Cold War

The Cold War was a political, economic, social, ideological, military and information confrontation that began after the end of World War II between the Western bloc (Western-capitalist), led by the United States, and the Eastern bloc (Eastern-communist) , led by the Soviet Union.

The first phase of the Cold War began after the end of World War II, in 1945. The United States created the NATO military alliance in 1949, with the aim of curbing Soviet influence in Europe. The Soviet Union responded to the creation of this alliance by establishing the Warsaw Pact in 1955. Major crises of this phase included the 1948-1949 Berlin Blockade, the second phase of the Chinese Civil War (1946-1949), the Korean War (1950-1953), the Suez Crisis of 1956, the Berlin Crisis of 1961, and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

The Soviet Union and the United States began to compete for influence in Latin America, the Middle East, and the newly decolonized states of Africa and Asia, where communism was strong and where conflicts such as the Malayan Emergency and the war of IndoChina.

After the Cuban missile crisis, a new phase began that saw the Sino-Soviet split — between the People's Republic of China and the USSR — complicate relations within the communist sphere, while France, an ally of the United States, began to demand greater autonomy of action, even abandoning the military structure of NATO .The USSR invaded Czechoslovakia to suppress the 1968 Prague Spring, while the United States experienced internal turmoil from the civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War. In the 1960s and 1970s, an international peace movement took root among citizens around the world. Movements against nuclear weapons testing and for nuclear disarmament took place, with large protests against the war. In the 1970s both began to make concessions for peace and security, ushering in a period of détente (or détente ).) who saw the United States' strategic arms limitation talks and opening relations with the PRC as a strategic counterweight to the USSR. Simultaneously, the United States developed the Doctrine of National Security, to promote in Latin America, through the Condor Plan, the installation of military dictatorships that would repress, through State terrorism, the political, social, union and student movements of their populations.

The phase of stability collapsed at the end of the decade with the start of the 1979 war in Afghanistan. The 1980s were another period of heightened tension. The United States increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressure against the Soviet Union, at a time when it was already experiencing economic stagnation. In the mid-1980s, the new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the reforms known as Glasnost (1985) and Perestroika (1987) and ended Soviet involvement in Afghanistan. Pressures for national sovereignty grew stronger in Eastern Europe, and Gorbachev refused to support his governments militarily any longer in the so-called Sinatra Doctrine. The result in 1989 was a wave of revolutions that (with the exception of Romania) peacefully overthrew all the communist governments in Central and Eastern Europe. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union itself lost control of the territory and was banned after a failed coup attempt in August 1991 against Boris Yeltsin's anti-communist government in the Russian SFSR. This in turn led to the formal dissolution of the USSR in December 1991, the declaration of independence of its constituent republics, and the collapse of communist governments in much of Africa and Asia. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union itself lost control of the territory and was banned after a failed coup attempt in August 1991 against Boris Yeltsin's anti-communist government in the Russian SFSR. This in turn led to the formal dissolution of the USSR in December 1991, the declaration of independence of its constituent republics, and the collapse of communist governments in much of Africa and Asia. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union itself lost control of the territory and was banned after a failed coup attempt in August 1991 against Boris Yeltsin's anti-communist government in the Russian SFSR. This in turn led to the formal dissolution of the USSR in December 1991, the declaration of independence of its constituent republics, and the collapse of communist governments in much of Africa and Asia.

Origin of the term

At the end of World War II, the English writer George Orwell used "cold war" as a general term in his essay You and the Atomic Bomb (in Spanish, "The Atomic Bomb and you"), published on October 19, 1945 in the British Tribune newspaper . In a world threatened by nuclear war, Orwell referred to James Burnham's predictions of a polarized world and wrote:However, looking at the world as a whole, for many decades now the drift is not towards anarchy, but towards the reestablishment of slavery [...] James Burnham's theory has been widely discussed, but few have stopped to weigh its ideological implications, that is, the kind of worldview, the kind of beliefs, and the social structure that is likely to prevail in an unconquerable state in constant "cold war" with its neighbors .

Orwell himself wrote in The Observer of March 10, 1946 that "after the Moscow conference last December, Russia began to wage a cold war against the United Kingdom and the British Empire .

The first use of the term to specifically describe the geopolitical confrontation between the postwar Soviet Union and the United States was in a speech by Bernard Baruch, an influential American financier and presidential adviser, on April 16, 1947. In the speech Baruch said : "Let's not fool ourselves: we are immersed in a cold war". The term was popularized by columnist Walter Lippmann with his book The Cold War . When asked in 1947 about the source of the expression, Lippmann traced it back to la guerre froide , a French term from the 1930s .

Background

There is some disagreement about when exactly the Cold War began. While most historians maintain that it began as soon as the Second World War ended, others affirm that the beginnings of the Cold War date back to the end of the First World War, in the tensions that arose between the Russian Empire, on the one hand , and the British Empire and the United States, on the other. The ideological clash between communism and capitalism began in 1917, after the triumph of the Russian Revolution, from which Russia emerged as the first socialist country. This was one of the first events that led to considerable erosions in Russian-American relations .

Some events prior to the end of World War I fostered suspicion and misgivings between Soviets and Americans: the Bolshevik idea that capitalism should be forcibly overthrown to be replaced by a communist system, the Russian withdrawal from World War I World following the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Second Reich, the US intervention in support of the White Movement during the Russian Civil War, and the US refusal to diplomatically recognize the Soviet Union until 1933.Together with these different events during the interwar period, suspicions were heightened: the Munich Agreements, and the signing of the anti-Comintern pact, these two are antecedents of anti-communist alliances prior to NATO, the signing of the Treaty of Rapallo and the German-Soviet Pact of non-aggression are other examples .

World War II and post-war (1939-1947)

During the final stages of World War II, the Soviets begin to suspect that the British and Americans, who had chosen to leave the bulk of the war effort to the Russians, would forge a union against the Soviets (Operation Unthinkable) once the war was over. determined in favor of the Allies, to force the Soviet Union to sign a peace treaty advantageous to Western interests. These suspicions undermined relations between the allies during the final phase of the war .

The Allies did not agree on how Europe's borders should be drawn after the war. to international organizations, such as the newly created UN, to settle their differences .

However, the Soviets believed that stability would have to be based on the integrity of the Soviet Union's own borders. This reasoning stems from the historical experience of the Russians, who had been invaded from the West for the last hundred and fifty years. The unprecedented damage inflicted on the Soviet Union during the Nazi invasion (around twenty-seven million dead and widespread and almost total destruction of the invaded territory)He urged Soviet leaders to ensure that the new European order would enable the long-term existence of the Soviet regime, and that this goal could only be achieved by eliminating any hostile government along the Union's western border, and the direct or indirect control of the countries bordering this border, to prevent the appearance of hostile forces in these countries .

Conferences

During the Yalta Conference in February 1945, the Allies tried to create a framework on which to work in the reconstruction of post-war Europe, but no consensus was reached. After the end of World War II in Europe, the Soviets de facto occupiedthe areas of Eastern Europe they had defended, while US forces and their allies remained in Western Europe. In the case of occupied Germany, the allied occupation zones were created in Germany and a diffuse quadripartite organization shared with the French and British. To maintain world peace, the allies created the United Nations, but its ability to act was limited by the Security Council, in which the victorious powers of World War II secured the power to veto those actions contrary to their interests. The UN thus became during its early years a forum where the powers engaged in rhetorical struggles, and which the Soviets used for propaganda purposes .

At the Potsdam Conference, which began in late July 1945, the first relevant differences about Germany and Eastern Europe emerged; the conference participants made no secret of their antipathies, and the use of bellicose language confirmed each other's intentions. hostiles who defended more and more vigorously. During this conference, Truman informed Stalin that the United States had created a new weapon. Stalin, who was already aware of the American advances in the development of the atomic bomb, expressed his wish that this new weapon be used against Japan. A week after the end of the conference, the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The Iron Curtain

In February 1946, George Kennan wrote from Moscow the so-called Long Telegram, in which he supported a policy of inflexibility with the Soviets, and which would become one of the basic theories of the Americans during the rest of the Cold War. In September of that same year, the Soviets responded with another telegram signed by Nikolai Vasilyevich Novikov, although written together with Viacheslav Molotov; in this telegram it was argued that the United States was using its monopoly in the capitalist world to develop a military capacity that would create the conditions for the achievement of world supremacy through a new war .

Weeks after the receipt of the "Long Telegram", British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivered his famous Iron Curtain speech at a University in Missouri. The speech sought to promote an Anglo-American alliance against the Soviets. , whom he accused of having created an " iron curtain " from Stettin, in the Baltic, to Trieste, in the Adriatic .

From the theory of containment to the Korean War (1947-1953)

Around 1947, advisers to US President Harry S. Truman urged him to take action to counter the growing influence of the Soviet Union, citing Stalin's efforts to destabilize the United States and stir up rivalries among capitalist countries in order to provoke a new war .

In Asia, the Chinese communist army had occupied Manchuria during the last month of World War II and was preparing to invade the Korean peninsula beyond the 38th parallel. Finally, Mao Zedong's communist army, though unreceptive to the scant Soviet aid, managed to defeat the pro-Western Chinese nationalist army (Kuomintang), supported by the United States .

