World History / Unit 11: The Cold War, Decolonization and the Modern World
11.2 Cold War Conflicts Around the World
Notes
The superpowers competed through proxy wars, an arms race and a space race.
- China: after a civil war, Mao Zedong's Communists won in 1949; the Nationalists fled to Taiwan.
- Korean War (1950 to 1953): communist North Korea invaded South Korea. UN forces led by the U.S. fought North Korea and China. It ended in an armistice near the 38th parallel, where Korea is still divided.
- Arms race: both sides built huge nuclear arsenals. Mutually assured destruction meant a nuclear war would destroy both.
- Space race: the USSR launched Sputnik (1957); the U.S. landed astronauts on the Moon (1969).
- Cuba: Fidel Castro took power in 1959 and allied with the USSR. In the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba brought the world close to nuclear war until the USSR agreed to remove them.
- Vietnam War: the U.S. fought to stop communist North Vietnam, led by Ho Chi Minh, from uniting the country. U.S. forces left in 1973, and Vietnam was united under communism in 1975.
- The Soviets crushed uprisings in Hungary (1956) and Czechoslovakia (Prague Spring, 1968). The USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979.
- Many nations joined the Non-Aligned Movement, refusing to take sides.
Practice
A war in which superpowers support opposite sides without fighting each other directly is called a:
Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan involved superpower support for local forces.
Why was the Cuban Missile Crisis so dangerous?
For 13 days in 1962, the world feared a nuclear exchange.
Which event happened FIRST?
1949, then Sputnik 1957, Cuba 1962, Vietnam 1975.
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