Lesson 8: Cold War

• Axis Powers

  Italy, Germany, and Japan grouped together as they have the same agenda which is to expand their territory
• Allied Forces

  United States, Great Britain, France, and later the Soviet Union - the countries that want to prevent the Axis Powers from expanding
• World War II ended

  1. Germany's surrender (a week after Adolf Hitler's suicide)

  2. Japan's Emperor Hirohito's surrender (after US detonated an atomic bomb to Hiroshima and Nagasaki)
• The events that transpired during WWII contributed to the COLD WAR
• Causes of the Cold War

  • Tensions Between Superpowers
  • Nuclear Arms Race
  • Ideological Conflict
• America and the Western Bloc


  A.K.A. "Free World" or "Western world" - the group of capitalist countries under the United States
• Countries in the Western Bloc


  • Australia, New Zealand, United States
  • Pakistan, Philippines, Thailand, South Vietnam
  • Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom
• Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc


  A.K.A. Socialist, Communist, and the Soviet Bloc - a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991
• Countries in the Eastern Bloc


  • East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania
  • Mongolian People's Republic, Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Lao People's Democratic Republic, People's Republic of Kampuchea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, People's Republic of China
  • Caribbean Republic of Cuba
• Nuclear Arms Race

  1. World War II ended in Europe by May 1945

  2. US developed atomic weapons through the Manhattan Project

  3. US atomic bombing of Japan

  4. Soviet Union later able to test their first atomic bomb

  5. Increased tensions and lack of trust between superpowers

  6. Rockets developed to carry weapons above atmosphere, leading to the Space Race
• Space Race


  1. Soviets launched Sputnik 1, the first satellite into orbit

  2. US established NASA to launch first human in space

  3. Soviets launched first man, first woman, and first spacewalk

  4. US Apollo 8 orbited the moon and took first photo of Earth

  5. Neil Armstrong first human to walk on the moon

  6. Soviets focused on launching space stations like Mir
• Capitalism


  An economic system based on individualism and free markets, rejecting government control
• Communism

  An economic system based on public ownership and government control of the economy
• Democracy


  A political system where power rests with the people, who exercise authority through elections
• Dictatorship


  A form of government where most or all authority is in the hands of a single individual
• One of the criticisms of the Soviet socialist-communist system is that it failed to exercise democracy
• Authority


  In a society, rests with the people
• Democracy


  • The people have the power over the major aspects of government
  • The people exercise their authority through elections in which they choose others to represent (the majority) their interests in a formal legislative structure
• Dictatorship


  • A form of government in which most or all authority of the country is in the hands of a single individual; the leader
  • A dictatorship is ruled by a single person who generally acts to protect his own position and power over the welfare of the citizens
• One of the criticisms on the Socialist-Communist Soviet is that it had failed to exercise communism because the leaders had become self-serving dictators
• Soviet Expansionism


  A form of communism with the goal of converting the world into a communist society that is stateless
• Soviet Expansionism

  America's containment projects (George Kennan's "Long Telegram" and "Truman Doctrine") drew these two superpowers into a COLD WAR
• Cold War

  • A period of geopolitical tension between the Soviet Union with its satellite states (Eastern Bloc), and the United States with its allies (Western Bloc) after World War II
  • It was "Cold" because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two blocs, but each competed through the Nuclear Race and the Proxy Wars
• Proxy Wars


  An armed conflict between two states or non-state actors which act on the instigation or on behalf of other parties that are not directly involved in the hostilities
• North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)


  • An intergovernmental military alliance between North American and European countries
  • Constitutes a system of collective defense whereby its independent member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party
• Warsaw Pact


  • A collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland between the Soviet Union and seven Eastern Bloc satellite states
  • Established as a balance of power or counterweight to NATO
• The Cold War began to de-escalate after the Revolutions of 1989


  The extensive use of campaigns of civil resistance, demonstrating popular opposition to the continuation of one-party rule and contributing to the pressure for change
• Events of the full-blown revolution

  • Poland in 1989
  • Hungary
  • East Germany
  • Bulgaria
  • Czechoslovakia
  • Romania
• Berlin Wall


  • A guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided East and West Germany
  • It came to symbolize physically the "Iron Curtain" that separated Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War
• In 1989 a series of revolutions in nearby Eastern Bloc countries

  Caused a chain reaction in East Germany that ultimately resulted in the demise of the Wall
• Tiananmen Square protests


  • Student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square in Beijing during 1989
  • Protests started on 15 April and were forcibly suppressed on 4 June when the government declared martial law and sent the military to occupy central parts of Beijing
  • Later known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, troops with assault rifles and tanks fired at the demonstrators
• Although it failed to stimulate major political changes in China, the Tiananmen Square protests influenced protesters around the globe
• The collapse of the USSR in 1991 was the end of the Cold War
• The Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991, resulting in the following new countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania
• The rest of the Soviet Union became the Russian Federation in December 1991
• North-South Divide


  • The origin of dividing countries into the North-South Divide arose during the Cold War of the mid-20th century
  • Countries in the East like the Soviet Union and China which became classified as Second World countries
  • In the west, the United States and its allies were labeled as First World countries
  • This division left out many countries which were poorer than the First World and Second World countries. The poor countries were eventually labeled as Third World countries
• This categorization was later abandoned after the Second World countries joined the First World countries
• New criteria was established to categorize countries which was named the North-South Divide where First World countries were known as the North while Third World countries comprised the South