Key Terms:
- Iron Curtain Speech: 1946 given by Winston Churchill in Missouri (because President Truman was from here); set in tone the Cold War; figurative speech given to say that the "iron curtain" splits Europe between communists and free
- Domino Theory (Effect): given by Eisenhower; 1950-1980; if one country became communist, the surrounding countries would also become communist, so US needed to stop it; led to the policy of containment
- Policy of Containment: 1946; US diplomat George F. Kennan's idea; tried to stop communism, and not let it spread, contain it
- Truman Doctrine: 1947; Truman gave this speech; stated that the US should support Greece and Turkey with economic and military aid to prevent them from falling into Soviet communism; worked because the countries stayed democratic
- Marshall Plan: Named after Secretary of State George Marshall (head of all military operations during WWII; only person above him was the president; became sec. of state after war). American program to aid Europe, in which the US gave economic support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to prevent the spread of Communism. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948. The goals of the United States were to rebuild a war-devastated region, remove trade barriers, modernize industry, and make Europe prosperous again. Worked. Communism didn't spread; also helped because they would buy our goods and we wouldn't fall into another depression
- Brinkmanship: dangerous game we played during the Cold War; practice of pushing to the brink of war but not actually getting to fighting; hoping the other country would back down; most dangerous and well known was the Cuban missile crisis
- Massive retaliation/Mutual Deterrence: for 4 years US has nuclear weapons and no one else did; we could always hang that over others heads; once Soviets got nukes, the world was safer because they wouldn't go to war for fear of destroying everything
- Mutual Assured Destruction: if the countries used the nuclear war items, they would destroy everything so they wouldn't go to nuclear war
- NATO vs. Warsaw Pact: NATO stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization and it was US alliance with Western Europe and Canada against the Soviet Union; the Warsaw Pact was our enemy and it was the Soviet alliance with Eastern Europe (Warsaw disbanded after the Cold War and some Warsaw countries are now part of NATO)
- CIA vs. KGB: Central Intelligence Agency (around 1947) and it gathers intelligence on other countries and terrorist organizations, they are the spies; main security agency of the Soviet Union, equivalent of the CIA
- Peaceful coexistence: Nikita Khrushchev's idea that communists and democrats didn't have to go to war, even though they had such opposing views, the two countries could still peacefully coexist
- De-Stalinization: Khrushchev's idea; to undo all the bad things that Stalin had done to the Soviet Union, main thing: stop killing the people; people started to go against communism because, though they would be equal under communism, they would have no freedom or rights, also the equality was in poverty; Mao Zedong (Chinese dictator) followed in Stalin's example, started the revolution the "Great Leap Forward", which was melting the plows in China to make an industrial economy (not agricultural because of Karl Mark's theory of communism saying they needed an industrial econ. for communism to work) but then there was no food so 30 million people died
- Detente: French for "release of tension"; period of easing tensions between the US and Soviet Union; could argue that it started with SALT in the 1970s
- Perestroika: announced by Mikhail Gorbachev in the mid-80s; Russian; gave more power to the people in gov't in a communist gov't; change in the political party, and anytime change happens people are going to
- Glasnost: announced by Mikhail Gorbachev in the mid-80s as well; Russian; change in the economy but still gave more power in the gov't to the people; Soviet Union was basically dismantled after this because of all the change, within 5 years
- Nuclear Test Ban Treaty 1963: banned above-ground testing of nuclear weapons; passed right after the Cuban missile crisis; still in effect today
- Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty 1968: passed to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons; it was okay for countries of the world to use nuclear power but not nuclear weapons; countries that do not have nuclear weapons today, cannot get them; still comes into play today
- Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (Treaty)-1972: between the US and Soviet Union and it limited the number of nuclear weapons each country had; start of the reduction of nuclear weapons
- Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty 1972: prevented both countries from creating anything that would shoot down nukes; to maintain the deterrence; we have this systems to shoot them down today and it upsets the deterrent
United Nations: world wide peace-keeping organization; major changes from the League of Nations was
1. US joined
2. there was military back up
Only 3 countries of the world are not part of it: Kosovo (newest country of the world), Vatican City in Rome, and Taiwan
Security Council: US, Russia, China, UK, and France (5/10 are permanent and others rotate every 2 years); 3 major things they can do: send peace-keepers to countries to supervise, can put sanctions on countries, and can wage war
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