AP EURO Key Terms Chapters 28, 29, 30

Unit 9 Key Terms (not done yet)

Cold War (944)

The rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United States that divided much of Europe into a Soviet-aligned Communist bloc and a U.S.-aligned capitalist bloc between 1945 and 1989. Called Cold War because it did not involve direct battle and fights, but instead an intense rivalry and competition, including a space race and nuclear arms war. Europe was divided into East and West, with both political divides like the Iron Curtain and physical ones like the Berlin Wall representing this divide. War was hard on the people and brought repression and thus migration, and resulted in a Western victory and the disbanding of the Soviet Union 1991. Eastern countries struggled to shift to communism, and the nuclear arms race was stopped with the process of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). Politics became more convoluted and complicated, with adversarial and non-aggressionist policies taking hold.

Displaced Persons (945)

Postwar refugees, including 13 million Germans, former Nazi prisoners and forced laborers, and orphaned children. Also referred to as DPs, many fled due to being expelled under the terms of Allied agreements or to escape advancing Soviet troops. To accommodate these people who were in need of food and shelter, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) opened over 760 DP camps and spent $10 billion to give them resources for survival. For many, going home was not the best option, as wen they got home they were seen as politically unreliable (from USSR felt exposed to West) and faced prison terms, exile to labor camps in the Siberian gulag, and execution if extreme enough. Jewish DPs especially felt alienated and unwelcome, and many stayed in special camps in Germany, eventually mass migrating when Israel was created 1948.

Truman Doctrine (949)

America’s policy geared to containing communism to those countries already under Soviet control. Made in response to ideas in early 1947 when it seemed to many Americans that the USSR was determined to export communism by subversion throughout Europe and the world, where it boasted the policy of containment, first advocated by diplomat George Kennan 1946. The doctrine promised that the U.S. would use diplomatic, economic, and even military means to resist the expansion of communism anywhere on the globe, with examples of action being in the Greek Civil War (1944-1949) to counter communism in Turkey and in response to the Soviet atomic bomb 1949.

Marshall Plan (949)

American plan for providing economic aid to Western Europe to help it rebuild. In 1947 Western Europe was on the verge of economic collapse, experiencing scarce food supplies, high inflation, and an intense black market. Aid was offered because the U.S saw that a politically and economically stable Western Europe would be an effective block against the popular appeal of communism. Formulated by secretary of state George C. Marshall, the plan was intended to be the revival of a working economy in the world so as to permit the emergence of political and social conditions in which free institutions can exist. When the plan ended in 1951, the U.S had given $13 billion aid to 15 nations, Europe was on the way to recovery. It was offered to East Bloc countries but was denied due to fear of Western influence.

Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) (950)

An economic organization of Communist states meant to help rebuild East Bloc countries under Soviet auspices. After the Marshall Plan was instated to help the West side recover from its economic downfall, the East Bloc was offered the same assistance but ended up declining to avoid Western influence from threatening Soviet control. Thus, in 1949 COMECON was established to rebuild the East instead. The limiting of these two institutions heightened Cold War tensions and further instated a divide between communism and capitalism which would make the fixing of the Cold War a much harder and messier problem. The two sides were growing increasingly distanced and harder to reunite.

NATO (950)

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, an anti-Soviet military alliance of Western governments. Formed by the U.S. in 1949, NATO was designed to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down. West Germany joined in 1955 and was allowed to rebuild its military to help defend Western Europe again possible Soviet attack. That same year, the Soviets countered by organizing the Warsaw Pact. In both political and military terms, most of Europe was divided into two hostile blocs. NATO would continue to intervene in foreign affairs, since the Berlin crisis showed that containment worked and inspired the U.S. to continue to maintain a strong military presence. Its continued expansionism after the Cold War would also create tensions with Europe and the U.S. and create worries about how wise and ethical the latter was in their efforts to maintain peace.

