Cold War
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[[Image:Reagan and Gorbachev hold discussions.jpg|thumb|right|300px|The [[United States|US]] and [[USSR]] were the two [[superpower]]s during the Cold War, each leading its own sphere of influence. Here, the respective leaders [[Ronald Reagan]] and [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] (from left to right) meet in 1985.]]
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. Throughout this period, the rivalry between the two [[superpower]]s unfolded in multiple arenas, such as military coalitions, [[ideology]], [[propaganda]], [[espionage]], [[weaponry]], industrial advances, and technological developments, the latter of which included the [[Space Race|space race]]. In sports, rising tensions between the US and the Soviet Union (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 war]]s.
While there was never a declared [[war]] 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 state|satellite nations]] in local "third party" wars. 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]]. Over the following decades, the Cold War spread outside [[Europe]] to every region of the world, as the US sought the "[[containment]]" and "[[rollback]]" of [[communism]] and forged numerous alliances to this end, particularly in Western Europe and the [[Middle East]]. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union supported Communist movements around the world, particularly in [[Eastern Europe]] and [[Southeast Asia]]. There were repeated crises such as the [[Berlin Blockade]] (1948–49), the [[Korean War]] (1950–53), the [[Vietnam War]] (1959–1975), the [[Soviet-Afghan War]] (1979–89), and especially the 1962 [[Cuban Missile Crisis]], when the world came to the brink of a new [[world war]]. There were also periods when tension was reduced as both sides sought [[détente]]. Direct military attacks on adversaries were deterred by the potential for [[mutual assured destruction]] using deliverable [[nuclear weapon]]s.
{{ColdWar}}
The Cold War drew to a close in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. With the coming to power of US President [[Ronald Reagan]], the US increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressure on the Soviet Union. In the second half of the 1980's, newly appointed Soviet leader [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] introduced ''[[perestroika]]'' and ''[[glasnost]]''. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, leaving the United States the sole superpower in a [[Polarity in international relations#Unipolarity|unipolar]] world.
==Origins of the term==
In the specific sense of the post-World War II [[Geopolitics|geopolitical]] tensions between the Soviet Union and the US, the ''Cold War'' term has been attributed to American financier and US presidential advisor Bernard Baruch.<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 54</ref> On [[April 16]], [[1947]], Baruch gave a speech in [[South Carolina]], in which he said, "Let us not be deceived: we are today in the midst of a cold war".<ref>[http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=2639 'Bernard Baruch coins the term "Cold War"'], history.com, [[April 16]], [[1947]]. Retrieved on [[July 2]], [[2008]].</ref> 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.<ref>[http://www.legacymemorybank.org/Donors/bayardswope.htm Mr. Herbert Bayard-Swope, "US Media Personality and Legacy Content Donor"], legacymemorybank.org. Retrieved on [[July 2]], [[2008]].</ref> Columnist [[Walter Lippmann]] also gave the term wide currency after his 1947 book titled ''Cold War''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1881.html|title=Cold War|accessdate=2008-06-22|publisher=The Travel Guide, U-S-History.com}}</ref>
==History==
===Background===
{{Main|Origins of the Cold War}}
{{see|Red Scare}}
[[Image:American troops in Vladivostok 1918 HD-SN-99-02013.JPEG|thumb|right|American troops in [[Vladivostok]], August 1918, during the [[Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War]]]]
There is disagreement over exactly when the Cold War began. 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]] and the [[British Empire]] and the United States date back to the middle of the 19th century.<ref name="Gaddis"/> The ideological clash between [[communism]] and [[capitalism]] began in 1917 following the [[October Revolution|Russian Revolution]], when Russia emerged as the world's first communist nation. This was the first event which made Russian–American relations a matter of major long-term concern to the leaders in each country.<ref name = "Gaddis">Gaddis 1990, p. 57</ref>
Several events led to suspicion and distrust between the United States and the Soviet Union: the Bolsheviks' challenge to capitalism<ref name = "Halliday">Halliday, p. 2e</ref> (through violent overthrow of "capitalist" regimes to be replaced by communism), Russia's withdrawal from [[World War I]] in the [[Treaty of Brest-Litovsk]] with [[Germany]], US intervention in Russia supporting the [[White movement|White Army]] in the [[Russian Civil War]], and the US refusal to recognize the Soviet Union until 1933.<ref name = "LaFeber 1991">La Feber 1991, pp. 194–197</ref> Other events in the interwar period increased this suspicion and distrust. The [[Treaty of Rapallo, 1922|Treaty of Rapallo]] and the [[Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact|German-Soviet Non-aggression Pact]] are two notable examples.<ref>Leffler, p. 21</ref>
===World War II and Post-War (1939–47)===
During their joint war effort (from 1941), the Soviets strongly suspected that the British and Americans had opted to let the Russians bear the brunt of the war effort, and to join the fight only at the last minute so as to influence the peace settlement and dominate Europe.<ref>Gaddis 1990, p. 151</ref> Thus, Soviet perceptions of the West and ''vice versa'' left a strong undercurrent of tension and hostility between the Allied powers.<ref>Gaddis 1990, pp. 151–153</ref>
[[Image:Yalta summit 1945 with Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin.jpg|thumb|left|The "[[Allies of World War II|Big Three]]" at the Yalta Conference, [[Winston Churchill]], [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] and [[Joseph Stalin]]]]
The Allies disagreed about how the European map should look, and borders drawn, following the war.<ref name="Gaddis13-23">Gaddis 2005, ''European Territorial Changes'' chapter, pp. 13–23</ref> Both sides, moreover, held very dissimilar ideas regarding the establishment and maintenance of post-war security.<ref name="Gaddis13-23" /> The American concept of security assumed that, if US-style governments and markets were established as widely as possible, countries could resolve their differences peacefully, through [[international organization]]s.<ref>Gaddis 1990, p. 156</ref> The Soviet model of security depended on integrity of their own borders.<ref>Gaddis 1990, p. 176</ref> This reasoning was conditioned by Russia's historical experiences, given the frequency with which the country had been invaded from the West over the previous 150 years.<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 7</ref> The immense damage inflicted upon the USSR by the German invasion was unprecedented both in terms of death toll (est. 27 million) and the extent of destruction.<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4530565.stm "Leaders mourn Soviet wartime dead"], BBC News, [[May 9]], [[2005]]. Retrieved on [[July 2]], [[2008]].</ref> Moscow was committed to ensuring that the new order in Europe would guarantee Soviet long-term security through eliminating the chance of a hostile government reappearing along the USSR western border, by controlling the governments of these countries.<ref name="Gaddis13-23" /> Poland was a particularly thorny issue: in April 1945, both Churchill and the new American President, [[Harry S. Truman]] protested to the Soviets' propping up the [[Polish Committee of National Liberation|Lublin government]], the Soviet-controlled rival to the [[Polish government-in-exile]], whose relations with the Soviets were severed.<ref>Zubok, p. 94</ref>
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.<ref name="Gaddis21">Gaddis 2005, p. 21</ref> Following the [[End of World War II in Europe|Allied victory in May]], the Soviets effectively occupied Eastern Europe,<ref name="Gaddis21" /> while strong US and Western allied forces remained in Western Europe. In occupied Germany, the US and the Soviet Union established [[Allied Occupation Zones in Germany|zones of occupation]] and a loose framework for four-power control with the fading French and British.<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 22</ref> For the maintenance of world peace, the Allies set up the [[United Nations]], but the enforcement capacity of its [[United Nations Security Council|Security Council]] was effectively paralyzed by the superpowers' use of the [[United Nations Security Council veto power|veto]].<ref>Bourantonis, p. 130</ref> Indeed, the UN was essentially converted into a forum for exchanging polemical rhetoric, and the Soviets regarded it almost exclusively as a propaganda tribune.<ref>Garthoff, p. 401</ref>
British Prime Minister [[Winston Churchill]] was concerned that given the enormous size of Soviet forces deployed in Europe at the end of the war, and the perception that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin was unreliable, there existed a Soviet threat to Western Europe. In April-May 1945, British Armed Forces developed [[Operation Unthinkable]], the Third World War plan, the primary goal of which was "to impose upon Russia the will of the United States and the British Empire".<ref>{{cite web
| last = British War Cabinet, Joint Planning Staff, Public Record Office, CAB 120/691/109040 / 002
| date = [[1945-08-11]]
| url = http://www.history.neu.edu/PRO2/
| title = "Operation Unthinkable: 'Russia: Threat to Western Civilization'"
| format = online photocopy
| publisher = Department of History, Northeastern University
| accessdate = 2008-06-28}}</ref> However, the plan was rejected by the British [[Chiefs of Staff Committee]] as militarily unfeasible.
