Cold War Conflict Lecture
The Cold War conflict (1945-1990) between the western democratic states led by the United States and the eastern communist bloc states led by the Soviet Union (USSR) was a multi-faceted conflict involving military, economic, intelligence and cultural –ideological aspects. The superpower states never actually came into direct conflict with each other, it was a subtle war fought through proxy conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, Southern Africa, Latin America and Afghanistan, with the conflict in the background except during the Cuban Missile crisis in 1962 which placed the Cold War conflict at the centre of people’s lives, given the devastating military nuclear weapons which both sides possessed.The Cold War conflict began to decline in the 1980s, with the economic and political failure of the Eastern bloc and the eventual collapse of the communist bloc leading to the reunification of Germany and Europe in the 1990s.