Title: Grade 12 - The Cold War | South African History Online
Headings: Grade 12 - The Cold War
Grade 12 - The Cold War
How did the Cold War period shape international relations after the Second World War?
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Content: Grade 12 - The Cold War | South African History Online
Grade 12 - The Cold War
Graphic describing the Cold War
How did the Cold War period shape international relations after the Second World War? After the Second World War, there was a struggle between two world powers, the US and Russia. Why was it called the ‘Cold War’? The reason lay in the threat of new and even deadlier weapons of nuclear technology that prevented outright open warfare. The Cold War was characterised by conflict through proxy wars, the manipulation of more vulnerable states through extensive military and financial aid, espionage, propaganda, rivalry over technology, space and nuclear races, and sport. Besides periods of tense crisis in this bi-polar world, the Cold War deeply affected the newly independent countries in Africa and the liberation struggles in southern Africa from the 1960s until the 1990s, when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was dismantled. Did you know? The term “Cold War” was first used by George Orwell, author of the book satirizing Stalinism, “Animal Farm”. The detente (friendship) that existed between the Allied powers (The US, France and Russia) after 1945 was no more. That military aid would be offered to each other when faced with Nazism fell away, and increased hostility was the order of the day.