The Cold War was a continuing state of political and military tension from the 1940s to the early 1990s between the Western world, led by the United States and NATO allies, and the Communist world, led by the Soviet Union, its satellites and allies. The Cold War never saw direct military action, ...
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217 views
What is the historicity of the film “Revolution.com - USA: The Conquest of the East”? [closed]
This is a Russian version of a French film from mid-2000s "Revolution.com"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3QxDgft148
French version: ...
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0answers
90 views
How reliable were Warsaw Pact members should war break out in the 80's?
Are there any studies by US aligned forces on Warsaw Pact attitudes to a Soviet Union first strike? These studies could come from America's National Security Agency or State Department, the NATO ...
2
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0answers
29 views
How high was the morale of non-Soviet Warsaw Pact states' armies and governments in the '80s?
Does anyone with any relevant expertise know the general mood of the armies during the time? Is there documentation of any concerns from high ranking Soviet military officers, or of their Warsaw Pact ...
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0answers
80 views
How much time would have been required to launch a nuclear counterstrike?
Source
At 3 in the morning Brzezinski was awakened by a call from his military assistant, Bill Odom, telling him that 220 Soviet missiles had been launched in an attack against the United States. ...
7
votes
1answer
134 views
Did Stalin believe Israel would go communist?
In Anne Applebaum's recent book Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944-1956 she claims the USSR supported the new state of Israel and states "Stalin believed Israel would quickly join the ...
8
votes
3answers
249 views
Why did the United States not seriously develop Anti Aircraft Missiles?
During the Cold War, the United States did not seem to actively develop anti-aircraft missiles
(I know that Wikipedia is not an exhaustive source for lists, but just as a rough estimate, they list ...
7
votes
2answers
132 views
Why is Finland represented as a Soviet satellite in this 1947 cartoon?
The cartoon is a British one. I found it at http://lenta.ru/articles/2013/05/28/secretwar/ but without any specific attribution.
3
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1answer
68 views
To what extent was the Cold War caused by post World War 2 economics?
Quite a while ago I wrote an essay for college on the causes of the First Cold War (Seeing as in some schools of thought, the Cold War can be split into 2 distinct "conflicts" or stages) looking ...
7
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1answer
116 views
Are submarine launched ballistic missiles still inaccurate?
In the early 1980s documentary First Strike, one of the arguments made for the development of the MX missile program was that in the event of a massive Soviet attack on the land-based missile and ...
2
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2answers
207 views
How did India join the Soviet bloc during the cold war?
How did India end up joining the Soviet pole during the Cold Wars and Pakistan joined US pole?
2
votes
1answer
112 views
How independent were the Eastern European countries from the Soviet Union?
How much influence did the Soviet Union have over the other Warsaw Pact countries? Did Moscow directly control them, and direct what they did? Did they often disagree with the USSR over policy? If so, ...
1
vote
1answer
126 views
How many non-partisan (independent) legislature members were in the USA compared to the USSR?
How many legislature members there were who were not members of any party in the USA compared to the USSR during the Cold War and now?
7
votes
1answer
109 views
What was the Soviet role in Syria during the Cold-War?
It is my understanding that the Soviet Union supported governments in Syria during the cold-war primarily as a counter-balance to American influence over regional powers particularly Saudi Arabia and ...
5
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0answers
30 views
Cuban medical internationalism
In the decades since the Cuban revolutions the country's medical doctors famously served on many semi-official missions abroad. For instance, it has been reported that Venezuela under Hugo Chavez ...
2
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0answers
56 views
How did Churchill and Stalin intend to translate the percentages in the “Percentages agreement”?
In "percentages agreement", Stalin and Churchill allegedly divided Southeastern Europe to sphere of influences of the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union. According to Churchill's account quoted by ...
10
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3answers
203 views
What was the reason for Soviet troops to withdraw from Yugoslavia in World War II?
For all these countries that the Red Army entered (Poland, Romania, part of Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary), the procedure was straightforward. Once the Soviets beat the Germans they become de facto ...
9
votes
2answers
167 views
Were Soviet warships allowed to use the Panama canal?
During the Cold War, were Soviet naval vessels allowed to use the Panama canal?
I'm aware that no Soviet warships happened to use the canal during the Cold War. Was there a rule aganst them ...
4
votes
3answers
178 views
Did Ted Kennedy turn to the Soviet Union for help winning an election?
Reading an interesting article in Forbes, I was dumbfounded by the idea that Ted Kennedy might have sought out Yuri Andropov's help to run for president against Ronald Reagan in 1984. A relevant ...
9
votes
1answer
404 views
Did the Soviet Union know when DEFCON levels changed?