Europe

From the late 1940s, the Soviet Union succeeded in setting up puppet governments in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and East Germany, allowing it to maintain a strong military presence in these countries. In February 1947, the government British announced that it could no longer finance the Greek military regime against communist insurgents in the context of the Greek Civil War. The US government first put into practice the Theory of Containment,which was aimed at curbing communist expansion, especially in Europe. Truman framed this theory within the Truman Doctrine, made known through a speech by the president in which the conflict between capitalists and communists was defined as a struggle between "free peoples" and "totalitarian regimes" .

The Plan Marshall

In the United States, the idea was spread that the balance of power in Europe would not be achieved only by the military defense of the territory, but also that political and economic problems needed to be tackled to avoid the fall of Western Europe into communist hands.Based on these ideas, the Truman Doctrine would be complemented in June 1947 with the creation of the Marshall Plan, an economic aid plan aimed at rebuilding the political-economic systems of European countries and, by strengthening the capitalist economic structures and the development of parliamentary democracies, curb the possible access to power of communist parties in Western European democracies (such as France or Italy). Likewise, the Marshall Plan constituted the remodeling of numerous European cities that had been destroyed by World War II .

Stalin saw in the Marshall Plan an American tactic to weaken Soviet control over Eastern Europe. He believed that the economic integration of both blocs would allow the countries under the Soviet orbit to escape Moscow's control, and that the Plan was nothing more than a way for the US to "buy" European countries . Therefore, Stalin prohibited Eastern European countries from participating in the Marshall Plan. As a patch, Moscow created a series of subsidies and trade channels known first as the Molotov Plan, which would soon be developed within COMECON.Stalin was also highly critical of the Marshall Plan because he feared that such aid would cause Germany to rearm, which was one of his greatest concerns regarding the future of Germany after the war.

The Berlin Blockade

In 1948, in retaliation for the efforts of the United States to rebuild the German economy, Stalin, who feared that the population of the Soviet Sector of Germany would position itself in favor of the capitalist Bloc, closed the land access routes to West Berlin, preventing the arrival of materials and other supplies to the city. This event, known as the Berlin Blockade, precipitated one of the greatest crises of the early Cold War.

The airlift organized by the United States and the United Kingdom, designed to supply the blockaded western sector of the city, exceeded all expectations, shattering the Soviet assumption that the western sector would surrender to the eastern sector due to lack of supplies. Finally the blockade was lifted peacefully. Both sides used this blockade for propaganda purposes: the Soviets to denounce the alleged rearmament of Germany favored by the United States, and the Americans to exploit their image as benefactors. The best example of this was the so-called Operation Little Vittles, where planes countering the blockade of Berlin dropped sweets on Berlin children.

In July, President Truman annuls the Morgenthau Plan, a series of proposals agreed with the Soviets after the end of the war, which imposed severe conditions on German reconstruction (among them, the explicit prohibition that the US provide aid to the reconstruction of the German economic system). This plan was replaced by a new directive (called JSC 1779) much more benevolent with German reconstruction, and which emphasized the need to create an economically strong and stable Germany to achieve prosperity throughout Europe .

Cominform

In September the Soviets create the Cominform, an organization whose purpose was to maintain communist ideological orthodoxy within the international communist movement. In practice, it became a control mechanism over the policies of the Soviet satellite states, coordinating the ideas and actions of the communist parties of the Eastern bloc. The Cominform faced unexpected opposition when, in June The following year, the Tito-Stalin split forced Yugoslavia to be expelled from the organization, which maintained a communist government but identified itself as a neutral country in the Cold War.Together with the Cominform, the Soviet secret police, the NKVD, was in charge of maintaining an espionage network in the satellite countries under the pretext of eliminating anti-communist elements. The NKVD (and its successors) eventually became vigilante organizations in charge of to skew any attempt to move away from the orbit of Moscow and the Soviet-communist orthodoxy (orthodoxy: Conformity with the principles of a doctrine or with the norms or traditional practices, accepted by the majority as the most appropriate in a certain field) .

The OTAN

In April 1949, NATO was established, with which the United States formally took responsibility for defending Western Europe, together with the European countries that joined NATO. In August of that year, the Soviet Union detonated its first atomic

In May 1949, the Federal Republic of Germany was established as a product of the merger of the allied occupation zones. In response, in October of that year, the Soviets proclaimed their zone of occupation as the German Democratic Republic. beginning of the existence of the FRG, the United States helps its military development. To prevent the FRG from becoming a member of NATO, the Soviet Prime Minister, Lavrenti Beria, proposed to merge both countries into a single Germany that would remain neutral. The proposal did not go ahead and in 1955 the FRG was admitted as NATO member .

Asia

Within this strategy of generalization of "containment", the theater of operations was expanded from Europe to Asia, Africa and Latin America, with the intention of stopping revolutionary movements, often financed from the Soviet Union, as was the case of the former European colonies in Southeast Asia. In the early 1950s, the US formalized military alliances with Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, and the Philippines (alliances encompassed by ANZUS and SEATO), guaranteeing the United States United States a series of military bases along the Asian Pacific coast .

Iran

In the fall of 1945, the Soviet Union refused to evacuate its troops from Iranian Azerbaijan, occupied since the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran in 1941 and where the Tudeh communist party maintained a self-governing republic. Due to Tudeh influence a general strike was declared at the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (formerly Anglo-Persian Oil Company) refinery in Abadan. The government stood firm and in October 1946 Azerbaijan fell. In January 1948, martial law was lifted after seven years of application. On February 4, 1949, the Tudeh was banned after the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi suffered an attack.

Chinese civil war

In 1949, Mao Zedong's Red Army proclaimed itself the winner of the Chinese civil war after defeating the Kuomintang nationalists, who had the support of the United States. Immediately, the Soviet Union established an alliance with the victors, who had created a new communist state with the name of the People's Republic of China. As the Chinese Revolution coincided in time with the loss of the United States' atomic monopoly (after the unexpected success of RDS-1), President Truman's administration attempted to generalize the Theory of Containment. In a secret document dated 1950 (known as NSC-68) the Truman administration proposed to strengthen pro-Western alliance systems and quadruple defense spending .

Korean war

One of the most significant examples of the implementation of containment was the US intervention in the Korean War. In June 1950, after years of mutual hostilities, North Korea, ruled by Kim Il-sung, invaded South Korea across the 38th Parallel. Stalin had been reluctant to support the invasion, but eventually sent advisers and pilots . To Stalin's surprise, United Nations Security Council Resolutions 82 and 83 endorsed the defense of South Korea, even though the Soviets were boycotting meetings in protest that the Republic of China (Taiwan), not the People's Republic of China, had a permanent seat on the council. A UN force of sixteen countriesIt engaged North Korea, although 40% of the troops were South Korean, and about 50% were from the United States .

The United States initially seemed to follow containment when it first entered the war. This directed US action to push North Korea back across the 38th parallel and restore South Korea's sovereignty, allowing North Korea to survive as a state. However, the success of the Inchon landings inspired the United States and the United Nations to adopt a rollback strategy and topple communist North Korea, allowing for nationwide elections under UN auspices.General Douglas MacArthur advanced across the 38th parallel into North Korea. The Chinese, fearful of a possible American presence on their border or even an invasion by them, sent in the People's Liberation Army and defeated the UN forces, pushing them back below the 38th parallel. Truman publicly hinted that he might use the atomic bomb, but Mao was unmoved. The episode was used to support the wisdom of the doctrine of containment as opposed to pushback. The communists were later pushed around the original border, with minimal changes. Among other effects, the Korean War prompted NATO to develop a unified military structure .

From the increase in tensions to the crisis in Cuba (1953-1962)

In 1953 there were changes in the political leadership of both sides, which began a new phase in the Cold War. In January 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower was inaugurated as President of the United States during the last months of the administration. Truman, the Defense budget had quadrupled; Eisenhower sought to reduce military spending by relying on US nuclear superiority and more effective management of situations caused by the Cold War .

In March, Stalin dies, and Nikita Khrushchev becomes the new leader of the Soviet Union, having deposed and executed NKVD chief Lavrenti Beria, and finally removed Georgy Malenkov and Vyacheslav Molotov from power. On February 25, 1956, Khrushchev impressed the delegates of the 20th Congress of the CPSU by denouncing the crimes committed by Stalin during his speech From him About the cult of personality and its consequences From him. In the speech it was argued that the only way to achieve successful reform was to be aware of the mistakes made in the past by deviating from the policies carried out by Stalin .

Sino-Soviet split

After the change of leadership in the Soviet Union there were numerous frictions with some of the Soviet allies more prone to Stalinism or the figure of Stalin. The most notable of these discrepancies between communist countries was reflected in the breakdown of the Sino-Soviet alliance. Mao Tse Tung defended the figure of Stalin after his death in 1953, and described Khrushchev as a superficial careerist, accusing him of having lost the revolutionary profile of the state .

Khrushchev was stubborn in reconstructing the Sino-Soviet alliance, but Mao considered that his proposals were useless and discarded any type of proposal. The Chinese and the Soviets began a propaganda display within the communist sphere itself that would end up becoming a struggle for leadership of the international communist movement, until arriving three years later at the direct military confrontation on the border that both powers shared .

