The cold war was a faceoff between the superpowers of the democratic West and the communist East that lasted for 43 years. None of the two superpowers directly attacked the other but they fought concealed and explicit combats in an attempt to expand their influence across the world. However, negations were held during period of peaceful coexistence. Several theories have been used to explain the reasons behind the actions of the superpowers during the cold war. It was not until 1945 that the two super powers found themselves with enormous power and intense rivalry that might have appealed to third world leaders and felt compelled to contest with each other in areas of little fundamental importance. The third world leaders hoped the end the remaining shackles of colonization and develop new stable states with global agendas founded on equality, external interventions and just economic systems. The war resulted to uniform failures and brought much grief and destruction to the world. The book reveals that the cold war shaped that world as we know it today especially in the aspects of economies, politics and military (Westad, p. 3).
The book adopts an introductory nature giving insight to the historic evolution of the attitudes of the United States, third world leaders and the Soviet Union to the cold war. Chapter one and two reveals the United States ideology to the beliefs of individual liberty, economics, progress and free market lead to policy intervention in East Asia, Africa and the Americas that steered the cold war. However, these beliefs were fairly justifiable considering the fact that communism was portrayed as a threat. The American attitudes transformed in a series if uprisings citing the example the existing of slavery until the civil war that resulted to the destruction of native Americans and creation of colonies particularly the Philippines. Other reasons cited that led to the development of the global cold war was the protective measures of liberating and guiding coloured races which in the real sense reinforced post war agendas of nation building and development in Africa.
According to the Soviet Union, the nation developed its own ideological belief system that differed with that of the United States in the aspects of religion, capitalism and collectivism. The Soviet Union had an agenda of modernization and progress shaped by sense exceptionality in a mission to shape the rest of the world in its own image. The involvement of the United States and the Soviet Union resulted to a tragic story referred to as the “third world”. The newly emerging states such as Latin America emerged from their humiliating treatment from European colonizers that dragged them into the cold war rivalries that was ideologically motivated leading to the nation’s bankruptcy and civilian devastation.
It is evident that the adopted theory for the reasons behind the cold war was that the United States and the Soviet Union were only interested in protecting and spreading their political systems that is communism and democracy making the war a battle of ideology. Westad analyzes the United States and the Soviet Union foundation on their ideological differences and approach to external intervention and discusses the results of such interventions. The Global cold war illustrates how these interventions resulted to resistance and resentments that challenged the intention of the superpowers. Furthermore, these interventions shaped the domestic and international framework within the social, political and cultural transformations that occurred in Indonesia and Egypt. The real legacy of the cold war is therefore made up of transformations, beliefs, movements and countries that these interventions stirred.
The cold war was characterized by several conflicts in different parts of the worlds. Westad defines intervention as “any state led and concerted effort by a country to determine the political direction of another country” (Westad, p. 3-4). Some cited conflicts in the Global war include war in Vietnam (1945-1946), the Egyptian revolution of 1952, Unites Sates invasion of Panama (1989-1990) and the Hungarian revolution of 1956. The Hungarian revolution was a spontaneous nationwide conflict against the Hungarian government and the imposed Soviet policies. This conflict is listed as the first major threat to the Soviet Union control of Eastern Europe and was highly influential by contributing to the downfall of the Soviet Union decades later.
The war in Vietnam was a post–world II conflict that involved armed exchange between the British–Indian, the French Task force and the Japanese troops versus the Vietnamese communist movement in southern Vietnam in a bid to control the country after unconditional Japanese surrender. This war attracted the world’s attention in the late 20th century.
The Egyptian revolution begun with a military coup d’état steered by the free officers movement initially aimed at overthrowing King Farouk. However, behind the scenes it was evident that the movement had political ambitions driving it, leading to the abolition of the constitutional monarchy and upper classes of Egypt, establishment of a republic and conclusion of British occupation of the country. The revolution led to the sitting government to adopt a resolutely nationalist and anti-imperialist agenda which came to be expressed as international non alignment and Arab nationalism.
The revolution faced threats from Western Imperial powers (British) which had colonized it and France both of who didn’t entertain rising nationalist sentiments in their other territories in Africa and Arab world. The revolution resulted to enormous military loss but resulted to political victory for the country especially because the Suez Canal remained uncontested. Liberation of Egypt resulted to industrialization in large scale and agrarian reforms that led to infrastructure wide spread infrastructure building and urbanization.
Still on the Egypt revolution aspect, in 1962 India joined forces with Egypt to create a non-alignment movement to emphasize their independence of both the west and the East, however, by the year 1970, third world movement founders had failed or had died allowing the military west to continue their economic domination and other leaders turning to Marxism as the way forward. Westad also mentions the Angolan Civil War of 1974-1976whereby Castro played a significant role where his victory led the Soviet officials to belief that the world was adopting their ideology (Westad, 214).
The United States invasion of Panama took place in 1989 during the Bush administration that saw the Panamanian leader (Manuel) being disposed, president-elect (Guillermo) was being sworn in and the Panamanian defence force being resolved. The conflicts that made up the cold war became the building blocks for the present day international conflicts such as “war in terror”. Westad’s description of the cold war provides insight that the third world was also important to the Cold war and that the European attitudes were not as important as we had be made to believe.
Work cited
Westad, Odd A. The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Print.
