ap world cold war

cold war

• a period of global geopolitical rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc

• began in the aftermath of the Second World War and ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991

United Nations

global body of 193 member states, founded in 1945 to maintain peace, develop friendly relations, promote cooperation, and uphold human rights, working on issues from conflict resolution to climate change

Truman Doctrine

• a U.S. foreign policy, announced by President Harry S. Truman in 1947,

• committed America to supporting "free peoples resisting subjugation" by armed minorities or outside pressures

• primarily aimed at containing Soviet (Communist) expansion during the Cold War.

• included providing economic and military aid (starting with Greece and Turkey)

Marshall Plan

• a U.S. initiative (1948-1952) providing over $13 billion in aid to rebuild Western Europe after World War II

• aiming to foster economic stability, prevent communist spread, create strong trading partners, and modernize industries by boosting production, restoring finances, and lowering trade barriers.

COMECON

(Council for Mutual Economic Assistance)

• a Soviet-led economic organization formed in 1949 by the USSR and its socialist allies to foster economic cooperation, coordinate planning, and counter Western influence (like the Marshall Plan) during the Cold War

NATO

the primary military alliance for collective defense by Western nations against the Soviet Union and its communist allies

Warsaw Pact

a Soviet-led military alliance of Eastern European communist states, formed in 1955 as a direct counterbalance to NATO, solidifying the Cold War division of Europe with a unified command under the USSR

berlin wall

a heavily fortified barrier built by East Germany starting August 13, 1961, to stop its citizens from fleeing to democratic West Berlin, becoming the starkest symbol of the Cold War's division between communist East and capitalist West

Joseph McCarthy

during cold war fueled American anti-communist paranoia with unsubstantiated claims of communist infiltration in the U.S. government, leading to the era known as "McCarthyism,"

Boris Pasternak

Doctor Zhivago, became a major cultural flashpoint in the Cold War; not allowed to recieve his Nobel Prize in literature

domino theory

• US foreign policy belief that if one country fell to communism, its neighbors would quickly follow, like a row of dominoes

• famously articulated by President Eisenhower

bay of pigs

a failed Cold War operation where CIA-trained Cuban exiles, backed by the U.S., tried to overthrow Fidel Castro's communist government, resulting in a humiliating defeat for the U.S. and pushing Cuba closer to the Soviet Union, directly leading to the heightened tensions of the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)

cuban missle crises

errifying 13-day standoff in October 1962 between the US and the Soviet Union, the closest the world came to nuclear war during the Cold War, triggered by the USSR secretly placing nuclear missiles in Cuba

de-Stalinization

• led by Nikita Khrushchev after Stalin's 1953 death

• to denounce his cult of personality, dismantle his oppressive system and introduce political and cultural reforms

• aiming for a return to Lenin's principles and "peaceful coexistence" with the West,

• but faced backlash and ultimately led to renewed authoritarianism before later reforms by Gorbachev

prague spring

1968 Czechoslovakian movement for liberal reforms ("socialism with a human face") led by Alexander Dubček, which loosened censorship and increased freedoms, but was crushed by a Soviet-led Warsaw Pact invasion to maintain control

detente

• a period of eased Cold War tensions between the US and Soviet Union from the late 1960s to the late 1970s, -

• characterized by dialogue, arms control treaties and increased cooperation

• driven by economic pressures and a desire to avoid nuclear war

• ultimately faltered due to Soviet actions like the Afghanistan invasion, leading to renewed confrontation.