Rising tensions

On November 18, 1956, during a speech in front of Western bloc ambassadors at the Polish embassy, ​​Khrushchev made some controversial words that impressed those present: “Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!" However, he later clarified that he was not referring to the possibility of nuclear war, but to the historical inevitability of the victory of communism over capitalism .

Eisenhower's Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, initiated a new twist in Containment Theory by emphasizing the possible use of nuclear weapons against US enemies. He added to the classic "containment" discourse a new point of support by announcing the possibility of a "massive retaliation", implying that any Soviet aggression would be answered with all necessary means. This new theory was put into practice during the Suez Crisis, where the United States' nuclear superiority, coupled with the threat of using it, deterred the Soviets from starting an open battle against American interests .

From 1957 to 1961, Khrushchev openly displayed his confidence in the nuclear superiority of the Soviet Union. He claimed that the destructive capacity of the Soviet Union's missiles was far superior to that of the United States and that they could hit any American or European city. However, Khrushchev rejected Stalin's vision of an inevitable war and declared that his intention was to open a new era of peaceful coexistence.Khrushchev tried to reformulate the Soviet-Stalinian idea, according to which the class struggle on a world level would inevitably provoke a great war between proletarians and capitalists whose final result would be the triumph of Communism. Khrushchev argued that war was avoidable, since during peacetime capitalism would collapse on its own, while peace left time and resources available to improve the military-economic capacity of the Soviet Union . They defended themselves by showing their military capacity outside their borders and the success of liberal capitalism throughout the world.Despite Kennedy's speech characterizing the Cold War as a "struggle for the minds of men" between two systems of social organization, by the mid-1960s the ideological struggle had been sidelined against the geopolitical goals of military and economic character .

Stagnation of the situation in Europe

Although there was certainly a temporary easing of tensions after Stalin's death in 1953, the situation in Europe remained uneasy, with both sides heavily armed but with no apparent movement. US troops remained stationed indefinitely in West Germany and the Soviet troops continued to be stationed indefinitely throughout Eastern Europe.

To counteract the rearmament of West Germany after its entry into NATO, the countries of the Soviet orbit sealed a military alliance known as the Warsaw Pact in 1955. However, this movement was more political than strategic, since the Soviet Union already it had built a mutual defense network with all its satellites even before NATO was formed in 1949 .

Thus, the status quo in Europe remained unchanged. The Soviets suppressed the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 without any of the Western powers trying to mobilize their army against the Warsaw Pact invasion on Hungarian soil. Likewise, the city of Berlin continued to be divided and disputed .

Berlin

During November 1958, Khrushchev tried to demilitarize the city of Berlin. He asked the Americans, British and French to leave their respective occupation zones under the threat of transferring control of the accesses from the Western powers to East Germany (which would mean the isolation of the western sector of Berlin). NATO rejected the ultimatum and in mid-December Khrushchev abandoned the idea in exchange for a conference in Geneva to resolve the Berlin question .

The city's last major crisis was in 1961. From the early 1950s, the Soviet Union and later its satellite states began to heavily restrict migratory movements. Despite this, hundreds of thousands of East Germans managed to emigrate to West Germany through the hole in the border that existed in the city of Berlin, where movement between eastern and western sectors was free, thus creating a springboard for emigration to Western Europe .

This facility caused a massive brain drain from East Germany to West Germany of qualified young people: in 1961, 20% of the active population in Eastern territory had emigrated to the West. In July of that year, the Soviet Union again raised as ultimatum the abandonment of the city of all the occupying powers and the return of the occupied areas of West Berlin to East Germany, with which the border hole would be eliminated. The Western powers ignored the ultimatum.

Two months after the Soviet ultimatum, East Germany began the construction of a cement and wire barrier that physically separated both areas of the Berlin city, preventing free movement between the eastern and western areas. The barrier grew until it became the Berlin Wall .

Decolonization

Taking advantage of the acceleration of decolonization during the 1950s and early 1960s, both the US and the Soviet Union competed to increase their influence in the decolonized countries. Furthermore, from the Soviet point of view, the disappearance of the large colonial empires was an unequivocal sign of the victory of the communist ideology. the most widespread idea among the Western allies .

In this context, the US used the CIA to overthrow certain governments and favor others. The CIA played a key role in overthrowing countries suspected of being pro-communist, as in the case of the first democratically elected government in Iran (Operation Ajax) in 1953 and the fall of Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán after the 1954 coup in Guatemala. In turn, the US tried to help friendly governments with economic and military aid, as in the case of North Vietnam. South.

Most of the nations and governments that emerged after decolonization in Asia, Africa and Latin America tried to escape the pressure to choose the pro-capitalist or pro-communist side. In 1955, during the Bandung Conference, dozens of Third World countries agreed to stay out of the Cold War dynamics. This consensus resulted in the creation of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1961.As a result of the appearance of a new factor in the Cold War, the Americans and Soviets moderated their policies and tried to approach these new neutral countries (especially in the case of key countries such as India or Egypt) in a less aggressive way than the sustained until then. The nationalist and independence movements thus managed to create a new, more plural scenario, overcoming the bipolar confrontation of the postwar period, and created the bases for nationalist claims in Asia and Latin America .

Arms race

At the end of World War II, the two victorious powers had an enormous variety of weapons, many of them developed and improved during the conflict. Tanks, airplanes, submarines and other advanced designs of warships, constituted the so-called conventional weapons. Nevertheless, the inequality was patent, or so it seemed to the statesmen. Before World War II, the Soviet Union had the same number of combat tanks as all other nations combined, and outnumbered all other air forces in combat aircraft .

After the conflict, the numerical difference was not so overwhelming, but it was still ostentatious. However, his fleet could not compete on equal terms with the United States. After the Battle of Midway, the importance of naval attack aircraft and aircraft carriers in maritime conflicts was demonstrated. The Soviet navy had far fewer ships of this type than the American, and furthermore, their ships were smaller, and did not have a continuous deck to operate two aircraft simultaneously, so their inferiority was manifest.For the Soviet Union, even more problematic than the lack of aircraft carriers was the lack of a worldwide network of supply bases open year-round. While the United States could dock its ships in Naples, Rota, Hawaii, the Philippines and many other ports, the Soviet Union could not take its ships out of its own ports for several months of the year, because its ports were either frozen or could be easily damaged. blocked by allies. This was the case of the Black Sea fleet, which had to cross the 35 kilometers of the Bosporus Strait, which Turkey could easily block.

In conventional aviation, both in number and quality, the new Soviet fighters and bombers were not only on par with, but above Western ones, the Tu-4 bomber planes dropped the first Soviet atomic bomb. Despite the fact that the Pentagon always claimed to possess apparatus superior to those of any other country, the confrontations experienced during the Korean War, the Vietnam War and later, in the South African Border War demonstrated the equality, if not the superiority, of Soviet planes.

But it was the so-called unconventional weapons that attracted the most attention: more powerful, efficient, difficult to manufacture and extremely expensive. Chief among these weapons was the atomic bomb. At the beginning of the Cold War, only the United States had these weapons, which significantly increased its war power. The Soviet Union started its own research program to also produce such bombs, something it achieved in four years; relatively little time, helping himself with espionage. Initially, the United States focused its research on perfecting the vector that would transport the bombs (missile or strategic bomber); but it was when it became known that Moscow had detonated its first nuclear fission bomb, when the green light was given to the project to manufacture the hydrogen bomb, weapon that has no known power limit. This was achieved in 1952, and the Soviet Union obtained it the following year.Despite the fact that the race was very even on the qualitative level, it was not the same on the quantitative level: contradicting the Western concern of that time, the American citizen and member of the Thomas Watson Institute, Sergei Khrushchev affirms that at the time of the crisis of missiles from Cuba, the US nuclear power exceeded that of the East by 10 times or more .

This arms race was promoted by the so-called Equilibrium of Terror , according to which the power that placed itself at the forefront in the production of weapons would cause an imbalance on the international scene: if one of them had a greater number of weapons, it would be capable of destroy the other. However, already in the 21st century, sources such as The Times consider that the Soviet effort was not aimed at overcoming the other adversary, but at reaching it and then forcing it to implement a non-offensive defensive strategy (snatch as many allies as it could get). . Of this same opinion is Sergey Khrushchev, who affirms that the raceit was only in the minds of Westerners, because for the Soviets it was about increasing their arsenal and perfecting their vectors (missiles, bombers and submarines) according to their possibilities, because they could not equal or surpass the West. This disproportion seems to be confirmed by facts like intercontinental missiles (ICBMs) only started to catch up with the Americans, in terms of operability and reliability, towards the end of the 1970s. Nor did nuclear submarines seem to be able to measure up to Western ones, as evidenced by the large number of accidents they suffered .

Space race

The space race can be defined as a subdivision of the undeclared conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union in the space field. Between 1957 and 1975, and as a consequence of the rivalry that arose within the framework of the Cold War, both countries began a race in search of historical milestones that were justified for reasons of both national security and ideological reasons associated with technological superiority.

The race begins in 1957, when the Soviets launched Sputnik, the first human artifact capable of reaching space and orbiting the planet. Likewise, the first milestones in the space race were reached by the Soviets: in November of that same year, they launched Sputnik II and, inside the ship, the first living being went into space: a Kudriavka dog, named Laika, who He died seven hours after leaving the atmosphere. The next milestone would also be the work of the Soviets, when they managed to launch the Vostok 1 spacecraft in 1961, manned by Yuri Gagarin, the first human being to go to space and return safely.

