Unit #11 - The Cold War

• Warsaw Pact - The military organization to protect Communist Eastern Europe from Democratic Western Europe during the Cold War.
• satellite country/state - a country that is formally independent in the world, but under heavy political, economic, and social influence or control from another country.
• NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) - The military defense of democratic Western Europe from the Communist Soviet Union and later common defense of its member nations.
• non-alignment - The policy of countries during the Cold War not to align themselves with either the United States or the Soviet Union
• nuclear proliferation - the spreading of nuclear weapons to non-nuclear states/countries/nations
• Glasnost - The policy or practice of more open government and wider dissemination of information, initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev (in the former Soviet Union)
• democratization - the policy of making a country follow democratic principles of equality.
• containment - a policy during the cold war to stop the spread of communism
• detente - a cooling of tensions between nations during the Cold War
• Communism - an economic system explained by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in their book "The Communist Manifesto" in which the means of production are controlled by the state and everyone forced to be equal politically, economically, religiously, socially, intellectually and in a geographic area
• The Cold War - the name given to the time from 1945-1991 in which the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States were locked into an ideological war about communism vs capitalism, and democracy vs. totalitarianism. A war of political, social, economic, and intellectual ideas.
• capitalism - Economic System explained by Adam Smith in his book Wealth of Nations in which the means of production are privately owned and for profit
• "Iron Curtain" - an imaginary wall between the East (Soviet) controlled countries and the West (democratic) controlled countries
• FRG - Federal Republic of Germany. A democracy opposed to East Germany (GDR) existed until the unification of Germany in 1990
• GDR/DDR - German Democratic Republic - was neither democratic or a republic. It was a communist dictatorship as a puppet state of the Soviet Union (USSR) existed until the unification of Germany in 1990
• Berlin Airlift - the U.S. dropped food and supplies into West Berlin via air because the East Germans closed off the road access
• Berlin Wall - in 1961, East Germany closed off East Berlin and built a wall to stop the flood of people leaving the communist east for the free and democratic west
• Sphere of Influence - a specific area/region that a nation/state has considerable impact
• Hungarian Uprising - was a failed attempt in 1956 of Hungarian peopleoverthrowing their soviet-backed government and leaving the Soviet Union's sphere of influence and to form a new republic
• Domino Theory - the concept that if one country turns to communism another country that was located near or next to the communist country would also turn communist
• Arms Race - the competition between the Soviet Union and the U.S. in producing weapons such as nuclear/atomic bombs/missiles
• Space Race - the competition between the Soviet Union and the U.S. in sending people to space and to the moon. The U.S. would win the space race by landing men on the moon in 1969
• Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) - is the theory that neither the Soviet Union or theU.S. would launch nuclear weapons because they would both be destroyed
• Korean War - a conflict fought by the U.S. and South Koreans against the North Koreans. The country would be split in two at the 38th parallel with the North becoming communist and the south becoming a republic
• Vietnam War - a conflict fought by the U.S. and South Vietnam against North Vietnam. The country would become communist after the U.S. military leaves
• Prague Spring - The Prague Spring reforms were a strong attempt by Dubček to grant additional rights to the citizens of Czechoslovakia in an act of partial decentralization of the economy and democratization. The Soviet Union and other members of the Warsaw Pact invaded the country to halt the reforms in 1968