Alexander CekalaWhat was the Cold War?
Bring along a big jacket, huddle up with your soldier mates and just beg for the end of the day so you can wrap yourself up in a sleeping bag.
Boy war is cold sometimes...
However, the Cold War does not refer to the temperature in any way. I'll give everyone a moment to get used to that.
The Cold War was actually a state of conflict that existed between the United States of America and Russia from 1947 to 1991. It was called the cold war because of the lack of direct confrontation. The term is supposed to suggest it was less "hot" then other wars, but don't let that trick you into thinking that nothing was going on.
Communism vs. capitalism:
The fight was, in some ways, a conflict between two economic ideologies: capitalism and communism.
Capitalism, the system we have today, basically believes that the market will produce the most favourable results for a country.
Communism is a political docrtine that aims for a classless society where the people own the means of production (factories, farms etc).
America was a capitalist country and the Soviet Union a communit one. Both countries demonified the other economic doctrine.
Civil Wars:
Rather than fighting each other directly the USA and the Soviet Union aided opposite sides of other countries civil wars. These wars often involved a communist (soviet supported) government fighting a none-communist (American supported government)
Some of the most famous of these were the Vietnam War and the Korean War, both of which I will write about in a later article.
Cuban Missile Crisis:
One of the major single events in the war was the Cuban missile crisis. (especially from the American perspective) This event involved the soviets assembling nuclear missile launchers in Cuba. A futue article will provide more detail on this.
Arms Race:
The Cold War was characterised by an "arms race" - as America and the Soviet Union competed to control the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons. The idea was that if you have enough nuclar warheads to annihalate the other country they would never be able to attack you.
The End of the War:
The conflict became steadily calmer as the Soviet Union began to seek more peacefull relations. Within the Soviet Union itself though, tensions increased. Gorbachev, the soviet leader, was relaxing state controls over the populations, but the population, eager for more rapid change, began to fall apart.
By 1991 the Soviet Union had collapsed and the Cold War was over.
I will be doing more Cold War posts over the following weeks to provide more detail for anyone interested.
Oh, sorry, this is a serious blog. Good luck with it
Scott
Punk Blog
Maybe you would like to check out my sites Brain Marinade and Gardening
I'm going to try to do at least a couple of posts like this a week, including a series on the Cold War for a bit. Hmm...RSS, what is this acronym and what does it do? I had a look at Brain Marinade and it's interesting (I was reading the sublimity post).
Glad you enjoyed it,
Adam