[[Image:Trumanstalin.jpg|right|thumb|Harry S. Truman and Joseph Stalin meeting at the [[Potsdam Conference]] on [[July 18]], [[1945]]]]
At the [[Potsdam Conference]], starting in late July, serious differences emerged over the future development of Germany and Eastern Europe;<ref name = "Byrd">{{cite encyclopedia |author=Byrd, Peter |editor=McLean, Iain; McMillan, Alistair |encyclopedia=The concise Oxford dictionary of politics |title=Cold War (entire chapter) |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=xLbEHQAACAAJ&ei=E45VSJrQO4e4jgGh_oWODA |accessdate=2008-06-16 |year=2003 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0192802763 }}</ref> the participants' mounting antipathy and bellicose language served to confirm their suspicions about each other's hostile intentions and entrench their positions.<ref>Wood, p. 62</ref> At this conference Truman informed Stalin that the United States possessed a powerful new weapon. Stalin was aware that the Americans were working on the atomic bomb and as the Soviets' own rival program was in place, he reacted to the news calmly, saying only that he was glad to hear that and expressing the hope that the weapon would be used against Japan.<ref>Gaddis 2005, pp. 25–26</ref> One week after the end of the Potsdam Conference, the US [[atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki|bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki]]. Shortly after the attacks, Stalin protested to US officials when Truman offered the Soviets little real influence in [[occupied Japan]].<ref>LaFeber 2002, p. 28</ref>
In February 1946, [[George F. Kennan]]'s "[[X Article|Long Telegram]]" from Moscow helped to articulate the growing hard line that was being taken against the Soviets, and became the basis for US strategy toward the Soviet Union throughout the rest of the Cold War.<ref>Kennan, pp. 292–295</ref> That September, the Soviet side produced the [[Nikolai Vasilevich Novikov|Novikov]] telegram, sent by the Soviet ambassador to the US but commissioned and "co-authored" by [[Vyacheslav Molotov]]; it portrayed the US as being in the grip of monopoly capital building up military capability "to prepare the conditions for winning world supremacy in a new war".<ref>Kydd, p. 107</ref> On [[September 6]], [[1946]], [[James F. Byrnes]] made a [[Restatement of Policy on Germany|speech]] in [[Germany]] repudiating the [[Morgenthau Plan]] and warning the Soviets that the US intended to maintain a military presence in Europe indefinitely.<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 30</ref> As Byrnes admitted a month later, "The nub of our program was to win the German people [...] it was a battle between us and Russia over minds [...]"<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.daz.org/enJamesFByrnes.html|title=Southern Partnership: James F. Byrnes, Lucius D. Clay and Germany, 1945-1947|first=Curtis F.|last=Morgan|accessdate=2008-06-09|publisher=James F. Byrnes Institute}}</ref> 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]].<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 94</ref> The speech called for an Anglo-American alliance against the Soviets, whom he accused of establishing an "iron curtain" from "[[Szczecin|Stettin]] in the Baltic to [[Trieste]] in the Adriatic".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=711|title=Churchill and...Politics: The True Meaning of the Iron Curtain Speech|author=Harriman, Pamela C.|accessdate=2008-06-22|publisher=Winston Churchill Centre|date=Winter 1987–1988}}</ref><ref name = "Schmitz">{{cite encyclopedia |author=Schmitz, David F. |editor=Whiteclay Chambers, John |encyclopedia=The Oxford Companion to American Military History |title=Cold War (1945–91): Causes [entire chapter]|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=xtMKHgAACAAJ&dq=The+Oxford+Companion+to+American+Military+History |accessdate=2008-06-16 |year=1999 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0195071980 }}</ref>
==="Containment" through the Korean War (1947–53)===
{{Main|Cold War (1947–1953)}}
By 1947, US president [[Harry S. Truman]]'s advisors were worried that time was running out to counter the influence of the Soviet Union, as Stalin was seeking to weaken the position of the US in the period of post-war confusion and collapse by encouraging rivalries among capitalists in order to bring about a new war.<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 27</ref> In Asia, the Red Army had overrun Manchuria in the last month of the war and then also occupied Korea above the 38th parallel north. Mao Zedong's Communist Party of China, though receptive to minimal Soviet support, defeated the pro-Western and heavily American-assisted Chinese Nationalist Party in the Chinese Civil War.
====Europe====
The USSR was setting up puppet communist regimes in [[Bulgaria]], [[Czechoslovakia]], [[Hungary]], [[Poland]], [[Romania]], and [[East Germany]], as the [[Red Army]] maintained a military presence in most of these countries.<ref name = "Schmitz" /> In February 1947, the British government announced that it could no longer afford to finance the Greek monarchical military regime in [[Greek Civil War|its civil war]] against communist-led insurgents. The American government's response to this announcement was the adoption of "[[containment]]",<ref>Gaddis 2005, pp. 28–29</ref> whose goal was to stop the spread of communism. Truman gave a speech to unveil the "[[Truman Doctrine]]", which painted the conflict as a contest between "free" peoples and "totalitarian" regimes. Even though the insurgents were helped by [[Josip Broz Tito]]'s [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|Yugoslavia]],<ref name ="LaFeber 1991" /> US policymakers accused the Soviet Union of conspiracy against the Greek royalists in an effort to "[[Domino theory|expand]]" Soviet influence.<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 38</ref>
[[Image:NationalSecurityAct.jpg|right|thumb|President Truman signs the [[National Security Act of 1947|National Security Act Amendment of 1949]] with guests in the Oval Office.]]
[[Image:Marshall Plan.png|left|thumb|Map of Cold-War era Europe and the Near East showing countries that received [[Marshall Plan]] aid. The red columns show the relative amount of total aid per nation.]]
For US policymakers, threats to Europe's balance of power were not necessarily military ones, but a political and economic challenge.<ref name = "Schmitz" /> In June, 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, such as communist parties attempting to seize power through free elections or popular revolutions, in countries like France or Italy.<ref>Gaddis 1990, p. 186</ref>
Stalin saw the Marshall Plan as a significant threat to Soviet control of Eastern Europe and believed that economic integration with the West would allow Eastern Bloc countries to escape Soviet guidance, and that the US was trying to "buy" a pro-US re-alignment of Europe. Stalin therefore prevented Eastern Bloc nations from receiving Marshall Plan aid. The Soviet Union's "alternative" to the Marshall plan, which was purported to involve Soviet subsidies and trade with western Europe, became known as the [[Molotov Plan]], and later, the [[COMECON]].<ref name = "LaFeber 1991" /> Stalin was also fearful of a reconstituted Germany, as his vision of a post-war Germany did not include the ability to rearm, or be any kind of a threat to the Soviet Union.
In 1948, in retaliation for Western efforts to re-industrialize and rebuild the German economy, Stalin built blockades which prevented Western materials and supplies from getting to [[West Berlin]]. This became known as the [[Berlin Blockade]], and was one of the first major crises of the Cold War. Both sides used [[propaganda]] against each other, with the Soviets mounting a public relations campaign against the US policy change, and the US accidentally creating "Operation Little Vittles", which gave candy to German children. The Berlin Blockade ended peacefully, with Stalin backing down, and allowing normal shipments to resume back to West Berlin.
