The Cold War

1. The Cold War http://www.vietnammemorial.com/vietnam-soldiers-1.jpg Viqar, Omar Period – 3 Mr. Marshall http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://Korean_War_HA-SN-98-07010.jpg&imgrefu https://cornellbiochem/file/view/explosion.jpg

2. Background Information • The Cold War was the continuing state of conflict, tension and competition that existed primarily between the United States and the Soviet Union and those countries' respective allies from the mid-1940s to the early 1990s. (Bulliet, 821) • The wartime alliance between the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union was very uneasy. (Spodeck, 651) • Western leaders began to consider the Soviet Union the center of world revolution because of its ability to launch a very destructible war. (Bulliet, 822) • Throughout the 1900s, the conflict was expressed through military coalitions, espionage, weapons development, invasions, propaganda, and competitive technological development, which included the space race. (Spodeck, 651) • The Soviets wanted all of Berlin to be within its control, so they cut off land access to Berlin from the west, this was known as the Berlin Blockade. (Princeton Review, 253) • The conflict included costly defense spending, a massive conventional and nuclear arms race, and numerous proxy wars. (Princeton Review, 253) • After the United States and the countries of western Europe established the North Atlantic Treaty Organization military alliance in 1949, Soviet leaders felt surrounded by hostile forces just when they were trying to recover from the terrible losses sustained in the war against Axis. (Bulliet, 822) http://pro.corbis.com/images/U1193464.jpg?size=67&uid=%7BC6C86EE8-5537-41F2-93EC-FFF5DCE8258F%7D

3. Mid 1900s • Although the Soviet Union, the United States, Britain and France were allied against the Axis powers during the last four years of World War II, disagreements existed both during and after the conflict on many topics, particularly over the shape of the post-war world. (Spodeck, 651) • At the war's conclusion, most of Europe was occupied by those four countries, while the United States and the Soviet Union possessed the two most powerful military forces. (Princeton Review, 253) • In July 1944 over forty countries met at Bretton Woods, to devise a new international monetary system, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. • The International Monetary Fund was to use currency reserves from member nations to finance temporary trade deficits, and the World Bank was to provide funds for reconstructing Europe and needy countries after war. (Bulliet, 822) • Due to World War II, there was a very high demand in many work fields, as a result the United States escaped the effects of the great Depression. (http://www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/page.cgi/jb/wwii) • The economy of western Europe was heavily damaged during World War II, as a result the United States prospered, they were able to support the reconstruction of Western Europe with the Marshall Plan which gave 12.5 billion dollars to European countries. (Bulliet, 823) • The line between the East and the West was known as the Iron Curtain because neither western or eastern influence could crass it. http://www.archives.gov/research/cold-war/conference/images/nixon-and-khrushchev-m.jpg

4. Late 1900s • The Soviet Union created an Eastern Bloc of countries that it occupied, annexing some as Soviet Socialist Republics and maintaining others as Satellite states that would later form the Warsaw Pact. (Princeton Review, 253) • Western Europe , including Britain, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, West Germany, and eventually Greece became part of the Western Bloc. • The Cold War saw periods of both heightened tension and relative calm. On the other hand, international crises arose, such as the Berlin Blockade (1948–1949), the Korean War (1950–1953), the Berlin Crisis of 1961, the Vietnam War (1959–1975), the Soviet war in Afghanistan (1979–1989), NATO exercises in November 1983 and especially the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. (Bulliet, 826-29) • Direct military attacks on adversaries were deterred by the potential for mutual assured destruction using deliverable nuclear weapons. (Andrea, 470) • The Helsinki Final Act, known as the Helsinki Accords affirmed that boundaries should be changed by military force. (Bulliet, 830) • Space exploration was another offshoot of the nuclear arms race. (http://www.enotes.com/1960-government-politics-american-decades/cold-war-continued-nuclear-arms-race-arms-control) • The Cold War drew to a close in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. The United States under President Ronald Reagan increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressure on the Soviet Union, which was already suffering from severe economic stagnation. (Spodeck, 651) http://ted.coe.wayne.edu/sse/wq/jared/Pictures/004VietnamWar_468x382.jpg

5. Bibliography Andrea, Alfred J., and James H. Overfield. Human Record. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. Armstrong, Monty. Cracking the AP World History Exam. 2009th ed. 2008. Bulliet, Richard W., Pamela Kyle Crossley, Daniel R. Headrick, Steven W. Hirsch, Lyman L. Johnson, and David Northrup. The Earth And Its Peoples A Global History. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. "The Cold War Continued: Nuclear Arms Race, Arms Control, and D&Atilde;&copy;tente - 1960's Government and Politics." ENotes. 29 Mar. 2009 <http://www.enotes.com/1960-government-politics-american-decades/cold-war-continued-nuclear-arms-race-arms-control>. College of Education Teacher Education Division. 29 Mar. 2009 <http://ted.coe.wayne.edu/sse/wq/jared/Pictures/004VietnamWar_468x382.jpg>. "Depression & WWII (1929-1945)." 29 Mar. 2009 <http://www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/page.cgi/jb/wwii>. Google Image Search. 29 Mar. 2009 <http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://Korean_War_HA-SN-98-07010.jpg&imgrefu>. National Archives and Records Administration. 29 Mar. 2009 <http://www.archives.gov/research/cold-war/conference/images/nixon-and-khrushchev-m.jpg>. Spodek, Howard. The World's History Combined (2nd Edition). Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2000.