Unit 9: The Cold War and Decolonization
Following World War II, many nations throughout the world began to ally themselves with either the democratic United States or the Communist Soviet Union. The resulting Cold War created profound political and economic divisions across the globe and weakened western European colonial powers, such as Great Britain and France. New international political alignments and the waning power of European colonial powers encouraged the growth of independence movements in many European colonies. Decolonization across Africa and Asia led to the emergence of new independent states. These new nations provided a battlefield for the struggle between Capitalist and Communist political ideologies. Due to their military strength, the United States and the USSR could not challenge each other directly, out of fear of mutual annihilation, but they engaged in a series of indirect conflicts in many of the young, developing nations throughout Africa and Asia.
In this unit, we will examine how Cold War politics affected life across much of Europe, Africa, and Asia during the second half of the 20th century. We will also take a look at how the United States and the Soviet Union engaged developing nations economically, technologically, and militarily as each superpower tried to gain political and military advantages over the other. Finally, we will study how nations in Europe and Asia responded to the Cold War by creating new economic and political alliances, such as the European Union.
Completing this unit should take you approximately 5 hours.
Upon successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- assess how the end of the Cold War led to political and economic realignments throughout the world and encouraged the growth of new global markets and systems of trade and information exchange; and
- assess how decolonization movements in the 1950s and 1960s altered political, economic, and social relationships among the United States, the nations of Europe, and developing countries throughout the world.
9.1: Restructuring Europe and Asia
Read this chapter.
Read sections 7, 8, and 9 under "Period 6".
9.1.1: New Political, Economic, and Military Alignments
Read this article.
9.1.2: The Marshall Plan and the Occupation of Japan
Read this article.
This essay discusses the role of occupation in history and its relation to prewar practices, especially in terms of the allied occupation of Japan.
9.1.3: NATO and the Warsaw Pact
This article gives a brief overview of the Cold War, citing the ideological, political, and economical differences between the United States and the Soviet Union as reasons for the onset of the war.
Read this article.
9.2: The Cold War in the Developing World
9.2.1: "Wars of National Liberation"
Read this article.
9.2.2: Decolonization and Nation Building
- Read this article.
This lecture discusses France's changing political and social relationship with its colonial possessions in Africa following World War II. It also focuses on France's efforts to maintain French cultural values and identities in these colonial regions despite resistance from locals who sought independence from the French international regime.
9.2.3: The Non-Aligned Nations
Read this article.
In this speech at the 1955 Asian-African conference of newly independent nations, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru argues that developing nations should not ally with either the United States or the Soviet Union, because such military alliances will not benefit developing nations in the Nuclear Age. Instead, developing nations should work together and pursue an independent developmental path free from burdensome alliances with pro-Communist or anti-Communist countries.
9.3: Global Reach of the Cold War
9.3.1: Atomic Arms Race
Browse these pages.
9.3.2: Revolutionary Politics in the West
Read this lecture.
Unit 9 Assessment
Take the multiple-choice, true/false, and short answer quizzes in Chapters 32 and 34 to assess your understanding of the subjects covered in Unit 9.
Unfortunately, the original provider for this quiz has rearranged the site in such a way that Submit Answers for Grading button does not work and no longer indicates the correct answers. This quiz should be fairly straightforward and easy for students with a good understanding of the course materials. Therefore, you should use this quiz as a self-assessment of how comfortable you feel with the material before you move forward.