The arrival of man in space was celebrated as a great triumph for humanity. In the United States, the public received the news as a blow to the belief in the superior technological capacity of the United States. In response, President Kennedy announced, a month and a half after Gagarin's trip, that the United States would be able to put a man on the Moon and bring it safely to Earth before the end of the decade .

At the beginning of 1969, the United States managed to manufacture the first human object that orbited the Moon (Apollo 8) while the Soviets had serious problems in their lunar program. On July 20, 1969, the zenith of space exploration was reached when the Apollo 11 mission successfully accomplished its task and Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin became the first humans to walk on another celestial body. Shortly after, the Soviets canceled their lunar program.

The United States continued to send astronauts to the Moon, until the lack of interest and budget made the program cancel. In 1975, the Joint US-Soviet Apollo-Soyuz Mission ended the space race.

Cuban Missile Crisis

When the Cuban Revolution triumphed in 1959, a true turn in the history of Latin America took place, since the nascent process of nationalizations and agrarian reform seriously affected US interests on the island that had been secured with the Platt Amendment in 1902, this leads Due to strong friction between Cuba and the United States that triggered the rupture of diplomatic relations and the expulsion of Cuba from the OAS, due to the isolation from the rest of the hemisphere and the economic blockade, the country became a strong ally of the Soviet Union and the rest of the communist bloc, later becoming a member of COMECON. This crisis brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. After the failed Bay of Pigs invasion attempt in April 1961. In 1962, the Soviet Union was discovered building 40 nuclear silos in Cuba. According to Khrushchev, the measure was purely defensive, to prevent the United States from attempting a new attack against the Cubans. On the other hand, it was known that the Soviets really wanted to respond to the US installation of Jupiter II missiles in the city of Izmir, Turkey, which could be used to bombard the Soviet southwest.

The Soviet Union sent cargo ships and submarines carrying atomic weapons to Cuba. A spy plane discovered the launch pads, and the United States immediately made decisions, starting the missile crisis.

On October 22, 1962, the United States ordered a total quarantine on the island, positioning military ships in the Caribbean Sea and closing maritime contacts between the Soviet Union and Cuba. Kennedy issued an ultimatum to the Soviet Union: he demanded that the Soviet Union stop these ships under threat of massive retaliation. The Soviets argued that they did not understand why Kennedy would take this action when several US missiles were installed in the territories of NATO member countries against the Soviets, at identical distances. Fidel Castro argued that there was nothing illegal about installing Soviet missiles in his territory, and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan said he did not understand why even the hypothesis of a diplomatic agreement was not proposed.

On October 23 and 24, Khrushchev would have sent a message to Kennedy stating: « The USSR sees the blockade as an aggression and will not instruct the ships to divert»; but in the early hours of the morning, the Soviet ships slowed down in their journeys to Cuba, in order to avoid any major conflict, while the possibilities of a negotiation between the parties were opened. On October 26, he reported that he would withdraw his missiles from Cuba if Washington agreed not to invade Cuba. The next day, he further called for the withdrawal of the Jupiter ballistic missiles from Turkey. Two US U-2 spy planes were shot down over Cuba and Siberia on October 27, right at the height of the crisis. On October 28, Kennedy agreed to withdraw the missiles from Turkey and not to attack Cuba. So Nikita Khrushchev withdrew his nuclear missiles from the Cuban island.

This crisis gave birth to a new period: detente, signaled by the launch of the red telephone —actually white—, a direct line between Moscow and Washington, which would lighten communications in the event of another crisis.

Las relaxation (1962-1979)

Over the course of the 1960s and 1970s, the superpowers had to manage a new model of geopolitics, in which the world was no longer clearly divided into two antagonistic blocs. Europe and Japan quickly recovered from the destruction of World War II. World War and its per capita income was approaching that of the United States. Meanwhile, the economy of the Eastern Bloc entered a cycle of economic stagnation. In turn, the Third World managed to establish itself as an independent bloc through organizations such as the Non-Aligned Movement and demonstrated their negotiating strength with the fundamental role that OPEC had during the oil crisis of 1973 .

In the Soviet Union, the management of internal economic problems removed the need to extend Soviet influence in the world order. As a consequence, Soviet leaders such as Aleksei Kosygin and Leonid Brezhnev himself opted for a relaxation in international relations by opening a new period known as the distension or détente .

Europe

The Prague Spring and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia

In 1968, a period of political liberalization took place in Czechoslovakia called the Prague Spring. The reforms included greater freedom of the press and freedom of expression along with an economic emphasis on consumer goods, the possibility of multi-party government, limitations on the power of the secret police, and possible withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact .

In response to the Prague Spring, on August 20, 1968, the Soviet Army, along with most of its Warsaw Pact allies, except for Nicolae Ceaușescu's Socialist Republic of Romania, invaded Czechoslovakia. The invasion was followed by a mass exodus of 70,000 Czechs and Slovaks

May 68

"May '68" is the name given to a series of student protests and general strikes that brought about the fall of the de Gaulle government in France. The vast majority of Protestants followed left-wing ideologies, although traditional left-wing political and trade union organizations tried to distance themselves from the movement. The protests were especially directed at the prevailing educational and labor system.

Although May 68 ended up being a relative political failure, the social impact was very important. Especially in France (and less obviously in the rest of the Western world) the revolt marked the passage of a morally conservative society stemming from those who lived through World War II (based on religion, patriotism and respect for authority ) to a more liberal morality of the generation that was born after the war (based on equality, sexual liberation and respect for human rights).

Tensions in the Third World

Latin America

National Security Doctrine

The National Security Doctrine is a concept used by several Latin American historians to define certain foreign policy actions, aimed at the armed forces of Latin American countries modifying their mission to dedicate themselves exclusively to guaranteeing internal order, in order to combat those ideologies, organizations or movements that, within each country, could favor or support communism in the context of the Cold War, legitimizing the seizure of power by the armed forces and the systematic violation of human rights, through policies of State terrorism .

School of the Americas

In 1946 the United States installed in the Panama Canal Zone, then under its power, the School of the Americas. The School educated and trained tens of thousands of Latin American soldiers, with a view to their performance in the Cold War. It emerged as an initiative within the framework of the National Security Doctrine, to get Latin American nations to cooperate with the United States, counteracting the influence of political currents of Marxist, socialist, anti-imperialist, leftist ideology and in general assimilated to the so-called " populism" .

Dominican civil war

At the end of April 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered the deployment of 42,000 soldiers in the Dominican Republic for the occupation of Dominican territory for a year, in an operation known as Operation Power Pack, hiding behind the possible appearance of a «new Cuban Revolution» in Latin America.During the Dominican elections of 1966, under US occupation, the conservative Joaquín Balaguer was proclaimed the winner. Although it is true that Balaguer had the real support of the elites of the country, as well as of the peasants, the elections were discredited by the refusal of former President Juan Bosch to contest them. After Balaguer's victory, activists from former President Bosch's Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD) began a campaign of attacks against the police and the army .

Chile

In Chile, Socialist Party of Chile candidate Salvador Allende won the 1970 presidential election, becoming the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in the Americas The CIA targeted Allende for expulsion and acted to undermine his support at the national level, contributing to a period of unrest that culminated in General Augusto Pinochet's coup d'état on September 11, 1973. Pinochet consolidated power as a military dictator, Allende's economic reforms were set in motion back, and leftist opponents were killed or detained in internment camps under the National Intelligence Directorate (DINA). The socialist states—with the exception of China and Romania—broke off relations with Chile.The Pinochet regime would become one of the main participants in Operation Condor, an international campaign of political assassinations and state terrorism organized by right-wing military dictatorships in the Southern Cone of South America that was covertly backed by the Pinochet government. the United States .

Argentina

In Argentina there were several unsuccessful attempts to implant guerrilla groups with greater or lesser support from Fidel Castro's Cuba, even before the creation of the later well-known Montoneros and People's Revolutionary Army bands. These and other groups began to act in times of the de facto government called the Argentine Revolution and after a brief period of military inaction during Perón's return to the country, they resumed their actions during the majority-elected government of the latter, during the government of his legal successor and during the de facto government that began in 1976 that ended up defeating them on the military level.

Operation Condor

State terrorism in Latin America was part of a continental operation. Operation or Plan Condor was the name given to the intelligence and coordination plan between the security services of the military regimes of the Southern Cone (Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia), with connections to the armed forces. military from Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela, and cooperation and operational support from the United States. Operation Condor constituted an international clandestine organization for the practice of state terrorism on a continental scale.

Operation Condor has been discovered basically from the secret documents of the US government declassified at the time of President Bill Clinton.

It was conceived and designed by the then Chilean Colonel Manuel Contreras who, in 1975, wrote an extensive document with the proposals for its operation. The first step towards organization took place in mid-1975 when Chilean Colonel Mario Jahn traveled to Paraguay and gave Paraguayan Colonel Benito Guanes the organization document for the mechanism and invited him to participate in the First National Intelligence Working Meeting. , held in Santiago de Chile between November 25 and December 1, 1975. At that meeting it was decided to organize Operation Condor among the six countries of the Southern Cone (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay). Then, with different degrees of commitment, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela would join."Condor One" .

