The Cold War, Decolonisation and the Bipolar World (1945–1991)
What this domain tests
The bipolar order from Yalta to the dissolution of the USSR, together with decolonisation and the emergence of the Third World. Expect questions on the phases of the Cold War, on the reasons for European decolonisation, and on how a specific crisis (Berlin, Cuba, Afghanistan) fits into a phase.
Core content
- Origins: Yalta and Potsdam, the UN (1945), the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan (both 1947), the Berlin blockade 1948–49, NATO 1949, the People's Republic of China 1949, COMECON 1949, the Warsaw Pact 1955.
- Phases: confrontation (Korean War 1950–53, Hungarian rising 1956, Berlin Wall 1961, Cuban missile crisis 1962); détente (Helsinki Accords 1975, SALT); the second Cold War from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the Euromissiles; Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika from 1985, the revolutions of 1989, the fall of the Wall on 9 November 1989 and the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991.
- Decolonisation: Indian independence and partition 1947, Israel 1948, Suez 1956, Ghana 1957, the year of Africa 1960, Algeria 1962; Bandung 1955 and non-alignment; neo-colonialism and dependency theory.
- Spain's place: isolation after 1945, the 1953 Madrid agreements with Washington, the Concordat of the same year, UN entry in 1955, the 1959 Stabilisation Plan and the Green March of 1975.
Worked example
Question: why is the Cuban missile crisis considered the turning point of the Cold War? Reasoning: it was the closest approach to nuclear war; its resolution (Soviet withdrawal in exchange for an American pledge not to invade Cuba and the quiet removal of missiles from Turkey) created a precedent of negotiated de-escalation; the hotline and the 1963 test-ban treaty follow. Add the distinction: it did not end the Cold War but inaugurated managed coexistence.
Traps
Merging the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan into one policy; dating the Warsaw Pact to 1949; saying the Berlin Wall fell in 1991; placing Algerian independence in 1954 instead of 1962; treating non-alignment as a pro-Soviet bloc; confusing COMECON with the Common Market.