Warsaw Pact (950)

Soviet-backed military alliance of East Block Communist countries in Europe. Formed in response to NATO in 1955 and served as a counter-acting force, dividing Europe politically and in military terms into two hostile blocs. This growing tension and conflict quickly spread around the globe. The Cold War expanded into East Asia, when Communist North Korea (Soviet-backed) in 1950 was faced with U.S troops by Truman. This war was indecisive and left Korea divided into a Communist North, but Capitalist south. This showed that though the superpowers might maintain a fragile peace in Europe, they were perfectly willing to engage in open conflict in non-western territories. The two sides would continue to fight, and the Warsaw Pact served as the turning point into a more violent and conflict-filled era of the Cold War.

Economic Miracle (952)

Term contemporaries used to describe rapid economic growth, often based on the consumer sector, in post-World War II in Western Europe. After the war, economic conditions had been terrible. Infrastructure barely functioned, inflation and a black market led to shortages and hardship, but the Marshall Plan let conditions improve in the west. The Korean War in 1950 further stimulated economic activity, and Europe entered a period of rapid economic progress lasting into the late 1960s. By the late 1950s the miracle had begun, and some causes can be traced back to American aid and the new objective of economic growth by all western European governments due to the avoiding of a return to stagnation. Western postwar governments thus embraced new policies that led to a lasting social consensus, adopting Keynesian economics, government planning, and free-market capitalism, along with the nationalization of sectors of the economy and economic regulation, paired with welfare provisions paid for with taxes. This framework lasted until the mid-1970s.

Christian Democrats (952)

Center-right political parties that rose to power in Western Europe after the Second World War. They came into power to guide the postwar recovery after Nazi occupation and the way had discredited old ideas and leaders. Christian Democratic parties became important power brokers, they offered voters tired of radical politics a center-right vision of reconciliation and recovery. Socialists and Communists also increased their power and prestige. Across much of Continental Europe, the Christian Democrats defeated their left-wing competition. In Italy, they were the leading party in the first postwar elections in 1946, and in early 1948 they won an absolute majority in the Parliament. They led the Popular Republican Movement in France, which provided some of the best postwar leaders after Charles de Gaulle resigned. West Germany also elected the party. Christian Democrats drew inspiration from CHR/EU heritage, rejected authoritarianism and narrow nationalism, and placed their faith in democracy and liberalism. They preached traditional family values.

Common Market (954)

The European Economic Community, created by six western and central European countries in the West Bloc in 1957 as part of a larger search for European unity. Created by the Treaty of Rome, signed by the Coal and Steel Community. The first goal of the treaty was a gradual reduction of all tariffs between the states to create a single market almost as big as that of the U.S., while other goals included the free movement of capital and labor and common economic policies and institutions. The Common Market encouraged trade among European states, promoted global exports, and helped build shared resources for the modernization of national industries. It fired imaginations and encouraged the hopes of some for rapid progress toward political as well as economic union, which was then shut down by nationalism. Charles de Gaulle vetoed the market’s scheduled advent of majority rule. Europeans would establish ever-closer economic ties, but the Common Market remained a union of independent, sovereign states.

Socialist Realism (957)

De-Stalinization (959)

Decolonization (963)

Nonalignment (965)

Neocolonialism (972)

Guest Worker Programs (973)

Postcolonial Migration (973)

Ostpolitik (983)

Détente (983)

Second Vatican Council (985)

New Left (988)

Brezhnev Doctrine (992)

OPEC (993)

Stagflation (993)

Postindustrial Society (993)

Neoliberalism (994)

Privatization (994)

Developed Socialism (1001)

Solidarity (1005)

Perestroika (1008)

Glasnost (1009)

Velvet Revolution (1011)

Ethnic Cleansing (1026)

Color Revolutions (1027)

Globalization (1028)

European Union (EU) (1029)

Maastricht Treaty (1031)

World Trade Organization (WTO) (1032)

Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) (1032)

Diasporas (1039)

Multiculturalism (1039)

War on Terror (1047)

Muslim Brotherhood (1047)

Arab Spring (1048)

Islamic State (1049)

Climate Change (1051)