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The Cold War

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The Cold War

The Cold War was a period of political and economic tensions between the Eastern Block (the Soviet Union; Eastern Europe; and their allies) on one hand and the Western Bloc (the United States, Europe, and their allies) on the other.

The Cold War sometimes manifested itself as small-to-medium wars (such as the Korean and VietNam Wars); but for the most part it manifested itself as economic sanctions and blockades (for example, the Berlin Blockade of 1948-49), as the suppression of peoples' uprisings (e.g. the Hungarian national uprising of 1956 suppressed by the U.S.S.R. or the various Latin American democratic movements suppressed the U.S.), and in the constant propaganda pumped out by both sides.

The Cold War ended in 1989 following negotiations between President Reagan and President Gorbachev and after the collapse of the Soviet economic system.

The Cold War (video)

The Cold War (article)

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 superpowers unfolded in multiple arenas: military coalitions; ideology, psychology, and espionage; sports; military, industrial, and technological developments, including the space race; costly defense spending; a massive conventional and nuclear arms race; and many proxy wars.

There was never a direct military engagement between the US and the Soviet Union, but there was half a century of military buildup as well as political battles for support around the world, including significant involvement of allied and satellite nations in proxy wars. Although the US and the Soviet Union had been allied against Nazi Germany, 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" of communism and forged numerous alliances to this end, particularly in Western Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. There were repeated crises that threatened to escalate into world wars but never did, notably the Berlin Blockade (1948-49), the Korean War (1950-53), the Vietnam War (1959-1975), the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), and the Soviet-Afghan War (1979-89). 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 weapons.

Source: Wikipedia

Iron Curtain

"From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent."

-- Winston Churchill, on Soviet communism and the Cold War, in a speech at Fulton, Missouri on March 5, 1946

Germany and the Cold War

Breaching the Berlin Blockade, 1947-49

Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin, 1961

U2 Aircraft of Type Shot Down over Cuba During Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962

Ich Bin EIn Berliner (I Am A Berliner)

"Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free. When all are free, then we can look forward to that day when this city will be joined as one and this country and this great Continent of Europe in a peaceful and hopeful globe...

All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words 'Ich bin ein Berliner.' "

-- U.S. President John F Kennedy, Speech in Berlin (26 June 1963);