The Cold War

World History: Nilsen

The Early Cold War

Tensions were high after World War Two.

The Soviets and Americans held

opposing worldviews.

Countries were divided.

Nuclear weapons increased tensions.

The Cold War in Europe

The first confrontation was the Berlin

Airlift.

The Soviets put down a revolution in Hungary in 1956.

The Berlin Wall was built in 1960.

The Cold War in Asia

Communists took over

China.

The Korean War was

fought over whether Korea

would be Communist,

too.

Communists led a revolution in French Indochina.

The Middle Cold War

Nuclear Weapons led to tension.

The Soviets and Americans were in an arms race.

Nuclear weapons were used for deterrence.

The premise of deterrence was Mutually Assured

Destruction.

Cuba was a source of confrontation.

Fidel Castro led a Communist revolution in Cuba.

The Bay of Pigs counter-revolution was a terrible failure.

The Cuban Missile Crisis was almost nuclear war.

America became involved in Vietnam.

The U.S. subscribed to the Domino Theory.

The Tet Offensive was

the turning point of the

war.

The U.S. left the war in Vietnam.

The End of the Cold War

The Americans and Soviets engaged in détente.

Détente is a reduction of tensions.

President Nixon visited China.

The countries signed the SALT treaties.

Ronald Reagan changed the Cold War dynamic.

The Soviets became bogged down in Afghanistan.

Reagan increased military spending.

Reagan introduced the Strategic Defense Initiative.

The End of the Cold War

The Berlin Wall fell in 1989.

Eastern Europe rejected communism soon after.

The Soviet Union broke apart, ending the Cold War.