Questions tagged [cold-war]
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, since both sides' nuclear weapons would have guaranteed "mutual assured destruction". Cycles of relative calm were followed by high tension and the threat of war.
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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 ...
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Did NATO promise Gorbachev not to accept membership applications from former Warsaw Pact nations?
There have been several claims that there was an agreement between NATO and USSR at the end of the Cold War. This agreement supposedly required NATO to reject any membership applications from the ...
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What was the legal status of an East German once he had reached West Germany?
Cold War histories usually state something like "any German able to reach West Germany was automatically granted West German citizenship" to explain how easy it was to go from East to West, if only ...
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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 Continent. ...
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What was the Soviet reasoning for developing their Airborne Forces (VDV) into a powerful military branch?
The Soviet Airborne Forces (the VDV, or the Воздушно-десантные войска, or the Aerial Descent Force as a more precise translation) were one of the more prestigious units in the Soviet military (see '...
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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 ...
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Why didn't the US and USSR jam each other's early-warning radar?
Radar jamming refers to rendering a radar system ineffective by saturating it with noise, typically by bombarding it with a high-intensity signal on the radar's operating frequency(es) in order to ...
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How was titanium transported from Soviet Union to Area 51 for Oxcart?
Oxcart was one of its kind, a sophisticated aircraft designed during the Cold-War era. Its body was made up of titanium. Titanium was only found in substantial quantities in the then Soviet Union. The ...
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How and why was the boundary between West and East Berlin decided to be where it was?
I have been trying to find detailed explanations (and, if available, references in English or German about it) to the following about the division of Berlin into West and East sides after WW2:
how ...
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How were the West Berlin air corridors negotiated?
This grew out of a question I asked on the Politics SE, which I'm moving here because it's tangential to that question.
As far as I can tell, after World War 2, the Western powers negotiated air ...
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Why was Eisenhower chosen to be Supreme Allied Commander in Europe?
Dwight D. Eisenhower "Ike", graduated from West Point in 1915 ranked 61st in a class of 164 better known for his abilities on the football field than in the classroom. Upon graduation from ...
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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 ...
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Was the population of Moscow wildly overstated during the Cold War?
The science fiction author Robert Heinlein was a socialist in his youth, but became a strident anticommunist during the Cold War. In 1960, he and his wife Virginia went as tourists to the USSR, and he ...
user2848
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What are the main reasons historians give for the Soviet Union's collapse?
(I thought that How and Why Did the Soviet Union Collapse? is a good question so would like to rephrase it a bit but the question was too far gone to edit)
The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 with ...
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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 ...
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