Among dozens of kidnappings and attacks against opponents, Operation Condor carried out actions of great public resonance such as:

• the assassination of the former commander in chief of the Chilean Army Army General Carlos Prats in Buenos Aires
• the assassination of former Bolivian president Juan José Torres in Buenos Aires
• the assassination of the Uruguayan senator Zelmar Michelini and the deputy Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz, also a Uruguayan, in Buenos Aires in 1974
• the assassination of the former foreign minister of the Chilean government of Salvador Allende, Orlando Letelier and his secretary Ronni Moffitt in Washington DC in 1976
• the attack against the former Minister of the Interior of the government of Chilean President Eduardo Frei Montalva, Bernardo Leighton in Rome in 1975
• Argentine collaboration in the García Meza coup in Bolivia in 1980.

On April 26, 2000, the former governor of Rio de Janeiro, Leonel Brizola, maintained that the former presidents of Brazil, João Goulart and Juscelino Kubitschek, were assassinated in the framework of Operation Condor, simulating a heart attack and an accident, respectively, and that this should be investigated .

The Uruguayan Air Force has officially recognized the execution of joint death flights with the Argentine military regime. Around 110 Uruguayans were detained-disappeared in Argentina between 1976 and 1983 .

The United States government actively participated in Operation Condor . On August 22, 1978, the US intelligence service sent the following warning to its main embassies in South America:Operation Condor is a cooperative intelligence and security effort among many Southern Cone countries to combat terrorism and subversion. The original members included the intelligence services of Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil and Bolivia, while Peru and Ecuador recently joined.

Organically, Operation Condor began to be dismantled when the Argentine dictatorship fell in 1983. However, contacts and coordinated assassinations continued. In April 1991, Operation Silence was launched to prevent the prosecution of those responsible.

On May 31, 2001, while Henry Kissinger was in Paris, he was notified by Judge Roger Le Loire that he had to appear to testify about his participation in Operation Condor, which prompted the immediate departure of the former US secretary from France. A few months later, Kissinger had to cancel a visit to Brazil, because the government could not guarantee him immunity from prosecution .

On December 22, 1992, the so-called Files of Terror were discovered in a police station in Lambaré, Asunción (Paraguay), files containing documentary evidence of state terrorism in the Southern Cone. According to files discovered in Lambaré (Asunción) in 1992, Operation Condor caused 50,000 deaths, 30,000 disappearances and 400,000 prisoners .

In February 2004, the American journalist John Dinges published Operation Condor: A Decade of International Terrorism in the Southern Cone , where among other things he revealed that the Uruguayan military tried to assassinate the American deputy Edward Koch in 1976.

Asia

The vietnam war

Under President John F. Kennedy, US troop levels in Vietnam grew under the Military Assistance Advisory Group program from just under a thousand in 1959 to 16,000 in 1963. Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem's ​​heavy crackdown on Buddhist monks in 1963 led the United States to back a deadly military coup against Diem. The war escalated further in 1964 after the controversial Gulf of Tonkin Incident, in which a US destroyer allegedly clashed with a North Vietnamese fast attack craft. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution gave President Lyndon B. Johnson broad authorization to increase the US military presence, deploying ground combat units for the first time and increasing troop levels to 184,000.Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev responded by reversing Khrushchev's withdrawal policy and increasing aid to the North Vietnamese, hoping to lure the North away from its pro-Chinese position. However, the USSR discouraged a further escalation of the war, providing sufficient military assistance to rally US forces. From this point, the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), also known as the Army of North Vietnam (VAN), engaged in more conventional warfare with American and South Vietnamese forces .

The Tet Offensive of 1968 proved to be the turning point of the war. Despite years of American tutelage and aid, the South Vietnamese forces were unable to resist the communist offensive and the task fell to the American forces. The Tet Offensive demonstrated that the end of US involvement was not in sight, increasing domestic skepticism of the war and giving rise to what is known as the Vietnam Syndrome, a public aversion to US military involvement in the war. abroad. However, operations continued to cross international borders: North Vietnam used areas bordering Laos and Cambodia as supply routes, and were heavily bombed by US forces .

At the same time, 1963-65, American domestic politics saw the triumph of liberalism. According to historian Joseph Crespino:It has become a staple of 20th-century historiography that Cold War concerns were at the root of a series of progressive political achievements in the postwar period: a high progressive marginal tax rate that helped finance the arms race and contributed to broad income equality; bipartisan support for far-reaching civil rights legislation that transformed politics and society in the American South, which had long lied to America's egalitarian ethos; bipartisan support for repealing an explicitly racist immigration system that had existed since the 1920s; and free health care for the elderly and poor, a partial fulfillment of one of the unfulfilled goals of the New Deal era. The list could go on.​

China

As a result of the Sino-Soviet split, tensions along the Sino-Soviet border reached their peak in 1969, with the outbreak of the so-called Sino-Soviet border conflict. United States President Richard Nixon decided to use the conflict to shift the balance of power toward the West in the Cold War. The Chinese had sought to improve relations with the Americans in order to gain an advantage over the Soviets.

In February 1972, Nixon achieved a surprising rapprochement with China, traveling to Beijing in the midst of the Cultural Revolution and meeting with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. At this time, the USSR achieved approximate nuclear parity with the United States; meanwhile, the Vietnam War weakened the influence of the United States in the Third World .

Other places in East Asia

In Indonesia, the anti-communist General Suharto seized the presidency from his predecessor, Sukarno, to impose what became known as the New Order ( Orde Baru ). Between 1965 and 1966, the military murdered more than half a million people sympathetic to the Indonesian Communist Party and other left-wing organizations .

During the Vietnam War, North Vietnam used the areas bordering Cambodia to establish military bases, which Cambodian head of state Norodom Sihanouk tolerated in an attempt to preserve Cambodia's neutrality. Following Sihanouk's deposition in March 1970 by pro-American General Lon Nol, who ordered the North Vietnamese to leave Cambodia, North Vietnam attempted to invade all of Cambodia following negotiations with Nuon Chea, the second-in-command of the Cambodian communists (nicknamed Khmer Rouge) fighting to overthrow the Cambodian government.Sihanouk fled to China with the establishment of the GRUNK in Beijing. American and South Vietnamese forces responded to these actions with a bombing campaign and a brief ground incursion, contributing to the violence of the civil war that soon engulfed all of Cambodia. American carpet bombing lasted until 1973, and while it prevented the Khmer Rouge from taking the capital, it also hastened the collapse of rural society, increased social polarization, and killed tens of thousands of civilians .

After seizing power and distancing himself from the Vietnamese, communist leader Pol Pot killed between 1.5 and 2 million Cambodians in labor camps, roughly a quarter of the Cambodian population (an event commonly labeled the Cambodian genocide). Martin Shaw described these atrocities as the purest genocide of the Cold War era.. [266] Backed by the Kampucheo United Front for National Salvation, an organization of pro-Soviet Khmer communists and Khmer Rouge defectors led by Heng Samrin, Vietnam invaded Cambodia on December 22, 1978. The invasion succeeded in deposing Pol Pot, but the new state would strive for international recognition beyond the sphere of the Soviet Bloc, despite previous international outcry over the gross human rights violations of the Pol Pot regime, Khmer Rouge representatives were allowed to sit in the Assembly UN General, with strong support from China and Western powers, ASEAN member countries, and will stall in a guerrilla war led by refugee camps located on the border with Thailand. After the destruction of the Khmer Rouge,​

Egypt and Western Asia

Egypt was the center of the disputes.

Although Egypt declared itself neutral, most of its weapons and economic assistance came from the Soviet Union. This alliance, albeit reluctantly, was verified with the technical and military support of the Soviet Union during the Six-Day War and the War of Attrition against Israel, which considered itself an ally of the United States. Although with the coming to power Anwar Sadat in 1972 Egypt began to turn from pro-Soviet to pro-Western, the threat of a possible direct intervention by the Soviet Union in defense of Egypt during the Yom Kippur War caused the mobilization of US forces, in a series of acts that they were able to derail the notion of 'peaceful coexistence'.Strategically, the conflicts in the Middle East opened a new phase in the Cold War, in which the Soviet Union could threaten US interests based on the nuclear parity the Soviets had achieved.

Although Egypt was the main focus of attention, the powers also acted in other countries in the area. The Soviets strengthened their relations with the communist government of South Yemen and with the nationalist government of Iraq. The Soviets also supported Yasser Arafat's PLO. On the other hand, between 1973-1975, the CIA supported and conspired with the government of Iran to finance and arm the Kurdish rebels during the second Kurdish-Iraqi war, to weaken the government of Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr. CIA support ended when Iran and Iraq signed the Algiers Agreement in 1975 .

Africa

In 1974, the Carnation Revolution broke out in Portugal against the Estado Novo dictatorship. Political changes in Portugal facilitated the independence of the Portuguese colonies of Angola and East Timor. In Angola, where rebel factions had waged a war for independence against Portugal since 1961, after independence in 1974 these same factions that had fought together against colonialist forces began a civil war by fighting each other. In an example of the political-strategic balances of the Cold War, the Angolan civil war pitted three different factions against each other: the MPLA, supported by the Cubans and the Soviets, the FNLA, supported by the US, China and Zaire, and the UNITA supported also by the United States, the apartheid regimeSouth African and a number of other African countries. Finally, the MPLA, with Cuban troops and Soviet support, would defeat UNITA despite military support from South Africa. Likewise, the Soviets strengthened their relations with the nationalist government of Algeria.

