 | This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(November 2014) |
While the Cold War itself never escalated into direct confrontation, there were a number of conflicts and revolutions related to the Cold War around the globe, spanning the entirety of the period usually prescribed to it (March 12, 1947 to December 26, 1991, a total of 44 years, 9 months, and 2 weeks). [1] [2]
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| History of the Cold War |
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| Conflict | Start date | End date | Western Bloc related | Eastern Bloc related | Region |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gulf War | August 2, 1990 | February 28, 1991 |  Kuwait  United States  United Kingdom  Saudi Arabia  Egypt  France |  Iraq | Western Asia |
| Yugoslav Wars | March 31, 1991 | November 12, 2001 |  Slovenia  Croatia  Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia  Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina  NATO  KLA  UÇPMB |  SFR Yugoslavia  FR Yugoslavia  Republic of Serbian Krajina  Republika Srpska  AP Western Bosnia | Eastern Europe |
| 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt | August 19, 1991 | August 21, 1991 |  All-Union Government of the USSR | State Committee on the State of Emergency | Eastern Europe |
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, and approving any changes to the UN Charter. Its powers as outlined in the United Nations Charter include establishing peacekeeping operations, enacting international sanctions, and authorizing military action. The UNSC is the only UN body with authority to issue resolutions that are binding on member states.
World War II or the Second World War was a global conflict between two alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries, including all of the great powers, participated in the conflict, and many invested all available economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities in pursuit of total war, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and delivery of the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. It was by far the deadliest conflict in history, resulting in 70–85 million fatalities. Millions died due to genocides, including the Holocaust, as well as starvation, massacres, and disease. In the wake of Axis defeat, Germany, Austria, and Japan were occupied, and war crime tribunals were conducted against German and Japanese leaders.
Yugoslavia was a country in Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 to 1992.
World War III, World War 3, WWIII, WW3, or the Third World War are the names given to a hypothetical global conflict subsequent to World War I and World War II. The term has been in use since as early as 1941. Some apply it loosely to limited or more minor conflicts such as the Cold War or the war on terror. In contrast, others assume that such a conflict would surpass prior world wars in both scope and destructive impact.
A world war is an international conflict that involves most or all of the world's major powers. Conventionally, the term is reserved for two major international conflicts that occurred during the first half of the 20th century, World War I (1914–1918) and World War II (1939–1945), although some historians have also characterised other global conflicts as world wars, such as the Nine Years' War, the War of the Spanish Succession, the Seven Years' War, the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, the Cold War, and the War on Terror.
The Korean conflict is an ongoing conflict based on the division of Korea between North Korea and South Korea, both of which claim to be the sole legitimate government of all of Korea. During the Cold War, North Korea was backed by the Soviet Union, China, and other allies, while South Korea was backed by the United States, United Kingdom, and other Western allies.
The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc, that started in 1947, two years after the end of World War II and lasted to 1991, the fall of the Soviet Union.
The division of Korea began on August 15, 1945 when the official announcement of the surrender of Japan was released, thus ending the Pacific Theater of World War II. During the war, the Allied leaders had already been considering the question of Korea's future following Japan's eventual surrender in the war. The leaders reached an understanding that Korea would be liberated from Japan but would be placed under an international trusteeship until the Koreans would be deemed ready for self-rule. In the last days of the war, the United States proposed dividing the Korean peninsula into two occupation zones with the 38th parallel as the dividing line. The Soviets accepted their proposal and agreed to divide Korea.
The Cold War originated in the breakdown of relations between the two main victors in World War II: United States and the Soviet Union, and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc, in the years 1945–1949.
During the Cold War, the Indochina Wars were a series of wars which were waged in Indochina from 1946 to 1991, by communist forces against the opponents. The term "Indochina" referred to former French Indochina, which included the current states of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. In current usage, it applies largely to a geographic region, rather than to a political area. The wars included:
Operation Unthinkable was the name given to two related possible future war plans developed by the British Chiefs of Staff Committee against the USSR during 1945. The plans were never implemented. The creation of the plans was ordered by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in May 1945 and developed by the British Armed Forces' Joint Planning Staff in May 1945 at the end of World War II in Europe.
A cold war is a state of conflict between nations that does not involve direct military action but is pursued primarily through economic and political actions, propaganda, acts of espionage or proxy wars waged by surrogates. This term is most commonly used to refer to the American-Soviet Cold War of 1947–1989. The surrogates are typically states that are satellites of the conflicting nations, i.e., nations allied to them or under their political influence. Opponents in a cold war will often provide economic or military aid, such as weapons, tactical support or military advisors, to lesser nations involved in conflicts with the opposing country.
Odd Arne Westad FBA is a Norwegian historian specializing in the Cold War and contemporary East Asian history. He is the Elihu Professor of History and Global Affairs at Yale University, where he teaches in the Yale History Department and in the Jackson School of Global Affairs. Previously, Westad held the S.T. Lee Chair of US-Asia Relations at Harvard University, teaching in the John F. Kennedy School of Government. Westad has also taught at the London School of Economics, where he served as director of LSE IDEAS. In the spring semester 2019 Westad was Boeing Company Chair in International Relations at Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University.
As soon as the term "Cold War" was popularized to refer to postwar tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, interpreting the course and origins of the conflict became a source of heated controversy among historians, political scientists and journalists. In particular, historians have sharply disagreed as to who was responsible for the breakdown of Soviet Union–United States relations after the World War II and whether the conflict between the two superpowers was inevitable, or could have been avoided. Historians have also disagreed on what exactly the Cold War was, what the sources of the conflict were and how to disentangle patterns of action and reaction between the two sides. While the explanations of the origins of the conflict in academic discussions are complex and diverse, several general schools of thought on the subject can be identified. Historians commonly speak of three differing approaches to the study of the Cold War: "orthodox" accounts, "revisionism" and "post-revisionism". However, much of the historiography on the Cold War weaves together two or even all three of these broad categories and more recent scholars have tended to address issues that transcend the concerns of all three schools.
Anti-communist mass killings are the politically motivated mass killings of communists, alleged communists, or their alleged supporters which were committed by anti-communists and political organizations or governments which opposed communism. The communist movement has faced opposition since it was founded and the opposition to it has often been organized and violent. Many anti-communist mass killing campaigns waged during the Cold War were supported and backed by the United States and its Western Bloc allies. Some U.S.-supported mass killings, including the Indonesian mass killings of 1965–66 and the killings by the Guatemalan military during the Guatemalan Civil War, are considered acts of genocide.
Melvyn Paul Leffler is an American historian and educator, currently Edward Stettinius Professor of History at the University of Virginia. He is the winner of numerous awards, including the Bancroft Prize for his book A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration and the Cold War, and the American Historical Association’s George Louis Beer Prize for his book For the Soul of Mankind: The United States, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War.
In the May 1947 crises, also referred to as the exclusion crises, the Communists were excluded from government in Italy and France. The crises contributed to the start of the Cold War in Western Europe.
Norman Friedman is an American author, analyst, strategist, and historian. He has written over 30 books and numerous articles on naval and other military matters, has worked for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, and has appeared on television programs including PBS, the Discovery Channel, C-SPAN, and National Geographic.
A Second Cold War, Cold War II, or the New Cold War has been said to describe heightened geopolitical tensions in the 21st century. The terms have been used to describe tense relations between the United States and China and between the United States and Russia—the successor state of the Soviet Union, which led the Eastern Bloc during the original Cold War.
Events from the year 1953 in Romania. The year saw the death of Carol II.
