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Cold War

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19 May 2008

LONG TERM IMPACT OF THE COLD WAR

After World War II there was struggle for power between the United Nations and the Soviet Union . This state of antagonism and military conflict between the two countries is termed as cold war . The United States led the West heralding democratic political ideas and systems while the Soviet Union led the East with its communist political ideas It was a period of mutual hostility including sabotage and acts of terrorism . This is termed cold in the sense it was

a conflict of ideology and economy rather than actual military conflict . It lasted from mid-1940s until the early 1990s . The Soviet Union was invaded during WWI and WWII via Eastern Europe and so Soviet Union decided to its sphere of influence in Eastern Europe . The United States wanted to put an end to the spread of communism and thus the cold war (Encyclopedia , 1997

The cold war had a far reaching impact on the developing countries with results of varying magnitude . The long term impact of cold war in the developing countries is summarized below

A . Asia

The cold war had varying effects in East and Southern Asia . In East Asia , China fell into the hands of the communists . Japan and Korea were greatly helped by the United States and Korea even received military aid from the US . The Vietnam War fought between and to prevent reunification of North and South Vietnam resulted in men and material losses in Vietnam . Vietnam 's neighbor Cambodia joined the communist following practices of genocide and mass killing

In Thailand , American military and economic aid prevented the spread of communism and also resulted in high economic growth rate . Western influence also had bad long term impact such as spread of AIDS in Thailand . In South East Asia , Malaysia in particular overcame communism with the help of emergency proclaimed under the British military Malaysia also recorded a high economic growth rate and still remains economically strong . Indonesia 's anti-communist policy was even worse than that followed by communist Soviet Union . Local communists were suppressed brutally

The countries of South Asia were not powerful economies like Japan or Western Europe . South Asia was also lacking in resources . United States was interested in South Asia because it wanted to establish bases for flights against Soviet Union . The South East Asian nations formed the SEATO (South East Asian Treaty Organization ) in the year 1954 in to provide defense and cooperation in South East Asia . Australia France , the United Kingdom , New Zealand , Pakistan , the Philippines Thailand , and the United States were the founding members of SEATO . It was mainly formed to prevent the spread of communism . One by one the members withdrew and finally SEATO was disbanded in 1977

B . Africa

Despite Africa 's distance from the Soviet Union and the United States the Cold War had most devastating impacts on Africa . The rivalries of cold war helped to create some un-democratic governments in countries both newly...

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