Democratic Republic of the Congo Central African country that gained independence from Belgium in 1960. It was supported by the US during the Cold War as a buffer against the advance of communism from neighboring Soviet-aligned Congo and Angola. The DRC suffered a devastating Civil War from 1996 to 2003 that has led to the deaths of more than five million people.
Détente (1972–79) a policy of the United States from 1971 to 1980 intended to ease tensions with the Soviet Union.
Diplomacy the profession, activity, or skill of managing international relations, typically by a country’s representatives abroad.
Eastern Bloc the name applied to the former communist countries of Eastern and Central Europe that were once dominated by the Soviet Union.
Enlightenment a European intellectual movement during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that stressed reason and individualism over tradition.
Ethiopian Revolution (1974) a revolt that toppled the monarchy of Haile Selassie and led to the establishment of a communist regime with close ties to the Soviet Union.
Ethio-Somali War (1977–78) a conventional conflict fought by Ethiopia and Somalia over the disputed Ogaden region in present-day eastern Ethiopia.
Eurocentric a term that suggests a narrow focus on European culture or history.
Expansionism the policy of territorial or economic expansion.
Fascist Italy (1922–43) a phrase used to describe the Italian state during the rule of nationalist leader Benito Mussolini.
Geopolitical a term used to describe a form of politics influenced heavily by geographical factors.
Geostrategy a term for international planning based on the study of how geography and economics influence politics and relations between states.
Hegemony leadership, or dominance, of one country or social group over all others.
Historiography the history of a debate as it evolves over time.
Imperial Russia (1721–1917) a state that was overthrown in the Russian Revolution of 1917.
Indo-Pakistani War (1971) the military confrontation between India and Pakistan during the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971.
Intervention refers to any concerted, state-led effort to determine the political direction of another state.
Iran the Islamic Republic of Iran is an oil-producing state in Central Asia which was ruled by the United States–backed Shah of Iran from 1941 to his overthrow in 1979. The subsequent Islamist government has been under US economic sanctions since 1979 and UN sanctions since 2006.
Iran-Iraq War (1980–88) a major military conflict between Iran and Iraq.
Iraq the Republic of Iraq was created in 1958 with the overthrow of the monarchy. In 1968 a bloodless coup brought the Arab Socialist Ba’ath party to power (overthrowing the previous US-supported regime). In 2003 a US-led invasion over claims of a weapons of mass destruction program led to Sadaam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party losing power. The US presence ended in 2011.
Iraq War (2003–11) an armed conflict between the United States and Iraq that toppled the government of Saddam Hussein.
Liberal democracy a political system that emphasizes human and civil rights, regular and free elections between competing political parties, and adherence to the rule of law.
Marxism-Leninism the political and economic theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. These anti-capitalist ideas were later further developed and became the basis for communism.
Modernism a period of history characterized by ideas of citizenship, human progress, and technological change.
Mujahideen a term used to refer to someone who engages in Jihad (a war against Muslim unbelievers), as well as the Muslim guerrilla fighters who fought Soviet occupation.
Nazi Germany (1933–45) a common name for the German Reich under the rule of Adolph Hitler.
Neologism a newly-coined term.
Neorealism a school of international relations theory that assumes structural constraints (e.g. anarchy and the distribution of world power), not human agency, determine actor behavior.
“New” Cold War History a school of thought that developed in the early 1990s following the end of the Cold War. This school focuses on developing new interpretations of the Cold War through the use of multiple sources from a variety of archives.
9/11 the name given to a series of terrorist attacks on New York and Washington DC on September 11, 2001. The attacks, orchestrated by militant Islamist group Al Qaeda, killed around 3,000 people.
Nobel Institute is a Norwegian institution, whose principle task is assisting the Norwegian Nobel Committee select the recipients of the Nobel prize.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) a collective defense organization composed of 28 states. It was formed in 1949 to defend the West against the perceived threat from the Soviet Union.
North Korea the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is a socialist state formed in at the end of the Korean War in 1953, and led by Kim Il-sung until 1994, succeeded by his son Kim Jong-il until 2011 and now led by Kim Jong-un.
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) a Palestinian resistance movement founded in 1964 to establish an independent Palestinian state.
Peer-review the evaluation of scientific, academic, or professional work by others working in the same field.
Pluralist history a historical method that takes into consideration a variety of competing factors.
Positivism a theory that holds that information must be obtained by sensory experience (what is seen and heard in the real world).
Post-revisionism a historical school of thought that holds to a “realist” view of the Cold War, whereby states acted in their own self-interests, and competed via strategy and diplomacy.
Propaganda a political strategy that involves circulating information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, to promote or publicize a political cause or point of view.
Realism a school of International Relations theory that assumes: states are the primary actors; states all share the goal of survival; and states provide for their own security.
Reductionism a philosophical perspective that holds that a whole can be understood by examining its individual parts.
Revisionism the theory or practice of revising one’s attitude to a previously accepted situation or point of view.
Southern Africa a region that stretches from the Democratic Republic of Congo to South Africa, including Madagascar.
