Thursday, April 24th, 2014
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23-27ºC BACK TO HISTORY
How “Cold” was the Cold War? The two super-nations were in fight, who won, no one knows! Some people think the American’s won because the Soviet Union collapsed, some think that the Soviets won because they successfully spread Communism in parts of Asia. THIS IS THE COLD WAR! The Cold War lasted for almost 50 years, starting from the mid 1940s to 1991. Well, what do you know what the Cold War actually is? Do you know what caused the Cold War to happen? Do you know why the Cold War was called the Cold War? Read on to find out more! The Cold War was a war of different ideas and perspectives. It was a competition on arm forces, weapons and space technology between super-nations, but neither side actually fought directly by using weapons, missiles etc. It was just close to breaking into a nuclear war, because both countries created nuclear weapons that could destroy the whole planet! That’s why it’s not called a “Hot” War but called the “Cold” War. The people in these two countries were always in fear and horror by the possibilities of wars. To begin with, the Cold War had officially started in 1947. In 1945, February, the old allies, United States, Britain and USSR were planning to defeat the Germans and Japanese in the Yalta Conference. They decided to split Germany in 4 parts, each lead by Soviet Union, United States, France and Britain. Later that year, in the Potsdam Conference, there were lots of disagreements between the allies, thus caused suspicions between the East (Soviet Union and Asia) and West( US, Britain and other Western countries) and the allies soon broke apart. During the Cold War period the two super-nations indirectly involved in a number of wars like the Vietnam War, Korean War, Cuban Missile Crisis, etc. and most of the events happened in Europe and Asia. The two nations know that they can’t possibly defeat each other, so they carried out the relaxation policy against each other, aka Détente. The detente was broken because of the invasion of Afghanistan by USSR and USSR oppositions to US interference on human rights. It also leaded to the very famous event in the Olympic game history: boycott by the USA and Europe to the Moscow Olympic Games in 1980 and Soviet Union in return boycott the Las Vegas Olympic games in 1984. Next, a new leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev took office. He was opened to new ideas and wanted to break the Iron Curtain in Europe, in addition, he build up good relationships between the Britain and the US and planned to get rid of nuclear weapons and missiles before 2000. However, the East German governments refused to change the harsh rules of the Berlin Wall, but Gorbachev said that change is going to come, thus caused revolutions and protests all around Germany. Finally, the government opened the border and millions of people rushed across the wall from East Berlin to Western Berlin, on the same day the Berlin Wall came down. USSR didn’t have much supports from the republics anymore. So in Christmas day 1999, Gorbachev resigned, which also marked the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Cold War was significant because it improved and developed the technology a lot, such as the military : the nuclear weapons, H-bombs and missiles etc., space technologies and the space race helped the discoveries and studies for our planet. Now, countries also understand the costs of wars: the lost of lives, hurts the economy and it costs a lot of money. That’s why no countries dares to start a war first nowadays, instead of wars, countries are trying to communicate with each other to discuss about issues and trying to find a solution on the conflict. International organizations and treaties are also formed so that the super-nations aren’t becoming too powerful, it also promotes cooperation between countries and co-operations of countries to stop developments on nuclear weapons. To conclude, Winston Churchill said that the Cold War needed a three part strategy: - Military strength (to balance the arm forces) - Dialogue with USSR (to prevent the competition from becoming a real war, especially with the nuclear weapons. - A “United States of Europe” (to avoid the European countries from the continental bloodsheds from WWII.
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