In July, Truman rescinded the punitive [[Morgenthau plan#JCS 1067|Morgenthau plan]] (part of an agreement with the Soviet Union regarding post-war Germany), which had specifically directed US occupation forces in Germany not to assist in Germany's economic rehabilitation efforts. It was replaced by a new directive which stressed instead that European prosperity was contingent upon German economic recovery.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,887417,00.html|title=Pas de Pagaille!|work=[[Time (magazine)|Time magazine]]|date=[[July 28]], [[1947]]|accessdate=2008-05-28}}</ref>
In September, the Soviets created [[Cominform]] whose purpose was to tighten political control over Soviet [[Satellite state|satellites]] through coordination of communist parties in the [[Eastern Bloc]]. Cominform faced an embarrassing setback the following June, when the [[Tito-Stalin split]] obliged them to expel Yugoslavia, which remained Communist but adopted a neutral stance in the Cold War.<ref>Carabott, p. 66</ref>
[[Image:Cold war europe economic alliances map en.png|thumb|European economic alliances]]
[[Image:Cold war europe military alliances map en.png|thumb|European military alliances]]
As part of Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, the [[NKVD]], led by [[Lavrentiy Beria]], supervised the establishment of Soviet-style systems of secret police in the Eastern European states, which were supposed to crush anti-communist resistance.<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 34</ref> When the slightest stirrings of independence emerged among East European satellites, Stalin's strategy was to deal with those responsible in the same manner he had handled his prewar rivals within the Soviet Union: they were removed from power, put on trial, imprisoned, and in several instances, executed.<ref>Gaddis, p. 100</ref>
The US formally allied itself to the Western European states in the [[North Atlantic Treaty]] of April 1949, establishing the [[North Atlantic Treaty Organization]] (NATO).<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 34</ref> That August, Stalin ordered the detonation of the first Soviet atomic device.<ref name = "LaFeber 1991" />
Additionally, the US spearheaded the establishment of [[West Germany]] from the [[Bizone|three Western zones of occupation]] in May 1949.<ref name = "Byrd" /> To counter this Western reorganisation of Germany, the Soviet Union proclaimed its zone of occupation in Germany the "[[German Democratic Republic]]" that October.<ref name = "Byrd" /> In the early 1950s, the US worked for the rearmament of West Germany and, in 1955, its full membership to NATO.<ref name = "Byrd" /> In May 1953, Lavrentiy Beria, appointed First Deputy Prime Minister of the Soviet Union, made an unsuccessful proposal to allow the reunification of a neutral Germany to prevent West Germany's incorporation into NATO.<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 105</ref>
A major propaganda effort begun in 1949 was [[Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty]], which was dedicated to bringing about the peaceful demise of the [[Communism|Communist]] system and the governments of what were known as the satellite nations ([[Poland]], [[Czechoslovakia]], [[Hungary]], [[Romania]], and [[Bulgaria]]). Radio Free Europe attempted to fulfill these goals by serving as a surrogate home radio station, an alternative to the controlled and party-dominated domestic press.<ref>Puddington, Arch, "Broadcasting Freedom: The Cold War Triumph of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty" (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2003): ix.</ref> RFE was a product of some of the most prominent architects of America's early Cold War strategy, especially those who believed that the Cold War would eventually be fought by political rather than military means, such as [[George F. Kennan]].<ref>Puddington, Arch, "Broadcasting Freedom: The Cold War Triumph of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty" (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2003): 7.</ref> American policymakers such as Kennan and [[John Foster Dulles]] acknowledged that the Cold War was in its essence a war of ideas. The United States, acting through the CIA, funded a long list of projects to counter the Communist appeal among intellectuals in Europe and the developing world.<ref>Puddington, Arch, "Broadcasting Freedom: The Cold War Triumph of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty" (Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2003): 10.</ref>
====Asia====
In 1949, [[Mao Zedong|Mao's]] Red Army defeated the US-backed [[Kuomintang]] regime in China. The Soviet Union created an alliance with the newly formed [[People's Republic of China]].<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 39</ref> 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.<ref name = "LaFeber 1991" /> In a [[NSC-68|secret 1950 document]],<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 164</ref> Truman administration officials proposed to reinforce pro-Western alliance systems and quadruple spending on defence.<ref name = "LaFeber 1991" />
US officials moved thereafter to expand "containment" into Asia, Africa, and Latin America, in order to counter revolutionary nationalist movements, often led by Communist parties financed by the USSR, fighting against the restoration of Europe's colonial empires in South-East Asia.<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 212</ref> In the early 1950s, The US formalized a series of alliances with Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and the Philippines (notably [[ANZUS]] and [[Southeast Asia Treaty Organization|SEATO]]), thereby guaranteeing the United States a number of long-term military bases.<ref name = "Byrd" />
One of the more significant impacts of containment was the [[Korean War]]. As noted, the US and the Soviet Union had been fighting proxy wars, 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;<ref name = "LaFeber 1991" /> this action was backed by the UN Security Council only because the Soviets were then boycotting meetings in protest that [[Republic of China|Taiwan]] and not Communist China held a permanent seat there.<ref>Malkasian, p. 16</ref>
Among other effects, the Korean War galvanised [[NATO]] to develop a military structure,<ref>Isby, pp. 13–14</ref> as all communist countries were suspected of acting together. 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".<ref>Column by [[Ernest Borneman]], ''[[Harper's Magazine]]'', May 1951</ref>
Even if the Chinese and North Koreans were exhausted by the war and were ready to end it by late 1952, Stalin insisted that they should continue fighting, and a cease-fire was approved only in July 1953, after Stalin's death.<ref name = "Byrd" />
===Crisis and escalation (1953–62)===
{{Main|Cold War (1953–1962)}}
In 1953, changes in political leadership on both sides shifted the dynamic of the Cold War.<ref name= "Karabell" >Karabell, p. 916</ref> [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] was inaugurated president in January 1953. 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.<ref name = "LaFeber 1991" /> In March, as Joseph Stalin died, [[Nikita Khrushchev]] soon became the dominant leader of the USSR, having deposed and executed Lavrentiy Beria, and pushed aside his other two rivals [[Georgy Malenkov]] and [[Vyacheslav Molotov]]. On [[February 25]], [[1956]], Khruschev shocked delegates to the 20th Congress of the [[Soviet Communist Party]] by cataloging and denouncing Stalin's crimes.<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 107</ref> He declared that the only way to reform and [[Secret Speech|move away from Stalin's policies]] would be by acknowledging errors made in the past.<ref name = "Karabell" />
On [[November 18]], [[1956]], while addressing Western ambassadors at a reception at the Polish embassy in Moscow, Khrushchev used his famous "Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you" expression, shocking everyone present.<ref>[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,867329,00.html "We Will Bury You!"], ''[[Time (magazine)|Time magazine]]'', [[November 26]], [[1956]]. Retrieved on [[June 26]], [[2008]].</ref> However, he had not been talking about nuclear war, he later claimed, but rather about the historically determined victory of communism over capitalism.<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 84</ref> He then declared in 1961 that even if the USSR might indeed be behind the West, within a decade its housing shortage would disappear, consumer goods would be abundant, its population would be "materially provided for", and within two decades, the Soviet Union "would rise to such a great height that, by comparison, the main capitalist countries will remain far below and well behind".<ref>Taubman, pp. 427, 511</ref>
Eisenhower's secretary of state [[John Foster Dulles]] initiated a "New Look" for the "containment" strategy, calling for a greater reliance on nuclear weapons against US enemies in wartime.<ref name = "Karabell" /> 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]].<ref name = "LaFeber 1991" />
[[Image:Map of Warsaw Pact countries.png|thumb|right|300px|Map of the [[Warsaw Pact]] countries]]
