Overview

A war without (direct) fighting. Two superpowers with enough nukes to destroy the world 10 times over, staring each other down for 45 years.

Core Idea

MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction): If you attack me, I will destroy you, even if I am already dead. This terrifying logic actually kept the peace (The Long Peace).

Formal Definition (if applicable)

Containment: The US strategy to stop the spread of Communism. “Domino Theory”—if one country falls (Vietnam), the neighbors will fall too.

Intuition

It was a contest of systems. Who can build the best rockets? Who can win the most Olympic medals? Who offers the better life?

Examples

  • Proxy Wars: Fighting in Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. The superpowers funded the sides but didn’t fight each other directly.
  • Cuban Missile Crisis (1962): The closest we came to nuclear apocalypse.
  • Space Race: Sputnik (USSR) vs. Moon Landing (USA).

Common Misconceptions

  • “It was just US vs USSR.” (The “Third World” or Non-Aligned Movement tried to stay out of it.)
  • “Reagan won it.” (The Soviet economy collapsed from within due to inefficiency and the cost of the arms race.)
  • McCarthyism: The Red Scare. Witch hunts for communists in the US.
  • Perestroika & Glasnost: Gorbachev’s reforms (Restructuring & Openness) that accidentally led to the end of the USSR.
  • The End of History: Fukuyama’s idea that with the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989), liberal democracy had won forever. (He was wrong).

Applications

  • Internet: Started as ARPANET, a military network designed to survive a nuclear strike.
  • GPS: Military tech.

Criticism / Limitations

It justified supporting brutal dictators as long as they were anti-communist.

Further Reading

  • Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History
  • Westad, The Global Cold War