Cold+War

Cold War Events 1.) What were the key events that marked this COLD WAR period and the elements that made it different from a traditional war?

[|Berlin Wall] The Berlin wall was built by the German Democrat Republic that completely separated East and West Germany including East Berlin. The border came to symbolize the Iron Curtin between Western Europe and the Eastern bloc. The wall included guard towers placed along large concrete walls which watched over a large area. Before the wall was built 3.5 million East Germans avoided Eastern Bloc emigration restrictions and escaped from the GDR, many by crossing over the border from East Berlin. On November 9 1989 after several weeks of civil and rest all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin. Crowds of East Germans climbed onto and a crossed the wall, joined by West Germans on the other side in a celebratory atmosphere.Dani Santay Catherine Nicholson

[|Berlin Blockade]The Soviets blockaded US, UK, and French zones to gain leverage over the division of Germany. The new Allies form West Germany and have West Germany write a constitution. The USSR was mad about this and cut off everything from supply lines to electricity. West Germany would not have been able to survive without the help of the US, UK, and French. The Berlin airlift supplied 2000 tons a day worth of supplies to West Germany. The blockade was lifted when Stalin’s request of having a Council of Foreign Ministers held.Allen Davis, Lexi Sherwood, John Millhimes

On 25 June 1950, the young Cold War suddenly turned hot, bloody and expensive. Within a few days, North Korea's invasion of South Korea brought about a United Nations' "police action" against the aggressors. That immediately produced heavy military and naval involvement by the United States. While there were no illusions that the task would be easy, nobody expected that this violent conflict would continue for more than three years. Throughout the summer of 1950, the U.S. and the other involved United Nations' states scrambled to contain North Korea's fast-moving army, assemble the forces necessary to defeat it and simultaneously begin to respond to what was seen as a global military challenge from the Communist world. [|Korea]Alex Bream, Tyler Miller

[|Vietnam] The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, was a conflict with the Cold War military that happened in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. The War started on September 26, 1959 until April 30th 1975. The war was fought between the communist North and the government of South Vietnam. The United States and other anti-communist nations supported the South Vietnam. The United States entered to prevent the South Vietnam being taken over by communist. The U.S began arriving in 1960;s with troop levels tripling in 1962. The U.S ground force was withdrawn as part of a policy called Vietnamization. The Case-Church Amendment was passed in response to the anti-war movement, prohibited U.S military involvement after August 15, 1973 but the U.S military and economic aid continued until 1975. The capture of Saigon by North Vietnamese army in April 1975 marked the end of the Vietnam War. The North and South Vietnam was reunified the following year.



[|Bay of Pigs] On April 1961 the Cuban armed forces, trained and equipped by Eastern Bloc nations, defeated the exile combatants in three days. The main invasion landing was on the beach Playa Giron. The Bay of Pigs Invasion (in Cuba), was an unsuccessful attempt by a CIA-trained force of Cuban exiles to invade southern Cuba with support from US government armed forces, to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. Jess and Ginny

[|U2 Incident]- Dejonia Reid Seth Martin Brittney Corn <span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; msoansilanguage: EN-US; msoasciithemefont: minor-latin; msobidifontfamily: 'Times New Roman'; msobidilanguage: AR-SA; msobidithemefont: minor-bidi; msofareastfontfamily: Calibri; msofareastlanguage: EN-US; msofareastthemefont: minor-latin; msohansithemefont: minor-latin;"> The U2 Incident occurred May 1, 1960 when an American U2 spy plane was shot down. The plane was flown by Gary Powers who was employed by the CIA and was shot down 1,200 miles inside the Soviet Union. This incident was a great embarrassment for the United States and happened fifteen days before the scheduled opening of an East-West summit conference in Paris. In some following days after, Nikita Khrushchev leaked the incident to sabotage the meeting between The United States, Soviet Union, France, and the United Kingdom. The president during this incident was Dwight D. Eisenhower and he had no idea that an American pilot was involved with this incident. The American pilot was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but was released during 1962 in exchange for convicted Soviet spy Rudolph Abel.

[|Cuban Missile Crisis] Confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union, in Cuba. The Soviet Union had placed nuclear missles on Cuba and began to build missle bases. After the US discovered them they met with UN secratary and soviets to make an agreement to dismantle the missles on Cuba. Agreement was made that if the missles on Cuba were removed then the US would remove their missles in Turkey. The crisis only lasted two weeks, and the last missle on turkey was removed in April. This crisis was the moment when the cold war came closest to being a Nuclear War. By Carissa Holt & Kaite Hartman

[|Mutually Assured Destruction] Mutually Assured Destruction, also known as M.A.D. happens to be a doctrine of a military strategy in using nuclear weapons in a full scale by two opposing sides which would effectively result in the destruction of both the attacker and defender. The strategy is to effectively produce strong weapons so that the enemy will not attack which prevents them enemy from using the same weapon. If attacked for any reason, the other side would retaliate with equal or a greater force. It successfully worked because every side knew that if they destroyed their foe, that the enemy would destroy them as well.



[|Détente] Detente meaning relaxing or easing is a term that has been used in international politics since the early 1970s. A main cause was that the NATO powers and the Warsaw Pact both had pressing reasons to seek relaxation in tensions. The most obvious manifestation of Détente was the series of summits held between the leaders of the two superpowers and the treaties that resulted from these meetings. The main problem with détente is that there was no clear definition of how friendly and co-operative these two nations were to become. Some historians and politicians have argued that this lack of clarity in the détente relationship was mainly to blame for the collapse of American-Soviet relations at the end of the 1970s.

[|Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan]-(Sandra Perez, Kelsey Hawbaker) The Soviet war in Afghanistan was a nine year conflict in 1979 that included the Soviet Union helping out the Marxist government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. They were fighting against the Islamist Mujahideen Resistance. The Mujahideen sought out other support from the U.S, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and other Muslim nations. The Soviets had many reasons to send troops to invade. They wanted to expand their power in Asia, and they wanted to protect the Communist government which was following apart because the lack of support other than in the military.