There was a slight relaxation of tensions after Stalin's death in 1953, but the situation in Europe remained an uneasy armed truce.<ref name = "Palmowski">{{cite encyclopedia |author= Palmowski, Jan |encyclopedia=A Dictionary of Contemporary World History |title=Cold War (entire chapter) |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=qqluJAAACAAJ&dq=A+Dictionary+of+Contemporary+World+History |accessdate=2008-06-16 |year=2004 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0198608756 }}</ref> US troops seemed stationed indefinitely in West Germany and Soviet forces seemed indefinitely stationed throughout Eastern Europe. To counter West German rearmament and admission into NATO, the Soviets established a formal alliance with the Eastern European Communist states called the Warsaw Treaty Organization or [[Warsaw Pact]] in 1955;<ref name = "Byrd" /> this was more a political than a defense measure, as the USSR already had a network of mutual assistance treaties with all its allies in Eastern Europe by the time NATO was set up in 1949.<ref>Feldbrugge, p. 818</ref> In 1956, the ''status quo'' was briefly [[Hungarian Revolution of 1956|threatened in Hungary]], when the Soviets invaded rather than allow the Hungarians to move out of their orbit, which started after Khrushchev arranged the removal from power of Hungary's Stalinist leader, [[Mátyás Rákosi]].<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/4/newsid_2739000/2739039.stm|title=Soviet troops overrun Hungary|publisher=BBC News|date=[[November 4]], [[1956]]|accessdate=2008-06-11}}</ref> Berlin remained divided and contested.<ref>Gaddis 2005, pp. 108–109</ref> In 1961, the East Germans erected the [[Berlin Wall]] to prevent the movement of East Berliners into West Berlin.<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 74</ref>
From 1957 through 1961, Khrushchev openly and repeatedly threatened the West with nuclear annihilation. He claimed that Soviet missile capabilities were far superior to those of the United States, capable of wiping out any American or European city. However, Khrushchev rejected Stalin's belief in the inevitability of war, and declared his new goal was to be "peaceful coexistence".<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 70</ref> This formulation modified the Stalin-era Soviet stance, where international [[class struggle]] meant the two opposing camps were on an inevitable collision course where Communism would triumph through global war; now, peace would allow capitalism to collapse on its own,<ref>Perlmutter, p. 145</ref> as well as giving the Soviets time to boost their military capabilities.<ref>Njolstad, p. 136</ref> Only with Gorbachev's "new thinking" was this vision relaxed and peaceful coexistence seen as an end in itself rather than a form of class struggle.<ref>Breslauer, p. 72</ref> US pronouncements concentrated on American strength abroad and the success of liberal capitalism.<ref>Joshel, p. 128</ref> However, by the late 1960s, the "battle for men's minds" between two systems of social organization that Kennedy spoke of in 1961 was largely over, with tensions henceforth based primarily on clashing geopolitical objectives rather than ideology.<ref>Rycroft, p. 7</ref>
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, using a startling anatomical metaphor, that "Berlin is the testicles of the West. Every time I want to make the West scream, I squeeze on Berlin".<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 71</ref> NATO formally rejected the ultimatum in mid-December and Khrushchev withdrew it in return for a Geneva conference on the German question.<ref>Glees, pp. 126–27</ref>
More broadly, one hallmark of the 1950s was the beginning of [[European integration]]–a fundamental by-product of the Cold War that Truman and Eisenhower promoted politically, economically, and militarily, but which later administrations viewed ambivalently, fearful that an independent Europe would launch a separate détente with the Soviet Union, which would use this to exacerbate Western disunity.<ref>Hanhimaki, p. 312–13</ref>
[[Image:NonAlignedMovement.jpg|thumb|left|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.]]
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.<ref name = "Karabell" /> 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;<ref>Gaddis 2005, pp. 121–124</ref> additionally, the Soviets saw continuing losses by imperial powers as presaging the eventual victory of their ideology.<ref>Edelheit, p. 382</ref> The US government utilized the CIA in order to remove a string of unfriendly Third World governments and to support others.<ref name = "Karabell" /> 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 (''see [[1953 Iranian coup d'état]]'') and Guatemala's democratically elected president [[Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán]] in 1954 (''see [[1954 Guatemalan coup d'état]]'').<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 164</ref> Between 1954 and 1961, the US sent economic aid and military advisors to stem the collapse of [[South Vietnam|South Vietnam's]] pro-Western regime.<ref name = "LaFeber 1991" /> Both sides used propaganda to advance their cause: the [[United States Information Agency]] was set up to create support for US foreign policy, aided by its radio division, [[Voice of America]]; the [[BBC]] did its part too. The CIA spread covert propaganda against US-hostile governments (including Eastern Bloc ones), also providing funds to establish [[Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty|Radio Free Europe]], which was frequently [[Radio jamming|jammed]]. The Chinese and the Soviets waged an intra-Communist propaganda war after their split.<ref>Jacobs, p. 120</ref> Soviet propaganda used Marxist philosophy to attack capitalism, claiming labor exploitation and war-mongering imperialism were inherent in the system.<ref>Wood, p. 105</ref>
Many emerging nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America rejected the pressure to choose sides in the East-West competition. In 1955, at the [[Bandung Conference]] in Indonesia dozens of Third World governments resolved to stay out of the Cold War.<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 126</ref> The consensus reached at Bandung culminated with the creation of the [[Non-Aligned Movement]] in 1961.<ref name = "Karabell" /> Meanwhile, Khrushchev broadened Moscow's policy to establish ties with [[India]] and other key neutral states. 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.<ref name = "LaFeber 1991" />
[[Image:Mao Krushchev.jpg|thumb|One of the last meetings between Mao Zedong and Nikita Khrushchev before the [[Sino-Soviet Split]]]]
On the [[nuclear weapons]] front, the US and the USSR pursued nuclear rearmament and developed long-range weapons with which they could strike the territory of the other.<ref name = "Byrd" /> In August 1957, the Soviets successfully launched the world's first [[intercontinental ballistic missile]]<ref>{{cite book |author=Lackey, Douglas P. |title=Moral principles and nuclear weapons |publisher=Rowman & Allanheld |location=Totowa, N.J |year=1984 |pages=49 |isbn=084767116x |oclc= |doi= |accessdate=}}</ref> (ICBM) and, in October, launched the first earth satellite, [[Sputnik program|Sputnik]].<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/4/newsid_2685000/2685115.stm|title=Sputnik satellite blasts into space|publisher=BBC News|date=[[October 4]], [[1957]]|accessdate=2008-06-11}}</ref> The launch of Sputnik inaugurated the [[Space Race]]. However, the period after 1956 was marked by serious setbacks for the Soviet Union, most notably the breakdown of the Sino-Soviet alliance. Mao had defended Stalin when Khrushchev attacked him in 1956, and treated the new Soviet leader as a superficial upstart, accusing him of having lost his revolutionary edge.<ref name="Gaddis142" /> After this, Khrushchev made many desperate attempts to reconstitute the Sino-Soviet alliance, but Mao considered it useless and denied any proposal.<ref name="Gaddis142">Gaddis 2005, p. 142</ref> Further on, the Soviets focused on a bitter rivalry with Mao's China for leadership of the global communist movement,<ref>Gaddis 2005, pp. 140–142</ref> and the two [[Sino-Soviet border conflict|clashed militarily]] in 1969.
The [[nuclear arms race]] brought the two superpowers to the brink of nuclear war. Khrushchev formed an alliance with [[Fidel Castro]] after the [[Cuban Revolution]] in 1959.<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 76</ref> In 1962, President [[John F. Kennedy]] responded to the installation of nuclear missiles in Cuba with a naval blockade. The [[Cuban Missile Crisis]] brought the world closer to nuclear war than ever before in the history of the Cold War.<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 82</ref> It also showed that neither superpower was ready to use nuclear weapons for fear of the other's retaliation, and thus of [[mutually assured destruction]].<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 80</ref> The aftermath of the crisis led to the first efforts at nuclear disarmament and improving relations,<ref name = "Palmowski" /> though the Cold War's first arms control agreement, the [[Antarctic Treaty System|Antarctic Treaty]], had come into force in 1961.<ref>National Research Council Committee on Antarctic Policy and Science, p. 33</ref>
In 1964, Khrushchev's Kremlin colleagues managed to [[Nikita Khrushchev#Ouster|oust]] him, but allowed him a peaceful retirement. He was accused of rudeness and incompetence, as well as ruining Soviet agriculture while bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war. He had become an embarrassment to the country by authorizing construction of the Berlin Wall, a public humiliation for Marxism-Leninism.<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 119–20</ref>
===Confrontation through détente (1962–79)===
{{Main|Cold War (1962–1979)}}
[[Image:Apollo-Soyuz-Test-Program-artist-rendering.jpg|thumb|The [[July 17]], [[1975]] [[Apollo-Soyuz Test Project|rendezvous]] of the [[Apollo program|Apollo]] and [[Soyuz programme|Soyuz]] spacecraft traditionally marks the end of the Space Race.]]