On the other hand, officers of the Somali army, led by Mohamed Siad Barre, carried out a bloodless coup d'état, forming the Somali Democratic Republic, with a socialist ideology. The Soviet Union promised support to Somalia. Four years later, in the neighboring country of Ethiopia, the pro-Western emperor Haile Selassie was overthrown by the Derg, a group of radical officers from the Ethiopian army, led by the pro-Soviet Mengistu Haile Mariam, who hastened to strengthen relations with Cuba and the sovietic Union.When hostilities broke out between Somalia and Ethiopia (Ogaden War) the Somali Siad Barre lost the support of the Soviets, and instead sought the assistance of the so-called Safari Club - an alliance of the intelligence services of Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Saudi. Through the Safari Club, Somalia obtained Soviet weapons and American tanks. The Ethiopian army was supported by Cuban soldiers and advisers and Soviet weapons. The official position of the United States was that of neutrality in the conflict, although defending that it was Somalia which violated the territorial sovereignty of Ethiopia. Even so, the Carter administration began to support Somalia from 1980 .

"Peaceful coexistence"

Following his visit to China, Nixon met with Soviet leaders in Moscow and as a result of these meetings, the first of the SALT Agreements (SALT I), the first full arms limitation agreement signed between the two superpowers, was signed. and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty), which prohibited the development of systems designed for the interception of airborne missiles. This was intended to limit the development of expensive anti-ballistic missiles and missiles with a nuclear payload .

Following the agreements reached, Nixon and Brezhnev proclaimed a new era of "peaceful coexistence" based on a new policy of "détente" (or cooperation) between the two superpowers. During this "coexistence", Brezhnev would try to revitalize the Soviet economy, which was in decline in part due to large military spending that caused a situation of continuous tension. Between 1972 and 1974, both powers also strengthened their economic ties, with the signing various agreements to increase trade between them. As a result of all these pacts and agreements, mutual hostility was replaced by a new historical framework where both powers could coexist and develop .

In turn, in Europe, the situation of internal division was relaxed with the development of «Ostpolitik», carried out by the chancellor of the FRG Willy Brandt and the signing of the Helsinki Agreements in the framework of the Conference on the Security and Cooperation in Europe in 1975 .

The end of "peaceful coexistence"

Despite calls for agreement from both powers, during the 1970s, the KGB, led by Yuri Andropov, continued to persecute dissident personalities such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov, who were harsh critics of the Soviet regime. Indirect conflicts also continued . between the two superpowers ("proxy" wars). Although President Jimmy Carter attempted to curb the arms race by signing a new arms limitation treaty (SALT II) in 1979, his efforts were undermined by events that occurred that year, like the triumph of the Iranian Revolution and the Sandinista Revolution, supported by the KGB,They overthrew the pro-Western governments of both countries. In retaliation, the US opposed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December, ending the era of "peaceful coexistence" .

The most tense stage of the Cold War: Reagan and his diplomacy with the USSR (1979-1989)

The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan

In April 1978, the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) seized power in Afghanistan after the Saur Revolution. Within a few months, opponents of the communist government launched a revolt in the east of the country, which quickly escalated into a countrywide civil war, with mujahideen rebels attacking government forces far and wide. country width. The Pakistani government provided these rebels with places to hide and military training. On the other side, the PDPA was supported by military advisers sent from the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, the PDPA was fighting internal wars between the majority Jalq and the moderate Parcham .. As a result, Parchami resigned from their government positions and Parchami military officers were arrested under the guise of an alleged Parchami coup. By 1979, the United States had begun a secret program to give military assistance and weapons to the mujahideen .

In September 1979 the jalq president , Nur Mohammad Taraki, was assassinated in an internal PDPA coup orchestrated by his prime minister, Hafizullah Amin, who became president. The Soviets, who mistrusted Amin, assassinated him in December 1979. A new government was formed under Soviet orders, led by Parchami Babrak Karmal and with the participation of both factions. More Soviet forces were deployed to stabilize the country under Karmal's rule, although the Soviets did not expect to bear the brunt of military operations. However, with their presence and support for one side, the Soviets became involved in what should have been a domestic war .

President Carter described the Soviet intervention as "the most serious threat to peace since World War II". As a consequence, he withdrew the SALT II treaty from approval in the Senate, imposed an embargo on grain and the transfer of technology the Soviet Union, called for a significant increase in US military spending, and ultimately led the boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

The Reagan Doctrine

In January 1977, four years before he became president, Ronald Reagan made his position on the Cold War clear in an interview: "My idea of ​​what American policy should be toward the Soviet Union is simple, and some will say simplistic," he said. "It's this: We win and they lose, what do you think?" In 1980, Reagan won the election, promising to increase military spending and confront the Soviets wherever necessary. Both Reagan, like the newly elected British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, they denounced both the Soviet Union and communist ideology. Reagan called the Soviet Union the "Evil Empire" and predicted that communism would end up on "the ash heap of history."​

In early 1985, Reagan's visceral anti-communism developed into a stance known as the Reagan Doctrine in which, in addition to Containment, he advocated the right of the US to subvert and overthrow existing communist governments. to continue the Carter administration's policy of supporting Islamist opponents of the Soviet Union and the pro-Soviet PDPA government. The CIA also sought to weaken the Soviet Union by promoting the emergence of political Islam in those Muslim-majority Central Asian Soviet Republics. In addition, the CIA encouraged the anti-communist Pakistani ISI to train Muslims from around the world. to participate in the jihad against the Soviet Union .

Soviet economic stagnation and US military buildup

Structural problems of the Soviet economy

In the early second half of the 1980s, military spending accounted for 25% of Soviet GDP, at the expense of spending on consumer goods for citizens and investment in civilian sectors . other commitments derived from its involvement in the Cold War, caused and magnified the deep structural problems of the Soviet economic system, which ended up causing a permanent economic crisis during Brezhnev's mandate.

Soviet investment in the defense sector was directed not so much by real military necessity, but rather by the private interests of members of the Nomenklatura who depended on public investments in the sector to maintain their power and influence . Soviet forces became the largest in terms of the number and types of weapons they possessed, the number of troops, and the size of their military-industrial complex. However, all these quantitative advantages of the Eastern Bloc were often outweighed by the qualitative advantages of the more modern and technologically more advanced armies of the Western Bloc .

The military escalation that Reagan began was not followed by an equal escalation in the Soviet Union, due to lack of economic resources. Soviet military spending was already considered excessive, and together with an inefficient planned economy and unproductive collectivized agriculture, it was a very heavy drag on the development of the Soviet economy. At the same time, both Saudi Arabia and other non-OPEC countries they began to increase their production, saturating the oil market and pushing prices down. This drop in prices seriously affected the Soviet Union, since the export of oil was its main source of foreign currency. The problems derived from a centralized economy,The drop in the price of crude oil and uncontrolled military spending drove the Soviet economy into a systemic crisis .

Increased American Military Capability

Since 1980, the US began a military escalation with the development of weapons such as the Rockwell B-1 Lancer bomber, the LGM-118A Peacekeeper missile, and above all, the experimental development of the Strategic Defense Initiative, known as « The Star Wars" which intended, through satellites placed in Earth orbit, to have the ability to intercept enemy missiles in mid-flight .

American citizens were still very wary of direct military intervention since the disaster of the Vietnam War. The Reagan administration opted for the use of quick and low-cost tactics for intervention in foreign conflicts, such as the use of counterinsurgency. During 1983, the Reagan administration intervened in the Lebanese civil war, invading Grenada, bombing Libya, and supporting the Contras, an anti-communist paramilitary group seeking to overthrow Nicaragua's pro-Soviet Sandinista government. While his performances in Grenada and Libya were popular, his support for counterinsurgents was more controversial, as in the case of Iran-Contra .

Meanwhile, the Soviets continued to increase the expense of their interventions abroad. Although Brezhnev claimed that the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan would be brief, the Muslim guerrillas, with the support of the United States, offered a fierce resistance to the invader. The Soviet Union mobilized 100,000 soldiers on Afghan soil to support his government- puppet, leading many observers to describe the war in Afghanistan as "the Vietnam of the Soviets" . internal disintegration and economic crisis in the Soviet system.

Gorbachev's reforms

By the time the (comparatively) young Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary in 1985, the Soviet economy was totally stagnant and depleted of foreign exchange funds due to the oil price crash of the 1980s. This situation motivated Gorbachev to look for new measures that would revive the economy and improve the quality of a state that was sick and rotten by corruption .

Following cosmetic reforms, Gorbachev concluded that profound structural changes were necessary, and in June 1987 he announced a series of economic reforms that became known as Perestroika (restructuring). Perestroika relaxed the Soviet production system, allowed private economic activity, and put in place the first measures to boost foreign investment. These measures were intended to redirect the country's resources from costly Cold War military commitments to more productive areas of the civilian sectors .

