Question

Explain what was the cold war and its impact on world politics.

Answer 1

Instructions:
To answer this question, we need to explain some of the following concepts:

• Start by explaining what the cold war was.
• Name at least 2 conflicts that rose as a result of the cold war.
• Explain the arms race and space war.
• Elaborate on the atmosphere of mistrust and ambition for world domination through ideology of capitalism and communism.

Solution:
The era of mistrust, fear that emerged between the USA and USSR at the end of WW 2 is referred to as the Cold War. ​The world got divided into two political camps one led by the Communist USSR and the other by Capitalist America.​

Some of the ways in which the Cold war impacted the world politics are as follows:

• The race for armaments: The competition to own more weapons increased, leading to race for armaments. ​Arms manufacturing increased, including the race for nuclear weapons. ​Both sides wanted more military bases and intelligence networks around the world to secure strategic positions. ​
• Space Wars: Space wars and competition for technology became aggressive in nature . This war had started at the time of Stalin’s leadership in the USSR. He had launched the space program that was led by Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarian.
• Conflicts started due to ideological differences: Across the world the clash of the capitalist and communist ideologies led to not just division of countries into two camps, but also led to several conflicts of international significance. Some of them were, the Cuban crisis of 1962, Berlin Crisis of 1961, among others.
• End of the USSR: The Cold war added pressure on the countries to emerge as the winner, this resulted in the USA emerging as the winner by the end of the 1980s and after Gorbachev, the USSR’s leader ended the cold war with the west, it also led to the decline of the USSR, leaving USA as the sole superpower in the world.