South Korea an Asian capitalist country created at the end of the Korean War in 1953.
Soviet Union, or USSR a kind of “super state” that existed from 1922 to 1991, centered primarily on Russia and its neighbors in Eastern Europe and the northern half of Asia. It was the communist pole of the Cold War, with the United States as its main “rival”.
Soviet-Afghan War (1979–89) a Cold War military conflict between the Soviet Union and Afghanistan. During the war, the United States provided financial and military support to the Afghan resistance.
Structuralism a theory that human behaviour, understanding, and experience can only be understood in relationship to larger overarching systems or structures.
Superpower a term coined in 1944 by William T. R. Fox to describe a very powerful and influential state, such as the United States or the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Systems theory a theory that holds that the behavior of units within systems is defined by the characteristics of the entire system, not particular units.
Syria a former French colony that gained its independence from France in 1946, Syria’s population consists of a wide range of different ethnic and religious groups, leading to a history of political instability. Protests prompted by the Arab Spring in 2011–2 were crushed by the military leading to a civil war that still continues today.
Taliban an Islamic fundamentalist movement whose militia took control of much of Afghanistan in the mid-1990s. In the aftermath of 9/11 the United States invaded Afghanistan and forcefully removed the movement from power. The Taliban ha
s since fought an insurgency against the US occupation.
Third World in Westad’s definition, this is the former colonial or semicolonial countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America that were subject to European (or pan-European, including US and Soviet) economic or political domination.
Third Worldist movement a term used to describe individuals or states that champion the plight of the Third World
Vietnam the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is a Southeast Asian country and site of a civil war from 1955 to 1975, in which communist fighters received weaponry and aid from China and the Soviet Union, while anti-communists received aid and troops from the United States.
World War I an international conflict between 1914 and 1918 centered in Europe and involving the major economic world powers of the day.
World War II global conflict between 1939 and 1945 that pitted the Axis Powers of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan against the Allied nations including the United Kingdom and its colonies, the Soviet Union and the United States.
Zero-sum game is a term used to describe a situation where the loss of one side is viewed as an equivalent victory for the other.
People Mentioned in the Text
Jeffrey Byrne is an assistant professor of history at the University of British Columbia, focusing on the history of the Middle East.
Edward “Ted” Carr (1892–1982) was an English historian, diplomat, and journalist best known for his book, The Twenty Years’ Crisis.
Paul Thomas Chamberlin is an associate professor in history at the University of Kentucky, focusing on the Middle East.
Christopher Dietrich is an assistant professor of history at Fordham University, focusing on US foreign policy in the Middle East.
Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) was a French social theorist and is regarded as one of the founding fathers of the social sciences. Durkheim sought to impart “hard” scientific rigor to social sciences, emphasizing the role of society over the individual.
Christian Emery is a lecturer in international relations at Plymouth University, focusing on US policy toward Iran.
John Lewis Gaddis (b. 1941) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American historian of the Cold War at Yale University.
Bryan R. Gibson (b. 1982) is a post-doctoral fellow at the Centre for Persian and Iranian Studies at Exeter University and focuses on the history of the Middle East, with an emphasis on US-Iraq and US-Iran relations.
Piero Gleijeses (b. 1944) is a professor of history at Johns Hopkins University, focusing on US foreign policy in Latin America.
Joanna Gowa is a professor of politics at Princeton University, focusing on international monetary systems.
Tanya Harmer is a historian at the London School of Economics and Political Science, focusing on the Cold War in Latin America.
William Hitchcock is a professor of history at the University of Virginia who focuses on the twentieth century in Europe, and specifically on the civilian experience of World War II and liberation from occupied countries.
Michael H. Hunt (b. 1942) is the Everett H. Emerson Professor of History Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and is best known for his 1987 book, Ideology and US Foreign Policy.
Andrew Hurrell is a professor at University of Oxford, focusing on the history of international relations.
Saddam Hussein (1937–2006) was the leader of Iraq from 1979 to 2003, when his regime was toppled by the United States.
Gilbert M. Joseph is a professor of history and international studies at Yale University, focusing primarily on Latin America.
George Kennan (1904–2005) was an American advisor, diplomat, and historian best known for advocating a policy of containment of the Soviet Union following the end of World War II.
Walter LaFeber (b. 1933) is a professor emeritus of history at Cornell University, who has focused on the study of US foreign relations in the 1960s.
Mark Lawrence is an associate professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin, focusing on US policy in the Third World.
Christopher Lee is a lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand, focusing on the history of Southern Africa.
Melvyn Leffler (b. 1945) is a professor of history at the University of Virginia, focusing on the Cold War.
Geir Lundestad (b. 1945) is a historian, who serves as director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute.
Thomas Maddux is a professor of history at the California State University, Northridge, focusing on US foreign policy and the Cold War.
George Orwell (1903–50) was a British novelist and journalist known for his opposition to authoritarianism and the books, 1984 and Animal Farm.
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–80) was the Shah (King) of Iran from 1941 to 1979, when he was overthrown by a popular uprising.