[[Image:F-4B VF-161 CV-41 TU-95.JPEG|right|thumb|United States Navy [[F-4 Phantom II]] intercepts a Soviet [[Tu-95 Bear]] D aircraft in the early 1970s]]
In the course of the 1960s and '70s, 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.<ref name = "Karabell" /> From 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 '60s, increasing their strength compared to the United States. As a result of the [[1973 oil crisis]],<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 212</ref> 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. 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]].<ref name = "Karabell" /> On [[November 13]], [[1968]], during a speech at the Fifth Congress of the [[Polish United Workers' Party]], Brezhnev outlined the [[Brezhnev Doctrine]], in which he claimed the right to violate the sovereignty of any country attempting to replace Marxism-Leninism with capitalism. During the speech, Brezhnev stated:
{{quote|When forces that are hostile to socialism try to turn the development of some socialist country towards capitalism, it becomes not only a problem of the country concerned, but a common problem and concern of all socialist countries.<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 150</ref>}} The reasons for adopting such a doctrine had to do with the failures of Marxism-Leninism in states like Poland, Hungary and East Germany, which were facing a declining standard of living, in contrast with the prosperity of West Germany and the rest of Western Europe.<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 153</ref>
Nevertheless, both superpowers resolved to reinforce their global leadership. Both the United States and the Soviet Union struggled to stave off challenges to their leadership in their own regions. President [[Lyndon B. Johnson]] landed 22,000 troops in the [[Dominican Republic]] in [[Operation Power Pack]], citing the threat of the emergence of a Cuban-style revolution in Latin America.<ref name = "LaFeber 1991" /> Western Europe remained dependent on the US for its defense, a status most vociferously contested by France's [[Charles de Gaulle]], who in 1966 withdrew from NATO's military structures and expelled NATO troops from French soil.<ref>Muravchik, p. 62</ref>
In 1968, the Soviets invaded [[Czechoslovakia]],<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/21/newsid_2781000/2781867.stm|title=Russia brings winter to Prague Spring|publisher=BBC News|date=[[August 21]], [[1968]]|accessdate=2008-06-10}}</ref> and then crushed the [[Prague Spring]] reform movement, which had threatened to take the country out of the Warsaw Pact.<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 150</ref> The invasion sparked intense protests from Yugoslavia, Romania and China, and from Western European communist parties.<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 154</ref>
[[Image:Leonid Brezhnev and Richard Nixon talks in 1973.png|left|thumb|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.]]
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.<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 133</ref> 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 in the [[Vietnam War]], 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 more powerful superpower at the hands of one of the world's poorest nations.<ref name = "LaFeber 1991" /> Additionally, [[Operation Condor]], employed by South American dictators to suppress leftist dissent, was backed by the US, which (sometimes accurately) perceived Soviet or Cuban support behind these opposition movements.<ref>McSherry, p. 13</ref> Brezhnev, meanwhile, faced far more daunting challenges in reviving the Soviet economy, which was declining in part because of heavy military expenditures.<ref name = "LaFeber 1991" /> Moreover, the Middle East continued to be a source of contention. Egypt, which received the bulk of its arms and economic assistance from the USSR, was a troublesome client, with a reluctant Soviet Union feeling obliged to assist in both the [[Six-Day War]] (with advisers and technicians) and the [[War of Attrition]] (with pilots and aircraft) against US ally Israel;<ref>Stone, p. 230</ref> Syria and Iraq later received increased assistance as well as (indirectly) the [[Palestine Liberation Organization|PLO]].<ref>Friedman, p. 330</ref> During the [[Yom Kippur War]], rumors of imminent Soviet intervention on the Egyptians' behalf brought about a massive US mobilization that threatened to wreck détente;<ref>Kumaraswamy, p. 127</ref> this escalation, the USSR's first in a regional conflict central to US interests, inaugurated a new and more turbulent stage of Third World military activism and made use of the new Soviet strategic parity.<ref>Porter, p. 113</ref>
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.<ref name = "Palmowski" /> 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]]. Nixon and [[Henry Kissinger]] then announced a stunning rapprochement with Mao's China.<ref>Gaddis 2005, pp. 149–152</ref> A desire by the USSR to contain China fear of conflict on both its European and Asian fronts, and a renewed sense of encirclement by adversaries was one factor leading to the Soviet-US détente. Its other two principal causes were the USSR's having achieved rough nuclear parity with the US and the serious weakening the Vietnam War was causing the United States (a reduction of influence in the Third World and a cooling of relations with Western Europe).<ref>Buchanan, pp. 168–169</ref>
[[Image:Carter Brezhnev sign SALT II.jpg|thumb|right|[[Leonid Brezhnev]] and [[Jimmy Carter]] sign SALT II treaty, [[June 18]], [[1979]], in [[Vienna]].]]
Later, in June, Nixon and Kissinger met with Soviet leaders in Moscow,<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/22/newsid_4373000/4373149.stm|title=President Nixon arrives in Moscow|publisher=BBC News|date=[[May 22]], [[1972]]|accessdate=2008-06-10}}</ref> and announced the first of the [[Strategic Arms Limitation Talks]], aimed at limiting the development of costly antiballistic missiles and offensive nuclear missiles.<ref name = "Karabell" /> Between 1972 and 1974, the two sides also agreed to strengthen their economic ties.<ref name = "LaFeber 1991" /> Meanwhile, these developments coincided with the "[[Ostpolitik]]" of West German Chancellor [[Willy Brandt]].<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 154</ref> Other agreements were concluded to stabilize the situation in Europe, culminating in the [[Helsinki Accords]] signed at the [[Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe]] in 1975.<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 188</ref>
The [[KGB]], led by [[Yuri Andropov]], continued to persecute distinguished Soviet personalities such as [[Aleksander Solzhenitsyn]] and [[Andrei Sakharov]], who were criticising the Soviet leadership in harsh terms.<ref>Gaddis 2005 p. 186</ref> Indirect conflict between the superpowers continued through this period of détente in the Third World, particularly during political crises in the Middle East, [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|Chile]], [[Ogaden War|Ethiopia]] and [[Angolan Civil War|Angola]].<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 178</ref> While President [[Jimmy Carter]] tried to place another limit on the arms race with a [[SALT II]] agreement in 1979,<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/18/newsid_4508000/4508409.stm|title=Leaders agree arms reduction treaty|publisher=BBC News|date=[[June 18]], [[2008]]|accessdate=2008-06-10}}</ref> 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.<ref name = "LaFeber 1991" />
==="Second Cold War" (1979–85)===
{{Main|Cold War (1979–1985)}}
{{see|Soviet war in Afghanistan|1983 Beirut barracks bombing|Invasion of Grenada|United States bombing of Libya|Iran-Contra}}
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.<ref name = "Halliday" />
During December 1979, about 75,000 Soviet troops [[Soviet war in Afghanistan|invaded]] Afghanistan in order to support the Marxist government formed by ex-Prime-minister [[Nur Muhammad Taraki]], assassinated that September by one of his party rivals.<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 210</ref> As a result, US President [[Jimmy Carter]] withdrew the [[SALT II]] treaty from the [[United States Senate|Senate]], imposed embargoes on grain and technology shipments to the USSR, demanded a significant increase in military spending and further announced that the United States would boycott the [[1980 Summer Olympics|1980 Moscow Summer Olympics]]. He described the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan as "the most serious threat to the peace since the Second World War".<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 211</ref>
[[Image:New Cold War Map 1980.png|thumb|right|This map shows the two essential global spheres during the Cold War in 1980 – the US in blue and the USSR in red. Consult the legend on the map for more details.]]
