Cold War Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ==Phases== The [[first phase of the Cold War]] began shortly after the end of [[World War II]] in 1945. The United States and its [[Western Europe]]an allies sought to strengthen their bonds and used the policy of [[containment]] against Soviet influence; they accomplished this most notably through the formation of [[NATO]], which was essentially a defensive agreement in 1949. The Soviet Union countered with the [[Warsaw Pact]] in 1955, which had similar results with the Eastern Bloc. As by that time the Soviet Union already had an armed presence and political domination all over its eastern satellite states, the pact has been long considered superfluous.<ref>The Warsaw Pact Reconsidered: International Relations in Eastern Europe, 1955–1969 Laurien Crump Routledge, pp. 17, 11 February 2015</ref><ref>The Warsaw Pact Reconsidered: International Relations in Eastern Europe, 1955–1969 Laurien Crump Routledge, p. 1, 11 February 2015</ref> Although nominally a defensive alliance, the Warsaw Pact's primary function was to safeguard [[Soviet hegemony]] over its [[Eastern Europe]]an satellites, with the pact's only direct military actions having been the invasions of its own member states to keep them from breaking away;<ref>Laurien Crump (2015). ''The Warsaw Pact Reconsidered: International Relations in Eastern Europe, 1955–1969''. Routledge. p. 1.</ref> in the 1960s, the pact evolved into a multilateral alliance, in which the non-Soviet Warsaw Pact members gained significant scope to pursue their own interests.<!--https://www.routledge.com/The-Warsaw-Pact-Reconsidered-International-Relations-in-Eastern-Europe/Crump/p/book/9781138102132--> In 1961, Soviet-allied [[East Germany]] constructed the [[Berlin Wall]] to prevent the citizens of [[East Berlin]] from fleeing to [[West Berlin]], at the time part of United States-allied [[West Germany]].<ref name="Reinalda2009">{{cite book |author=Bob Reinalda |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ln19AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA369 |title=Routledge History of International Organizations: From 1815 to the Present Day |date=11 September 2009 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-02405-6 |page=369 |access-date=1 January 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160101212444/https://books.google.com/books?id=Ln19AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA369 |archive-date=1 January 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref> Major crises of this phase included the [[Berlin Blockade]] of 1948–1949, the [[Chinese Communist Revolution]] of 1945–1949, the [[Korean War]] of 1950–1953, the [[Hungarian Revolution of 1956]] and the [[Suez Crisis]] of that same year, the [[Berlin Crisis of 1961]], the [[Cuban Missile Crisis]] of 1962, and the [[Vietnam War]] of 1964–1975. Both superpowers competed for influence in [[Latin America]] and the [[Middle East]], and the decolonising states of [[Decolonisation of Africa|Africa]], [[Decolonisation of Asia|Asia]], and [[Decolonisation of Oceania|Oceania]]. Following the Cuban Missile Crisis, the [[fourth phase of the Cold War]] saw the [[Sino-Soviet split]] between [[China]] and the Soviet Union's complicated relations within the Communist sphere, leading to the [[Sino-Soviet border conflict]], while France, a Western Bloc state, began to demand greater autonomy of action. The [[Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia]] to suppress the [[Prague Spring]] of 1968, while the United States experienced internal turmoil from the [[civil rights movement]] and [[opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam War]]. In the 1960s–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 [[anti-war]] protests. By the 1970s, both sides had started making allowances for peace and security, ushering in a period of [[détente]] that saw the [[Strategic Arms Limitation Talks]] and the [[1972 visit by Richard Nixon to China]] that opened relations with China as a strategic counterweight to the Soviet Union. A number of self-proclaimed [[Marxist–Leninist]] governments were formed in the second half of the 1970s in [[developing countries]], including [[People's Republic of Angola|Angola]], [[People's Republic of Mozambique|Mozambique]], [[People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia|Ethiopia]], [[Democratic Kampuchea|Cambodia]], [[Democratic Republic of Afghanistan|Afghanistan]], and [[Junta of National Reconstruction|Nicaragua]]. Détente collapsed at the end of the decade with the beginning of the [[Soviet–Afghan War]] in 1979. Beginning in the 1980s, the [[fifth phase of the Cold War]] was another period of elevated tension. The [[Reagan Doctrine]] led to increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressures on the Soviet Union, which at the time was undergoing the [[Era of Stagnation]]. The [[sixth phase of the Cold War]] saw the new Soviet leader [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] introducing the liberalizing reforms of ''[[glasnost]]'' ("openness", c. 1985) and ''[[perestroika]]'' ("reorganization", c. 1987) and ending Soviet involvement in Afghanistan in 1989. Pressures for national sovereignty grew stronger in Eastern Europe, and Gorbachev refused to further support the Communist governments militarily. The fall of the [[Iron Curtain]] after the [[Pan-European Picnic]] and the [[Revolutions of 1989]], which represented a peaceful revolutionary wave with the exception of the [[Romanian Revolution]] and the [[Afghan Civil War (1989–1992)]], overthrew almost all of the Marxist–Leninist regimes of the Eastern Bloc. The [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]] itself lost control in the country and was banned following the [[1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt]] that August. This in turn led to the formal [[dissolution of the Soviet Union]] in December 1991 and the collapse of Communist governments across much of Africa and Asia. The [[Russian Federation]] became the Soviet Union's successor state, while many of the other republics emerged from the Soviet Union's collapse as fully independent [[post-Soviet states]].<ref name="web.archive.org">{{Cite web |date=23 November 2003 |title=INFCIRC/397 – Note to the Director General from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation |url=http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/Others/inf397.shtml |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20031123143520/http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Infcircs/Others/inf397.shtml |url-status=dead |archive-date=2003-11-23 }}</ref> The United States was left as the world's sole superpower. The Cold War has left a significant legacy. [[Effects of the Cold War|Its effects]] include references of the [[culture during the Cold War|culture during the war]], particularly with themes of [[Cold War espionage|espionage]] and the threat of [[nuclear warfare]]. The Cold War is generally followed by the categorization of ''[[international relations since 1989]]'' and ''[[post–Cold War era]]'' to underline its impact. Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page