Despite initial skepticism from the West, the new Soviet leader proved more committed to the economic development of the Soviet Union than to continuing a costly arms race with the US. As a measure to calm internal opposition, Gorbachev introduced glasnost (openness), which increased freedom of the press and the transparency of state institutions. Glasnost tried to reduce the corruption that had been installed in the upper echelons of the Communist Party and moderate the abuses of the Central Committee. Glasnost it also allowed a more intense contact of Soviet citizens with the western-capitalist world, particularly with the United States, accelerating the process of "détente" between both powers .

The thaw of relationships

In response to military and political concessions from the Kremlin, Reagan agreed to resume talks on economic issues and rethinking the arms race. The first of these meetings took place in Geneva in November 1985. In the deliberation room only both leaders were present accompanied by an interpreter. In principle, they agreed to reduce each country's nuclear arsenal by 50%. The second meeting took place at the Reykjavík Summit. The talks were on the right track until the "Star Wars" issue was discussed, which Gorbachev wanted dismantled, to which Reagan refused.Negotiations failed, but a third meeting in 1987 saw a breakthrough with the signing of the INF Treaty, which eliminated nuclear or conventional ballistic and cruise missiles with a range between 500 and 5,500 km.

The tensions between West-East were rapidly disappearing during the second half of the 1980s, until reaching their maximum expression at the final summit in Moscow, in 1989, to sign the START I agreements. Throughout that year, it became more apparent that the Soviets would not be able to maintain the subsidies with which it sold low-priced oil and gas to its allies, nor bear the cost of mobilizing large numbers of troops across its border. Furthermore, with the proliferation of intercontinental missiles, the strategic advantage of a defense based on "satellite countries" was irrelevant; therefore, the Soviets officially declared (Sinatra Doctrine) that they would no longer interfere in the domestic affairs of their allies in Eastern Europe.Soviet troops withdrew from Afghanistan and already in 1990, with the Berlin Wall already destroyed, Gorbachev signed the Two plus Four Treaty that enshrined German reunification de jure .

On December 3, 1989, during the Malta Summit, Gorbachev and Reagan's successor, George HW Bush, declared the Cold War over .

The fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union (1989-1991)

Throughout the summer of 1989, a series of legal subterfuges allowed East German citizens to pass into Western Europe: the disappearance of controls on the Hungarian border with Austria allowed citizens of East Berlin to leave as tourists to Hungary, and from there to Austria. The East German government responded by banning travel to Hungary, only to find that the same problem was reproduced in Czechoslovakia, from where citizens went to Hungary and from there to Austria.

On October 18, East German President Erich Honecker resigned and Egon Krenz took office. Meanwhile, protests continued throughout East Germany, reaching their zenith on November 4, when half a million people demonstrated at Alexanderplatz .

East German citizens continued to pour into Czechoslovakia to escape through Hungary and Austria. The Krenz administration ended up tolerating this subterfuge and finally, to ease the customs complications that arose, the Krenz government decided to allow the citizens of East Berlin to go directly through the border posts to West Berlin. The new regulation that allowed private travel between the two zones was going to be presented on November 9, and would come into effect the following day.

Günter Schabowski, the SED spokesman, had the task of announcing these changes; however, Schabowski was not involved in the talks that shaped the new regulation and was not aware of all the details. Shortly before the press conference to announce the changes, a note was passed to him with the changes in regulation, but without offering more information on how to manage the news. In reality, these new regulations had been completed only a few hours before the announcement, and should have come into effect the following day in order to notify border guards; but no one warned Schabowski of this detail .

Schabowski was therefore unable to do anything but read the note aloud. When the question time began, one of the journalists asked when the aforementioned regulations would take effect. After hesitating for a few seconds, he replied that the new regulation came into effect immediately, and following the question time, he stated that the regulations also affected the West Berlin border posts, although the note that had been read did not state no reference to the city of Berlin .

Excerpts from this press conference opened the news in West Germany (whose signal also reached almost all of East Germany), the presenter of one of the ARD programs, Hans Joachim Friedrichs, proclaimed: «This is a historic day. East Germany has announced that, effective immediately, the borders have been opened. The GDR is opening the borders... the border posts in Berlin are open .

After hearing the broadcast, the ossis (citizens of East Berlin) began to gather at the six border posts along the Berlin Wall, demanding that the border guards immediately open the checkpoints. The guards, surprised and overwhelmed by the situation, they began to frantically call their superiors. Initially, the "most aggressive" people were ordered to be controlled and their passports stamped so that they could not re-enter East Germany (which meant having their citizenship revoked). Even so, thousands of people were still at the border controls, demanding to cross to the other side "just as Schabowski has said" .

Before long, it was clear that no East Berlin authority would take responsibility for ordering the use of lethal force, so the clearly outnumbered guards were powerless against the waves of citizens. Finally, at 10:45 p.m., the guards gave in and opened the border posts, allowing people to pass through without much control, or directly, without even asking for their passport. As the night wore on, hundreds of people began to destroy various areas of the border wall, which began the Fall of the Berlin Wall .

The division of the city would formally end on October 3, 1990, culminating in German reunification .

The fall of the socialist republics in Eastern Europe

By 1989, the Soviet system of alliances was on the verge of collapse, and without military support from the Soviet Union, the communist leaders of the Warsaw Pact lost much of their power. Grassroots organizations, such as the Polish Solidarność trade union, grew rapidly. its popularity. In 1989, the communist governments of Poland and Hungary were the first to begin negotiating the organization of free elections. In Czechoslovakia and East Germany, massive protests deposed unmoving communist leaders. The regimes of Bulgaria and Romania also fell, the latter being the only one where there was bloodshed during the regime change.

The internal rupture of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

Within the Soviet Union, the new policy of glasnost ended up breaking the ties that maintained the different Republics of the Soviet Union. The freedom of the press and dissent protected under glasnost caused a resurgence of the "national question" and caused that various republics proclaimed their autonomy from the designs of Moscow. In February 1990, months before the total dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union had to relinquish the centralist monopoly of state power after 73 years. The Baltic republics went further and proclaimed their total independence from the Soviet Union .

Final dissolution of the Soviet Union

Initially, Gorbachev's tolerant attitude towards changes in Eastern Europe did not mean the same tolerance towards radical changes within the territory of the Soviet Union. The Soviet repression that was exerted on the Baltic countries after the declaration of their independence collided with President Bush's intention to maintain normalized relations with the Soviet Union, warning Gorbachev that commercial ties between the two countries would be seriously affected if the violence continued.However, the reality was that the Soviet state was inexorably crumbling, until the coup de grace of the failed coup of August 1991. An increasing number of Soviet Republics indicated their intention to become independent from the Soviet Union, especially the Russia, which would have meant the total and chaotic collapse of the Soviet Union. On December 21, 1991, the dissolution of the Soviet Union took place, signing the treaty that created the Commonwealth of Independent States, which should be the legal heir to the Soviet Union, in which each republic would be independent and free to join, and it would maintain a very loose union in a kind of confederation. The CIS ended up being the setting where, according to Russian leaders,​

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the Soviet Union, was officially declared dissolved on December 25, 1991 .

The Cold War in other latitudes

Latin America

The US intervention in the Cold War was forged through political and economic support to military governments of many North, Central and South American countries, and that were economically and politically opposed to the revolutionary processes that aimed towards socialism. An example of this can be found in Guatemala, when through a CIA intervention, President Jacobo Arbenz was overthrown in 1954, thus interrupting the democratization process in Guatemala, beginning a period of military dictatorships that would last until 1985 and that would plunge the country into in a civil war until 1996. Another example is that of Chile; with the Government of Salvador Allende, the Popular Unity was deposed by General Augusto Pinochet. In Argentina, the armed intervention of groups already inspired by Chinese communism, already —mostly— in Castroism or the so-called Guevarism it was open and without any concealment, with the action of Montoneros and the People's Revolutionary Army, among others. Faithful to the communist tactic of widening and exploiting the differences (which of course existed) in society, they initially captured a portion of Peronism and began their guerrilla action as early as the 1960s. They continued it during military governments and during the democratic governments of Perón and his legal successor and also during the military government that began in 1976. The latter began the so-called State terrorism with which he militarily annihilated these groups.

In the same way, the interventionism of the Eastern bloc in mainly South American affairs was established through the support of various guerrilla groups in Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, Brazil and other Central and South American nations. This process began with Soviet support for the socialist regime established by Castro in Cuba, who in turn provided very diligent support to the guerrillas who at that time proclaimed themselves "revolutionary."

• December 20, 1989: End of the 21-year dictatorship from the time of General Omar Torrijos in Panama until the fall of General Manuel Antonio Noriega with the US Invasion of Panama in 1989.

