richard Dean Burns. Chronology of the Cold War: 1917–1992 (2005), : 720 pp
  • Tucker, Spencer, et al. eds.The Encyclopedia of the Cold War: A Political, Social, and Military History (5 vol., 2007) 1969pp

External links

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