EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT THE COLD WAR

Professor Michael Goodman answers key questions about the decades-long rivalry between the US and the Soviet Union

- Michael Goodman

Q: What was the Cold War and why do we refer to it as such?

A: To put it simply, the Cold War was a political, ideological and economic conflict that broke out in the years after World War II and lasted up until 1991. The two main protagonists were the United States and the Soviet Union, along with their respective allies (the western and eastern blocs). Of course, it was much more complex than that.

As to the name: a war will turn 'hot' when it involves open fighting, whereas a 'cold war' is a battle of ideology. The Cold War of the second half of the 20th century did, in various instances, become a physical conflict as there were lots of wars by proxy, such as in Korea and Vietnam. But fundamentally it remained peaceful and certainly was not what the two world wars had been.

Q: What were the ideologies of the two opposing sides?

A: The United States, and its chief ally Britain, were capitalist and democratic countries, while the Soviet Union was a communist state - the first significant communist country to come out of World War I. The Soviet ideal was an internal system for making life more equitable and level, but more broadly there was a belief that if communism was to succeed then the Russians would have to export that mentality to other countries around the world.

So, in the interwar years - particularly after Joseph Stalin came to power - the idea of a global communist revolution took hold. This was strongly opposed by the west, but the two sides would become allies in World War II (see page 38). In the aftermath of the war, Soviet expansion took on a renewed vigour and became more overt: not just in a political-ideological way, but increasingly in a military way, too. The east and west became embroiled in a battle for ideas, for people, for land and for territory. And later, this battle would become characterised by the threat of nuclear war.