In 1980, [[Ronald Reagan]] defeated Jimmy Carter in the US [[United States presidential election, 1980|presidential election]], vowing to increase military spending and confront the Soviets everywhere.<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 189</ref> Both Reagan and Britain's new prime minister, [[Margaret Thatcher]], denounced the Soviet Union in ideological terms that rivaled those of the worst days of the Cold War in the late 1940s,<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 197</ref> with the former famously vowing to leave the "[[evil empire]]" on the "[[ash heap of history]]". [[Pope John Paul II]] helped provide a moral focus for anti-communism; a visit to his native Poland in 1979 stimulated a religious and nationalist upsurge that galvanized opposition and may have led to his [[1981 Pope John Paul II assassination attempt|attempted assassination]] two years later.<ref>Smith, p. 182</ref>
With the background of a buildup in tensions 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.<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 202</ref> This deployment would have placed missiles just 10 minutes' striking distance from Moscow.<ref>Garthoff, p. 88</ref> 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". This act galvanized support for the deployment, which Reagan oversaw and stood in place until the later accords between Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev.<ref name="DoernerFive">{{cite news|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,926169-5,00.html|title=Atrocity in the skies|work=Time Magazine|date=[[September 12]], [[1983]]|accessdate=2008-06-08}}</ref>
[[Image:USSR stamp S.Smith 1985 5k.jpg|thumb|right|In November 1982 American ten year old [[Samantha Smith]] wrote a letter to [[Yuri Andropov]] expressing her fear of nuclear war, and pleading with him to work toward peace. Andropov gave her a personal invitation to visit the USSR. Smith's visit was one of few prominent attempts to improve relations between the superpowers during Andropov's brief leadership from 1982–84 at a low point in US-Soviet relations.]]
Moscow had built up a military that consumed as much as 25 percent of the Soviet Union's gross national product at the expense of [[consumer goods in the Soviet Union|consumer goods]] and investment in civilian sectors.<ref>LaFeber 2002, p. 332</ref> Soviet spending on the [[arms race]] and other Cold War commitments both caused and exacerbated deep-seated structural problems in the Soviet system, which saw at least [[Brezhnev stagnation|a decade of economic stagnation]] during the late Brezhnev years. Soviet investment in the defense sector was not driven by military necessity, but in large part by the interests of [[nomenklatura|massive party and state bureaucracies]] dependent on the sector for their own power and privileges.<ref>LaFeber 2002, p. 335</ref> The [[Military of the Soviet Union|Soviet armed forces]] became the largest in the world 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 complex|military–industrial base]].<ref name = "Odom">Odom, p. 1</ref> However, the quantitative advantages held by the Soviet military often concealed areas where the Eastern bloc dramatically lagged behind the West.<ref>LaFeber 2002, p. 340</ref>
By the early 1980s, the USSR had built up a military arsenal and army surpassing that of the United States. Previously, the US had relied on the qualitative superiority of its weapons, but the gap had been narrowed.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.heritage.org/Research/RussiaandEurasia/EM27.cfm|title=New Evidence of Moscow's Military Threat |accessdate= 2007-05-13 |author=Hamm, Manfred R. |date=[[June 23]], [[1983]] |publisher=The Heritage Foundation}}</ref> Ronald Reagan began massively building up the United States military not long after taking office. This led to the largest peacetime defense buildup in United States history.<ref>{{cite news|work=The Boston Globe|publisher=Encyclopedia.com|accessdate=2008-06-21|date=[[March 29]], [[2006]]|title=Caspar W. Weinberger, 88; Architect of Massive Pentagon Buildup|url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-7946374.html|author=Feeney, Mark}}</ref> Tensions continued intensifying in the early 1980s when Reagan revived the [[B-1 bomber]] program that was canceled by the Carter administration, produced [[MX missile|MX "Peacekeeper" missile]]s,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/icbm/lgm-118.htm |title=LGM-118A Peacekeeper|accessdate=2007-04-10|date=[[August 15]], [[2000]] |publisher=Federation of American Scientists}}</ref> installed US cruise missiles in Europe, and announced his experimental [[Strategic Defense Initiative]], dubbed "Star Wars" by the media, a defense program to shoot down missiles in mid-flight.<ref name="ShieldSpace?">{{cite web |url=http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=ft4q2nb3c4&chunk.id=d0e5097&toc.id=d0e5097&brand=eschol|title=Deploy or Perish: SDI and Domestic Politics|accessdate=2007-04-10|publisher= Scholarship Editions}}</ref> Reagan also imposed economic sanctions on Poland to protest the suppression of the opposition [[Solidarity]] movement. In response, [[Mikhail Suslov]], the Kremlin's top ideologist, advised the Soviet leaders not to intervene if Poland fell under the control of Solidarity, as it may have led to heavy economic sanctions representing a catastrophe for the USSR's economy.<ref>Gaddis 2005, pp. 219–222</ref>
After Reagan's military buildup, the Soviet Union did not respond by further building its military<ref>{{cite news|url= http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_25/b3888038_mz011.htm |title=The Cowboy who Roped in Russia|date=[[June 21]], [[2004]] |work=Business Week|author=Barnathan, Joyce|accessdate=2008-03-17}}</ref> because the enormous military expenses, along with inefficient [[Planned economy|planned manufacturing]] and [[Collectivization in the USSR|collectivized agriculture]], were already a heavy burden for the [[Economy of the Soviet Union|Soviet economy]].<ref name="Gaidar, Yegor"/> At the same time, Reagan persuaded [[Saudi Arabia]] to increase oil production,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.iet.ru/files/persona/gaidar/un_en.htm|title=Public Expectations and Trust towards the Government: Post-Revolution Stabilization and its Discontents|accessdate=2008-03-15|author=Gaidar, Yegor}}</ref> even as other non-OPEC nations were increasing production.<ref name="EIA">[http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/contents.html "Official Energy Statistics of the US Government"], EIA - International Energy Data and Analysis. Retrieved on [[July 4]] [[2008]].</ref> These developments contributed to the [[1980s oil glut]], which affected the Soviet Union, as oil was the main source of Soviet export revenues.<ref name="Gaidar, Yegor"/><ref>LaFeber 2002, p. 332</ref> The decrease in oil prices and large military expenditures gradually brought the Soviet economy to a stagnant state at this time.<ref name="Gaidar, Yegor">Gaidar 2007 pp. 190–205</ref>
[[Image:US and USSR nuclear stockpiles.svg|thumb|left|US and USSR/Russian nuclear weapons stockpiles, 1945–2006]]
US domestic public concerns about intervening in foreign conflicts persisted from the end of the Vietnam War.<ref name="LaFeber323">LaFeber 2002, p. 323</ref> The Reagan administration emphasized the use of quick, low-cost [[counterinsurgency]] tactics to intervene in foreign conflicts.<ref name="LaFeber323" /> In 1983, the Reagan administration intervened in the multisided [[Lebanese Civil War]], invaded [[Grenada]], bombed [[Libya]] and backed the Central American [[Contras]], anti-communist paramilitaries seeking to overthrow the Soviet-aligned [[Sandinista]] government in Nicaragua.<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 212</ref> While Reagan's interventions against Grenada and Libya were popular in the US, his backing of the Contra rebels was [[Iran-Contra affair|mired in controversy]].<ref name = "Reagan">{{cite book |author=Reagan, Ronald |editor=Foner, Eric; Garraty, John Arthur |title=The Reader's companion to American history |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=KrWDw-_devcC |accessdate=2008-06-16 |year=1991 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Books |isbn=0395513723 }}</ref>
Meanwhile, the Soviets incurred high costs for their own foreign interventions. Although Brezhnev was convinced in 1979 that the [[Soviet war in Afghanistan]] would be brief, Muslim guerrillas, aided by many countries (especially the US), waged a fierce resistance against the invasion.<ref name="LaFeber314">LaFeber 2002, p. 314</ref> The Kremlin sent nearly 100,000 troops to support its puppet regime in Afghanistan, leading many outside observers to dub the war "the Soviets' Vietnam".<ref name="LaFeber314" /> 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 senior [[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 ... caught up with the Soviet system, which now seems to expend more energy on simply maintaining its equilibrium than on improving itself. We could be seeing a period of foreign movement at a time of internal decay".<ref name =" Dobrynin">Dobrynin, pp. 438–439</ref><ref>Maynes, pp. 1–2</ref> The Soviets were not helped by their aged and sclerotic leadership either: Brezhnev, virtually incapacitated in his last years, was succeeded by Andropov and Chernenko, neither of whom lasted long. After Chernenko's death, Reagan was asked why he had not negotiated with Soviet leaders. Reagan quipped, "They keep dying on me".<ref>Karaagac, p. 67</ref>
===End of the Cold War (1985–91)===
{{Main|Cold War (1985–1991)}}
{{see|Economy of the Soviet Union}}
[[Image:Reagan and Gorbachev signing.jpg|thumb|right|Ronald Reagan (right) and Mikhail Gorbachev sign the [[INF Treaty]] at the White House, 1987]]
By the time the comparatively youthful [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] had ascended to power in 1985,<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 197</ref> 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.<ref>LaFaber 2002, pp. 331–333</ref> To restructure the Soviet economy, Gorbachev announced an agenda of economic reform, called ''[[perestroika]]'', or restructuring. Within two years, however, Gorbachev came to the conclusion that deeper structural changes were necessary.<ref name="Gaddis231">Gaddis 2005, pp. 231–233</ref> Gorbachev redirected the country's resources from costly Cold War military commitments to more profitable areas in the civilian sector.<ref name="Gaddis231" /> Many US Soviet experts and administration officials doubted that Gorbachev was serious about winding down the arms race,<ref name="LaFeber2002">LaFeber 2002, pp. 300–340</ref> 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.<ref name= "Palmowski" />
Also introduced was ''[[glasnost]]'', or "openness", which allowed for criticism of the Soviet government, and Soviet institutions to be more transparent.