The US military uses a scale of alert readiness called DEFCON, with DEFCON 5 being the lowest alert level and DEFCON 1 being the highest, preparing for imminent nuclear war. At least once during the ...
10
votes
1answer
159 views
Austria and Iron Curtain during Cold War
Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain speech from 1946 contains the following famous passage:
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain
has descended across the ...
5
votes
1answer
172 views
How did Greece avoid the Soviet sphere of influence?
It seems to me that east of Italy / Germany all of Europe was in the Soviet sphere of influence, with the blatant exception of Greece. I'm sure that the long coast made access to Western influence ...
1
vote
1answer
73 views
Was the IMF complicit in destroying the Romanian economy?
Wikipedia claims that despite the unprecedented growth of Romanian industry and food and production at the rate of 22% per year, Romania experienced serious shortage of food and petrol in the late 80s ...
1
vote
4answers
719 views
What factors contributed to the U.S economy flourishing during the early cold war period?
Wars, cold or otherwise, are bad for economies, right? So why did American capitalism flourish during the early cold war period (shortly after World War II)?
I think there are several positive ...
1
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1answer
82 views
Is the killing between communists and Muslims in Indonesia during 1965 mutual?
During 1965, there was an anti-communist purge in Indonesia following the 30 September failed coup.
There are claims that the killing is mutual. There are claims that it's one sided.
Which one is ...
3
votes
2answers
2k views
When did the Vietnam War start?
I embarrassingly don't know much about the history of the Vietnam War.
I would like to learn more about the war, but I can't figure out when exactly the war started and ended. World War 2 was from ...
11
votes
3answers
299 views
What role did the space race play in reducing the nuclear threat during the 1960s?
Today I visited again the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center, a space flight history museum, and noticed for the first time the claim that part of John F. Kennedy's motivation for pushing for a ...
5
votes
2answers
151 views
How high the death rate on the Berlin Wall compared to other borders?
I read today on the Wikipedia's main page:
There were numerous deaths at the Berlin Wall, which stood as a
barrier between West Berlin and East Germany from 13 August 1961 until
9 November ...
3
votes
1answer
95 views
What are some major military successes achieved by the former Soviet Union against the Western World?
What are some major military successes achieved by the former Soviet Union against the Western World that shook the US and its cold war allies?
3
votes
1answer
211 views
Was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan one of the major reasons that led to the fall of Soviet Union?
Was the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan one of the major reasons that led to the fall of Soviet Union?
That is what the world history teacher told me.
Please show your sources.
3
votes
2answers
168 views
Why did the US, Britain, France, Denmark and Sweden vote against the UN resolution that condemned Nazism and SS glorification?
Why did some Western countries, including the US, Britain, France, Denmark and Sweden vote against UN resolution 61/147 that condemned Nazism and SS glorification?
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2answers
77 views
What are the origins of the “totalitarian genes” theory?
What are the origins of the infamous "totalitarian genes" theory that alleged that Russians, Serbs, Belorussians had genes favoring totalitarianism and autharitarian government, so to protect ...
10
votes
2answers
472 views
Did the U.S. and Soviet Union have a submarine battle in 1968?
There are books and articles about the Soviet submarine K-129 and the USS Scorpion in 1968, with various stories of attempted nuclear attacks and reprisals. Is there a factual narrative about these ...
2
votes
2answers
520 views
Did Reagan really conspire to drop oil prices?
Wikipedia says that Ronald Reagan persuaded Saudi Arabia to rise oil production so to drop the prices and make pressure on the Soviet economy. I encountered such claim in many other sources as well.
...
11
votes
5answers
716 views
Is the Cold War still going on?
Do any historians consider the Cold War, or Cold War II, to be going on?
I'm asking because some features of the Cold War still exist, such as an antagonism between Russia and the Western world, and ...
4
votes
1answer
138 views
Is there evidence that communists did supply drugs to West Berlin?
I've read an interview with Nick Cave, who lived in West Berlin in the 1980s and was a drug addict. He said that the "stuff" was very cheap and good - by that probably he meant very pure. And he said ...
1
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2answers
74 views
What was the official position of China during the Sino-Soviet border clashes in the 1960s?
As I know, there was no mobilization, nor public alarm in the USSR. Also Sino-Soviet friendship treaty continued to function as well as all trade agreements throughout the whole period of clashes.
...
11
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1answer
166 views
What set Checkpoint Charlie apart from the other border checkpoints in Berlin during the Cold War?
How did "Checkpoint Charlie" become known as the border crossing between East and West Berlin? Out of the countless border checkpoints, what set Checkpoint Charlie apart from the rest for defectors?