Southeast Asian

(Indicative timeline):

• October 2, 1949: The Chinese Communist Party wins the civil war and proclaims the People's Republic of China. De facto independence of Taiwan proclaimed Republic of China. Threat of a new conflict neutralized by the US naval presence.
• June 25-August 1950: Offensive by North Korean troops in South Korea.
• June 27, 1950: US President Truman sends the army to South Korea after the UN call
• September–October 1950: American counteroffensive in Korea
• November 1950-January 1951: North Korean response, supported by China.
• March 1951: The front stabilizes.
• July 27, 1953: The two Koreas sign an armistice.
• August 1954-May 1955: Intensive bombardment of dependent islands of Taiwan by China.
• August-July 1958: Intensive bombardment of the islands of Quemoy and Matsu and naval and air clashes between the People's Republic of China and Taiwan; the presence of the American navy prevents the landing of mainland Chinese troops.
• December 20, 1960: Creation of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam.
• August 1964: Skirmishes between the American and North Vietnamese fleets in the Gulf of Tonkin.
• March 1965: US forces decide to intervene.
• January-February 1968: The North Vietnamese introduce 70,000 men into South Vietnam.
• May 1968: negotiations between the different parties take place.
• 1971: The People's Republic of China is admitted to the UN and gets a permanent seat on the security council, replacing Taiwan, which is excluded from the organization.
• February 1972: Richard Nixon visits People's China.
• February 27, 1973: Paris Agreements. Withdrawal of US troops.
• April 17: Capture of Phnom Penh by the Khmer Rouge.
• April 30, 1975: Saigon is taken by the North Vietnamese.
• April 25, 1976: Election of a Vietnamese national assembly.
• June 1978: 70,000 Vietnamese soldiers occupy a border area in the interior of Cambodia.
• January 1, 1979: The United States recognizes Beijing as the capital of China at the same time that it closes its embassy in Taipei.
• January 7, 1979: Phnom Penh is taken by Vietnamese troops.
• February 1979: Chinese military offensive in Vietnam.
• September 1989: Withdrawal of Vietnamese forces from Cambodia.

Cold war in africa

Starting in 1975, the communist guerrillas took power in the recently independent countries of the former Portuguese colonial empire in Africa (Angola and Mozambique). They initiated military actions against South Africa with the support of the Cuban army, which turned into real battles, especially in Namibia, occupied by the racist regime of South Africa (Apartheid). Beginning in 1976 in Ethiopia, the Soviet army and Cuban forces intervened against movements opposed to the dictatorship of Mengistu Haile Mariam. The French army undertook destabilization actions, such as the rescue of Kolwezi.

The Cold War in Western historiography

There are three defined periods in the study of the Cold War in the West: traditionalist, revisionist, and post-revisionist. For more than a decade after the end of World War II, few American historians disputed the "traditionalist" interpretation of the start of the Cold War; the one that held that the breakdown in relations was a direct result of Stalin's violation of the Yalta accords, the imposition of pro-Moscow governments in devastated Eastern Europe, Soviet intransigence, and aggressive Soviet expansionism.

However, later revisionist historians, notably William Appleman Williams in his 1959 The Tragedy of American Diplomacy and Walter LaFeber in his America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-1966(1968) pointed to an overlooked concern: America's interest in keeping an "open door" for American trade in world markets. It has been pointed out by revisionists that the US policy of containment expressed in the Truman Doctrine amounted to an attempt to blame the other. The nuclear explosions of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were indicated as the start date of the Cold War, interpreting the use of nuclear weapons by the United States as a warning (or veiled threat) addressed to a Soviet Union that was about to enter at war against the already defeated Japanese Empire. Historians soon lost interest in the question about who was responsible for the breakdown of Soviet-American relations, to point out that conflict between the superpowers was somehow inevitable. This revisionist approach to the Cold War phenomenon reached particular heights during the Vietnam War, in which many viewed the United States and the Soviet Union as two morally comparable empires.

In the last years of the Cold War efforts were made to arrive at a post-revisionist synthesis, and since the end of the Cold War, the post-revisionist school has become predominant. Notable post-revisionist historians include John Lewis Gaddis and Robert Grogin. Rather than attribute responsibility for the start of the Cold War to one of the superpowers of the time, post-revisionist historians focus on issues such as mutual distrust, mutual misperceptions and reactivity, and shared responsibilities between the two superpowers. Drawing from the realist school of international relations, post-revisionist historians accept US policy in Europe, such as aid to Greece in 1947 and the Marshall Plan.

According to this synthesis, communist activity was not the origin of the difficulties in Europe, but was a consequence of the destructive effects of the war on the economic, political and social structure of Europe. In this context, the Marshall Plan rebuilt a capitalist economic system, frustrating the political appeal to leftist radicalism.

In Western Europe, economic aid ended foreign exchange shortages and stimulated private investment in postwar reconstruction. In the United States, the plan pulled the economy out of a crisis of overproduction, and sustained demand for US exports. NATO served to integrate Western Europe into a network of mutual defense pacts. In this way, it provided safeguards against subversion, or at least block neutrality. Rejecting the perception of communism as an international monolith characterized by aggressive allusions to the "free world," the post-revisionist school argues that the United States' intervention in Europe was a reaction against instability that threatened to alter the balance of power in favor of democracy. Soviet Union,

Latent factors of the Cold War

This period saw a strategic, political and scientific war. There was a disagreement between both nations both in the creation of new technologies and weapons, and in the conquest of outer space. Although the conditions in the times of the Cold War were different, the prevailing geopolitical division in the world depended on the dominance of the former Soviet Union (reference model for future socialist states) and the United States. The present shows that this attribution is not as marked as it was then, but recent events show that the end of the belligerence is far from being a closed case. On the other hand, the end of the Cold War did not result in the elimination of conflict in the international political system. In the contemporary era,​

It is clear that diplomacy between Russia and the United States is in a delicate position, the different strategic movements suggest that the war is still latent, the tension between one nation and another has escalated more than expected. The case of Edward Snowden, the situation in Syria and the Ukraine crisis have led relations between the US and Russia to begin to recall the harsh years of the Cold War; waiting for that moment to end the years of pacts and negotiations they have had, but their contrasting interests usually prevent it, and that creates both risks and opportunities for third parties.

See also

• World Wars
  *Western Bloc
• eastern bloc
• Second Cold War
• Cold War in fiction
• Pactmania
• american empire
• soviet empire
• United States–Soviet Union relations

Regional conflicts during the Cold War

Western Europe

• Operation Gladio
• greek civil war
• berlin blockade
• Berlin crisis of 1961
• Dictatorship of the Colonels
• May 1968 in France
• Years of lead
• Munich massacre
• german autumn
• Carnation Revolution
• Spanish Transition
• Metapolitefsi
• Lockerbie bombing
• The fall of the Berlin Wall

Eastern Europe

• prague coup
• Corfu Channel Incident
• 1953 uprising in East Germany
• Poznań protests of 1956
• Hungarian Revolution of 1956
• U-2 incident
• Martial Law in Poland
• Prague spring
• Revolutions of 1989
• velvet revolution
• Romanian Revolution of 1989
• Coup attempt in the Soviet Union

Middle East

• Suez Crisis
• Egyptian revolution of 1952
• 1966 Syrian coup
• War of the six days
• war of attrition
• Black September
• Yom Kippur War
• lebanese civil war
• Grand Mosque Incident

Central and South Asia

• Iran crisis of 1946
• 1953 Iranian coup
• Sino-Indian War
• Indo-Pakistani War of 1965
• Indo-Pakistani War of 1971
• Bangladesh Liberation War
• iranian revolution
• Iran–Iraq War
• Afghan-Soviet War

Asia Oriental

• chinese civil war
• Korean war
• First Taiwan Strait Crisis
• Second Taiwan Strait Crisis
• Tibetan uprising of 1959
• Sino-Soviet border conflict
• Cultural Revolution
• Korean Airlines Flight 902
• Korean Air Flight 007
• Tian'anmen Square protests of 1989
• Mongolian Democratic Revolution

Southeast Asia and Oceania

• Operation Masterdom
• Papua conflict
• Hukbalahap Rebellion
• indochina war
• malay emergency
• Indonesian civil war
• Lao civil war
• Vietnam War
• Cambodian civil war
• Cambodian-Vietnamese War
• Sino-Vietnamese War
• EDSA Revolution

North America, Central America and West Indies

• cuban revolution
• 1954 coup in Guatemala
• Bay of Pigs Invasion
• Guatemalan civil war
• Cuban Missile Crisis
• Dominican civil war
• American occupation of the Dominican Republic
• dirty war in mexico
• 1968 movement in Mexico
• Sandinista Revolution (Nicaragua)
• Salvadoran civil war
• Invasion of Grenada
• 1989 US invasion of Panama

South America

• Paraguayan civil war of 1947
• Internal armed conflict in Colombia
• The Carupanazo and the Porteñazo
• 1964 coup in Brazil
• Military governments in Bolivia (1964-1982)
• years of lead
• Military dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner
• Coup d'état in Uruguay in 1973
• Coup d'état in Chile in 1973
• Coup d'état in Argentina in 1976
• Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces
• Armed resistance in Chile
• Malvinas War
• Era of terrorism in Peru
• Operation Condor

North africa

• Egyptian revolution of 1952
• Algerian War of Independence
• green gear
• 1969 Libyan coup
• Western Sahara War
• Conflict between Chad and Libya
• Gulf of Sirte incident
• 1986 Libya bombing

Sub-saharan africa

• Congo crisis
• Angolan War of Independence
• Guinea-Bissau War of Independence
• nigerian civil war
• Rhodesian Civil War
• Mozambican War of Independence
• South African border war
• Ogaden War
• Uganda-Tanzania War
• Ethiopian civil war
• Angolan civil war
• Mozambican civil war
• Ethiopian-Somali conflict
• somali revolution