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.<ref name="Gaddis229">Gaddis 2005, pp. 229–230</ref> The first was held in November 1985 in [[Geneva, Switzerland]].<ref name="Gaddis229" /> There, Reagan invited Gorbachev to take a walk to a nearby boathouse and leave their aides.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.margaretthatcher.org/archive/displaydocument.asp?docid=109208|title=Cold War: Geneva (Reagan-Gorbachev) Summit 2nd Session - declassified 2000|accessdate=2008-06-21|publisher=Margaret Thatcher Foundation|date=[[November 19]], [[1985]]}}</ref> The two men, with only a translator, agreed on a proposal calling for 50 percent reductions of each country's respective nuclear arsenal.<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/21/newsid_2549000/2549897.stm 1985: "Superpowers aim for 'safer world'"], BBC News, [[November 21]] [[1985]]. Retrieved on [[July 4]] [[2008]].</ref>
[[Image:Evstafiev-afghan-apc-passes-russian.jpg|thumb|left|Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988]] The second summit was held the following year in [[Reykjavík]], [[Iceland]]. Talks went well, except for when the focus shifted to Reagan's proposed SDI, which Gorbachev wanted eliminated and Reagan refused.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE0DA1F3BF93AA15756C0A96E948260|title=Toward the Summit; Previous Reagan-Gorbachev Summits|work=The New York Times|accessdate=2008-06-21|date=[[May 29]], [[1988]]}}</ref> The negotiations ended in failure, but achievements were made at the third summit in 1987 with the signing of the [[Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty]], which eliminated all nuclear-armed, ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers (300 to 3,400 miles) and their infrastructure.<ref name="fas"/> It was the first treaty to reduce nuclear arms.<ref name="fas">{{cite web|url=http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/inf/index.html|title=Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces|accessdate=2008-06-21|publisher=Federation of American Scientists}}</ref> The East–West tensions that had reached intense new heights earlier in the decade rapidly subsided through the mid-to-late 1980s, culminating with the final summit in Moscow in 1988. The following year, the Soviets [[Sinatra Doctrine|officially declared]] that they would no longer intervene in the affairs of allied states in Eastern Europe:<ref name="Gaddis248">Gaddis 2005, p. 248</ref> oil and gas subsidies, along with the cost of maintaining massive troops levels, represented an economic drain and the security advantage of a buffer zone was so reduced that by 1990 Gorbachev [[Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany|consented]] to [[German reunification]].<ref>Shearman, p. 76</ref> In 1989, Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan.<ref>Gaddis 2005, pp. 235–236</ref>
In December 1989, Gorbachev and Reagan's successor, [[George H. W. Bush]], declared the Cold War over at a [[Malta Summit|summit meeting in Malta]];<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/3/newsid_4119000/4119950.stm Malta summit ends Cold War], BBC News, [[December 3]], [[1989]]. Retrieved on [[11 June]] [[2008]].</ref> a year later, the two former rivals were partners in the [[Gulf War]] against longtime Soviet ally [[Iraq]].<ref>Goodby, p. 26</ref>
By 1989, the Soviet alliance system was on the brink of collapse, and, deprived of Soviet military support, the Communist leaders of the [[Warsaw Pact]] states [[Autumn of Nations|were losing power]];<ref>Gaddis 2005, pp. 235–236</ref> Gorbachev's "[[Common European Home]]" began to take shape when the Berlin Wall itself came down in November, the only alternative (as he later admitted) being a [[Tiananmen Square protests of 1989|Tiananmen]] scenario.<ref>Shearman, p.74</ref> In the USSR itself, Gorbachev had tried to reform the party to quash internal resistance to his reforms, but, in doing so, ultimately weakened the bonds that held the Soviet Union together.<ref name="Gaddis248" /> By February 1990, the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Communist Party]] was forced to surrender its 73-year-old monopoly on state power.<ref>Gorbachev, pp. 287, 290, 292</ref> At the same time, the festering "nationalities question" increasingly led the Union's component republics to declare their autonomy from Moscow, with the [[Baltic states]] withdrawing from the Union entirely.<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 253</ref> (At first, Gorbachev's permissive attitude toward Eastern Europe did not extend to Soviet territory; even Bush, who strove to maintain friendly relations, condemned the January 1991 killings in [[January 1991 events in Latvia|Latvia]] and [[January Events|Lithuania]], privately warning that economic ties would be frozen if the violence continued.)<ref>Goldgeier, p. 27</ref> On [[December 25]], [[1991]], with a growing number of SSRs, particularly [[Russian SFSR|Russia]], threatening to secede, the USSR (fatally weakened by an [[1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt|August coup attempt]]) was declared officially dissolved.<ref>Gaddis 2005, pp. 256–257</ref>
==Legacy==
The Cold War was fought at a tremendous cost globally over the course of more than four decades. It cost the US up to $8 trillion in military expenditures, and the lives of nearly 100,000 Americans in Korea and Vietnam.<ref>LaFeber 2002, p. 1</ref> It cost the Soviets an even higher share of their gross national product.<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 213</ref> In Southeast Asia, local civil wars were intensified by superpower rivalry, leaving millions dead.<ref>Gaddis 2005, p. 266</ref>
After the dissolution of the [[Soviet Union]], the post-Cold War world is widely considered as a [[Polarity_in_international_relations#Unipolarity|unipolar]] world, with the United States as the world's sole remaining superpower.<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/country_profiles/1217752.stm Country profile: United States of America]. [[BBC News]]. Retrieved on [[March 11]], [[2007]]</ref><ref>Nye, p. 157</ref><ref>Blum, p. 87</ref><ref>Charles Krauthammer, [http://www.foreignaffairs.org/19910201faessay6067/charles-krauthammer/the-unipolar-moment.html ''The Unipolar Moment''], [[Foreign Policy Magazine]] (1991). Retrieved on [[8 June]] [[2008]].</ref><ref>[http://www.gaikoforum.com/P03_19_122.pdf Peter Brookes, Kurt Campbell and Thomas Donnelly, ''The United States as the World's only superpower''] (PDF), Gaiko Forum, Washington D.C. Retrieved on [[9 June]] [[2008]].</ref> In the words of [[Samuel P. Huntington]],<ref name="affairs">[http://www-stage.foreignaffairs.org/19990301faessay966/samuel-p-huntington/the-lonely-superpower.html Samuel P. Huntington, ''The Lonely Superpower''], Council on Foreign Relations, March/April 1999. Retrieved on [[9 June]] [[2008]].</ref> {{quote|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.}}
[[Image:CIS-Map 2.PNG|right|thumb|300px|Formation of the [[CIS]], the official end of the USSR]]
