Cold War and Decolonization (1945–1991)
What you must know
The Cold War was a rivalry between a capitalist, US-led bloc and a communist, Soviet-led one, fought through ideology, alliance systems, economic aid, espionage, arms racing and proxy wars rather than direct superpower combat. Origins lie in wartime conferences at Yalta and Potsdam, the division of Europe, containment doctrine, the Marshall Plan, NATO and the Warsaw Pact, and crises such as the Berlin blockade and airlift and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Hot wars in Korea and Vietnam and interventions in Afghanistan, Angola and Central America were shaped as much by local nationalism as by superpower direction. Decolonization after 1945 dismantled European empires: Indian partition in 1947, Nkrumah's Ghana, Algeria's FLN war, Kenya's Mau Mau revolt, the Congo crisis, Egypt's nationalization of the Suez Canal, and apartheid South Africa. New states tried to escape the binary through the Bandung Conference and the Non-Aligned Movement, though non-alignment rarely meant neutrality in practice. China's 1949 revolution, the Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution and post-1978 market reforms followed a separate trajectory. Détente gave way to renewed tension and then, under Gorbachev, to glasnost, perestroika and the collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1989–91.
Traps
Do not reduce Cold War outcomes to superpower decisions; local actors had their own agendas. Non-alignment is not neutrality. Do not confuse the Marshall Plan (economic) with NATO (military). And avoid saying the Cold War ended with a treaty - it ended through the USSR's internal collapse and the bloc's disintegration.
Worked example
For proxy-war questions, state the superpower stake, the local grievance, the outcome and the costs. For Vietnam: containment, anticolonial nationalism and reunification, US withdrawal, regional instability.