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VIDEOS OF COLD WAR
The Cold
War was a period of geopolitical tension between the Soviet
Union and the United States and their respective allies, the Eastern
Bloc and the Western Bloc, after World
War II. The period is generally considered to span the 1947 Truman
Doctrine to the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union.
The
term "cold" is used because there was no
large-scale fighting directly between the two superpowers,
but they each supported major regional conflicts known as proxy wars.
The conflict was based around the ideological and geopolitical struggle for
global influence by the two powers, following their temporary alliance and victory against Nazi
Germany in 1945.
The
doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD)
discouraged a pre-emptive attack by either side.
Aside from the nuclear arsenal development and conventional
military deployment, the struggle for dominance was expressed via indirect
means such as psychological warfare, propaganda campaigns, espionage, far-reaching embargoes, rivalry at sports events and
technological competitions such as the Space Race.
The
West was led by the United States as well as the other First
World nations of the Western Bloc that were generally liberal democratic but tied to a network of
authoritarian states, most of which were their former
colonies. The
East was led by the Soviet
Union and its Communist Party, which had
influence across the Second World. The US government supported right-wing
governments and uprisings across the world, while the Soviet government funded communist parties and
revolutions around the world. As nearly all the colonial states achieved independence in the period 1945 – 1960, they
became Third
World battlefields in the Cold War.
End of Cold War
End of Cold War
The Cold
War period of 1985 – 1991 began with the rise of Mikhail
Gorbachev as General
Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet
Union. Gorbachev was a revolutionary leader for the USSR, as he was the
first to promote liberalization of the political landscape (Glasnost) and
capitalist elements into the economy (Perestroika);
prior to this, the USSR had been strictly prohibiting liberal reform and
maintained an inefficient command
economy.
The USSR, despite facing massive economic difficulties, was
involved in a costly arms race with the United
States under President Ronald Reagan. Regardless, the USSR began to crumble
as liberal reforms proved difficult to handle and capitalist changes to the economy
were badly instituted and caused major problems.
The Cold War came to an end
when the last war of Soviet occupation ended in Afghanistan, the Berlin Wall came down in Germany, and a series of mostly peaceful revolutions swept the
Soviet
Bloc states of eastern Europe in 1989.
Videos of Cold War
Video 1
Video 2
Video 3
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