Created on [[December 21]], [[1991]], the [[Commonwealth of Independent States]] 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 [[Republics of the Soviet Union|Soviet Republics]]. However, the CIS is emphatically not a state unto itself, and is more comparable to a loose [[confederation]], similar to the [[European Community]].<ref>[http://rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/12/14b6b499-9eb2-4dee-b96c-784ec918969a.html Soviet Leaders Recall ‘Inevitable’ Breakup Of Soviet Union], [[Radio Free Europe]], [[December 8]], [[2006]]. Retrieved on [[May 20]], [[2008]].</ref>
Following the Cold War, Russia had 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.<ref name = "Aslund">Åslund, p. 49</ref> 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 since 1999. In the 1990s, Russia suffered an economic downturn, including [[Russian financial crisis|a financial crisis]], more severe than the US or Germany had undergone six decades earlier in the [[Great Depression]] after it had embarked on capitalist economic reforms.<ref name = "Nolan">Nolan, pp. 17–18</ref>
The legacy of the Cold War continues to structure world affairs.<ref name = "Halliday" /> The Cold War institutionalized the role of the United States in the postwar global economic and political system. By 1989, the US was responsible for military alliances with 50 countries and 1.5 million US troops were posted in 117 countries.<ref name = "Calhoun" /> The Cold War also institutionalized the commitment to a huge, permanent peacetime [[military-industrial complex]] and large-scale [[military funding of science]].<ref name = "Calhoun">{{cite encyclopedia |author=Calhoun, Craig |encyclopedia=Dictionary of the Social Sciences |title=Cold War (entire chapter)|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=SvSZHgAACAAJ&dq=Dictionary+of+the+Social+Sciences |accessdate=2008-06-16 |year=2002 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0195123719 }}</ref>
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]].<ref name = "Halliday" /> In some countries, the breakdown of state control was accompanied by [[failed state|state failure]], such as in [[Afghanistan]]. 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 democracy|liberal democracies]]. 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.<ref name = "Marshall">[http://www.systemicpeace.org/PC2005.pdf Monty G. Marshall and Ted Gurr, ''Peace and Conflict 2005''] (PDF), Center for Systemic Peace (2006). Retrieved on [[June 14]], [[2008]].</ref>
==Historiography==
{{main|Historiography of the Cold War}}
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.<ref name = "Nashel">{{cite encyclopedia |author= Nashel, Jonathan|editor=Whiteclay Chambers, John |encyclopedia=The Oxford Companion to American Military History |title=Cold War (1945–91): Changing Interpretations |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=xtMKHgAACAAJ&dq=The+Oxford+Companion+to+American+Military+History |accessdate=2008-06-16 |year=1999 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0195071980 }}</ref> In particular, historians have sharply disagreed as to who was responsible for the breakdown of Soviet–US relations after the Second World War; and whether the conflict between the two superpowers was inevitable, or could have been avoided.<ref name="Brinkley">Brinkley, pp. 798–799</ref> 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.<ref name = "Halliday" />
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".
This "orthodox" accounts place the responsibility for the Cold War on the Soviet Union and its expansion into Eastern Europe.<ref name = "Calhoun" /> "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.<ref name = "Calhoun" /> "Post-revisionists" saw the events in the Cold War as more nuanced, and attempted to be more balanced in determining what occurred during the Cold War.
Much of the historiography on the Cold War weaves together two or even all three of these broad categories.<ref name = "Byrd" />
==See also==
{{Portal}}
*[[Timeline of events in the Cold War]]
*[[American Empire]]
*[[Soviet Empire]]
*[[Culture during the Cold War]]
==Footnotes==
{{reflist|3}}
==References==
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</div>
*
==Further reading==
{{Main|List of primary and secondary sources on the Cold War}}
==External links==
{{sisterlinks|Cold War}}
'''Archives'''
*[http://www.osaarchivum.org/guide/ Open Society Archives, Budapest (Hungary), one of the biggest history of communism and cold war archives in the world]
*[http://www.cybertrn.demon.co.uk An archive of UK civil defence material]
*[http://www.conelrad.com/ CONELRAD Cold War Pop Culture Site]
*[http://archives.cbc.ca/IDD-1-71-274/conflict_war/cold_war/ CBC Digital Archives - Cold War Culture: The Nuclear Fear of the 1950s and 1960s]
*[http://www.cwihp.org The Cold War International History Project (CWIHP)]
*[http://coldwarfiles.org The Cold War Files]
*[http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/ CNN Cold War Knowledge Bank] comparison of articles on Cold War topics in the Western and the Soviet press between 1945 and 1991
*[http://www.theblackvault.com/modules.php?name=core&showPage=true&pageID=8 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'''
*[http://alsos.wlu.edu/qsearch.aspx?browse=issues/Arms+Race Annotated bibliography for the arms race from the Alsos Digital Library]
*[http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Cold_War%2C_Bibliography Annotated bibliography from ''Citizendium'']
'''News'''
*[http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/themes/world_politics/cold_war/default.stm Video and audio news reports from during the cold war]
'''Educational Resources'''
*[http://www.nps.gov/history/NR/twhp/wwwlps/lessons/128mimi/ ''Minuteman Missile National Historic Site: Protecting a Legacy of the Cold War ,'' a National Park Service Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) lesson plan]
{{Cold War}}
{{Cold War figures}}
[[Category:Cold War|*]]
[[Category:1950 in the United States]]
[[Category:Global conflicts]]
[[Category:Wars involving the United States]]
{{Link FA|pt}}
{{Link FA|sv}}
[[ar:حرب باردة]]
[[an:Guerra Fría]]
[[az:Soyuq Müharibə]]
[[bn:স্নায়ুযুদ্ধ]]
[[bs:Hladni rat]]
[[br:Brezel yen]]
[[bg:Студена война]]
[[ca:Guerra freda]]
[[cs:Studená válka]]
[[cy:Y Rhyfel Oer]]
[[da:Den kolde krig]]
[[de:Kalter Krieg]]
[[et:Külm sõda]]
[[el:Ψυχρός πόλεμος]]
[[eml:Guèra fradda]]
[[es:Guerra Fría]]
[[ext:Guerra Fria]]
[[eo:Malvarma milito]]
[[eu:Gerra Hotza]]
[[fa:جنگ سرد]]
[[fr:Guerre froide]]
[[fy:Kâlde Kriich]]
[[ga:Cogadh Fuar]]
[[gan:冷戰]]
[[gd:An Cogadh Fuar]]
[[gl:Guerra fría]]
[[ko:냉전]]
[[hi:शीतयुद्ध]]
[[hr:Hladni rat]]
[[io:Kolda milito]]
[[id:Perang Dingin]]
[[is:Kalda stríðið]]
[[it:Guerra fredda]]
[[he:המלחמה הקרה]]
[[jv:Perang Dingin]]
[[ka:ცივი ომი]]
[[kaa:Salqın urıs]]
[[ku:Şerê Sar]]
[[la:Bellum Frigidum]]
[[lv:Aukstais karš]]
[[lt:Šaltasis karas]]
[[hu:Hidegháború]]
[[mk:Студена војна]]
[[ms:Perang Dingin]]
[[nl:Koude Oorlog]]
[[ja:冷戦]]
[[no:Den kalde krigen]]
[[nn:Den kalde krigen]]
[[nrm:Fraide Dgèrre]]
[[oc:Guèrra Freja]]
[[uz:Sovuq urush]]
[[pa:ਸ਼ੀਤ ਜੰਗ]]
[[nds:Koolt Krieg]]
[[pl:Zimna wojna]]
[[pt:Guerra Fria]]
[[ro:Războiul Rece]]
[[ru:Холодная война]]
[[scn:Guerra Fridda]]
[[simple:Cold War]]
[[sk:Studená vojna]]
[[sl:Hladna vojna]]
[[sr:Хладни рат]]
[[sh:Hladni rat]]
[[fi:Kylmä sota]]
[[sv:Kalla kriget]]
[[tl:Digmaang Malamig]]
[[th:สงครามเย็น]]
[[vi:Chiến tranh Lạnh]]
[[tg:Ҷaнги Сард]]
[[tr:Soğuk Savaş]]
[[uk:Холодна війна]]
[[vec:Guera Freda]]
[[yi:קאלטער קריג]]
[[zh-yue:冷戰]]
[[zh:冷战]]