Theda Skocpol (b. 1947) is a professor of sociology and political science at Harvard University, advocating historical-institutional and comparative analytical approaches.
Daniela Spenser is a fellow at the Center for Research and Advanced Studies in Social Anthropology, in Mexico City.
Anders Stephanson is a professor of history at Columbia University, focusing on twentieth-century US foreign relations.
Kenneth Waltz (1924–2013) was a political scientist at Columbia University and the University of California, Berkeley, and one of the most prominent scholars in the field of international relations.
William Appleman Williams (1921–90) was a prominent revisionist historian of US diplomacy at the University of Wisconsin– Madison.
John Young is a professor of international history at University of Nottingham, focusing on British foreign policy since 1945, especially in East-West relations.
Marilyn Young (b. 1937) is a professor of history at New York University, focusing on US foreign relations and the history of the Vietnam War.
Works Cited
Bailey, Thomas A. America Faces Russia: Russian-American Relations from Early Times to Our Day. New York: Peter Smith Publisher Inc., 1964.
Berger, Daniel, Alejandro Corvalan, William Easterly and Shanker Satyanath. “Do Superpower Interventions have Short and Long Term Consequences for Democracy?” Journal of Comparative Economics 41, no.1 (2013): 22–34.
Black, Jeremy. “Review of The Global Cold War.” The Journal of Military History 70, no. 4 (2005): 1191–1192.
Brazinsky, Gregg A. “Koreanizing Modernization: South Korean Intellectuals and American Modernization Theories.” In Staging Growth: Modernization, Development, and the Global Cold War, edited by David C. Engerman, Nils Gilman, Mark H. Haefele and M. Latham, 251–274. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003.
Byrne, Jeffrey. Mecca of Revolution: From the Algerian Front of the Third World’s Cold War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Carr, E. H. The Twenty Years Crisis, 1919–1939: an Introduction to the Study of International Relations. London: Macmillan, 1939.
Chamberlin, Paul T. The Global Offensive: The United States, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the Making of the Post-Cold War Order. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Conrad, Sebastian. “‘The Colonial Ties are Liquidated’: Modernization Theory, Post-War Japan and the Global Cold War.” Past and Present 216, no. 1 (2012): 181–214.
Deutscher, Tamara. “E. H. Carr: a Personal Memoir,” New Left Review 137, no.1 (1983).
Dietrich, Christopher R. W. “‘Arab Oil Belongs to the Arabs’: Raw Material, Sovereignty, Cold War Boundaries, and the Nationalization of the Iraq Oil Company, 1967–1973.” Diplomacy & Statecraft 22, no. 3 (2011): 450–479.
Emery, Christian. “The Transatlantic and Cold War Dynamics of Iran Sanctions, 1979-80.” Cold War History 10, no. 3 (2010): 371–396.
Feichtinger, Moritz, Stephan Malinowski and Chase Richards. “Transformative Invasions: Western Post-9/11 Counterinsurgency and the Lessons of Colonialism.” Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development 3, no.1 (2012): 35–63.
Fukuyama, Francis. The End of History and the Last Man. London: Penguin Books UK, 1992.
Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002.
Gaddis, John L. Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar American National Security Policy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.
What We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997.
“The Tragedy of Cold War History: Reflections on Revisionism.” Foreign Affairs 731 (1994): 142–154.
“Grand Strategies in the Cold War.” In The Cambridge History of the Cold War, Volume II: Crises and Détente. Edited by Odd Arne Westad and Melvyn P. Leffler, 1–21. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Gibson, Bryan R. Sold Out? US Foreign Policy, Iraq, the Kurds, and the Cold War (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).
Giustozzi, Antonio, Jamie Shea, Fabrice Pothier and Odd Arne Westad and Amalendu Misra. “Afghanistan: Now You See Me?” LSE IDEAS Reports, London School of Economics and Political Science, 2009.
Gleijeses, Piero. Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944–1954. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.
Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington and Africa, 1958–1976. Chapel Hill: North Carolina Press, 2002.
Gowa, Joanne. “The Democratic Peace After the Cold War.” Economics and Politics 23, 2 (2011): 153–171.
Harmer, Tanya. Allende’s Chile and the Inter-American Cold War. Chapel Hill: North Carolina University Press, 2011.
Hoffman, Arne. The Emergence of Détente in Europe: Brandt, Kennedy and the Formation of Ostpolitik. Abingdon: Routledge, 2007.
Hunt, Michael. H. Ideology and US Foreign Policy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.
Hurrell, Andrew. “The Theory and Practice of Global Governance: The Worst of All Possible Worlds?” International Studies Review 13, no. 1 (2011): 144–154.
Joseph, Gilbert M. and Daniela Spenser, eds. In from the Cold: Latin America’s New Encounter with the Third World. Durham: Duke University Press, 2008.
Jian, Chen. China’s Road to the Korean War: The Making of the Sino-American Confrontation. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995.
The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions And The Making Of Our Times: Volume 129 (The Macat Library) Page 7