Cold war

Military and ideological confrontation between the USSR along with its satellites on one side, and the Western bloc led by the United States, on the other. The c.w. lasted from the end of the Second World War until the annulment of the Warsaw Pact and the collapse of the USSR. The c.w. with its arms race was considered by both sides a preparation for a possible third world war, and it involved continuous actions taken to weaken the position of the other side, most of them initiated in the Third World. The c.w. was manifested in the militarization of the economy and politics; in psychological warfare and diplomatic pressure; in continual local conflicts and wars such as the Soviet invasions of Hungary in 1956, of Czechoslovakia in 1968, of Afghanistan in 1979; in the Cuban missile crisis in 1961; in the US interventions in Central America; in the Anglo-French intervention in Egypt in 1956, etc. The c.w. ultimately overwhelmed the economy of the USSR and contributed to its collapse, but also weakened the economy of the United States and accelerated the moral crisis of Western society, aggravating the world environmental crisis and provoking other global disasters. In the mid-1990s, we are experiencing a resurgence of certain political and psychological aspects of the c.w. in the regional conflicts in the Balkans, the Far East, and some zones of the European Common Market. All of this demands a renewed intensity on the part of the anti-war movement. Humanists condemn the mentality of the c.w., as well as the wars disguised as “local conflicts.”