Cold War and Decolonization Notes

WWII Conferences

  • Tehran: Soviet Union focused on Eastern Europe; Poland lost land.

  • Yalta: Reconstructing Europe and dealing with Japan.

  • Potsdam: Division of Germany and Berlin.

Cold War

  • Cooperation despite conflict via the United Nations.

    • Capitalism vs. Communism.

    • Democracy vs. Authoritarianism.

  • Politics:

    • Soviet Union's satellite countries.

    • Containment and the Truman Doctrine.

    • The Marshall Plan; COMECON.

  • Space Race and Arms Race:

    • Mutually Assured Destruction.

    • Non-Aligned Movement.

  • Allied Occupation of Germany:

    • Berlin Blockade and Airlift; two Germanys; Berlin Wall.

    • NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

    • Southeast Asia Treaty Organization; Central Treaty Organization.

  • Proxy Wars:

    • Korean War; Douglass MacArthur.

    • Vietnam War; Johnson; domino theory.

    • Bay of Pigs Crisis; Kennedy.

    • Cuban Missile Crisis; Kennedy and Khrushchev.

    • Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty and Non-Proliferation Treaty.

    • Angolan War; Iran-Contra Affair.

Spread of Communism

  • Mao Zedong and China; Nationalist Taiwan.

    • Great Leap Forward and communes.

    • Cultural Revolution.

    • Sino-Soviet Split.

  • Turmoil in Iran:

    • Shah and western influences.

    • Land reform and the White Revolution.

    • The Iranian Revolution.

  • Land Reform in Latin America:

    • Venezuela, Guatemala.

    • United Fruit Company and US interventions.

Decolonization

  • Movements for Autonomy:

    • India and Pakistan (1947): Muslim League; independence in 1947.

    • Ghana and Algeria (1957/1962): Algerian War for Independence; Charles de Gaulle; Algerian Civil War (1991).

    • Negotiated Independence in French West Africa (1950s).

    • Divisions of Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh (1954).

    • Egypt, Nasser, and the Suez Canal Crisis (1956).

    • Nigeria and the Biafran Civil War (1967).

    • Canada and the ‘Quiet Revolution’ (1960s).

  • Newly Independent States:

    • Israel (1948 mandate of Palestine):

      • Israeli-Palestine War (1948).

      • Israeli-Egyptian War (1956 – Suez Canal Crisis).

      • Six-Days War (1967); Yom Kippur War (1973).

      • Camp David Accords (1979) - Israeli-Egyptian Peace; Anwar Sadat vs. PLO and Arafat.

    • Cambodia (1953): Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot.

    • India and Pakistan and the Kashmir Conflict.

  • Women Rise to Power:

    • Sri Lanka: Bandaranaike (1960).

    • India: Indira Gandhi (1966).

    • Pakistan: Bhutto (1988).

Global Resistance to Established Power Structures

  • Non-violent challengers: Gandhi, King, Jr., Mandela.

  • Challenges to Soviet Power:

    • Poland (1956); Hungary (1956); Prague Spring (1968).

    • Brezhnev Doctrine.

  • 1968, the Year of Revolt.

  • Age of Terrorism: IRA, Shining Path, Islamic Terrorism.

  • End of the Cold War: détente; SALT; Soviet-Afghan War; Glasnost/Perestroika; The First Gulf War.