Unless the goal of the Cold War was simply to dismantle the Soviet Union and its closest allies, I don’t think that it’s perfectly accurate to say that it ended (in either the 1990s or elsewhen).
The anticommunists continued to struggle against popular communist parties in the Russian Federation and elsewhere, they are trying and failing to dismantle the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Republic of Cuba, the liberal reforms in the People’s Rep. of China and the Socialist Rep. of Vietnam were poor substitutes for overthrowal, and so far the anticommunists haven’t balkanized the Russian Federation.
If we view the Cold War as essentially a complex class war (which would be quite reasonable), then it certainly never ended, or even been on pause.
No, because in a nutshell it was not war against USSR, it was a war for US global hegemony.
In this sense, it didn’t start in 1945 either, but at least half a century prior
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Ah i see that you are looking at cold war as phase of the class war. That is certainly relevant view too.
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It was not very consistent, rather normal single bouts of opportunistic conquests and local domination in Americas. WW2 changed much, it was second round of how Lenin described WW1 - shifting and consolidation of global imperialism. Since then US purposefully pursues world hegemony.
It started 1792 when that monstrosity was born. Thanks Fr*nce.
I like to think about it as though it slowed to a near stop for a few years from 1992 to around 2008, and has only in the last few years ramped back up to the intensity it had when it was new.
For the most part, the cold war was a NATO war against the Soviets. Without the Soviets, the war lost its purpose but never really ended. And now that Russia has regained its strength and China is a real contender against American hegemony, the cold war’s regained a purpose.
So IMO it’s only a “second” cold war in the same sense that WWII was a “second” world war. Yes the main purpose of the aggression ended, but what picked up a few decades later in the case of WWII was the result of the same conflict.
The current cold war might technically be a new one, but only because the previous one was stagnant for long enough that people have lost the thread of it.
Agree with both you and anbol. Even the popular interpretation of the cold war as being a war between two economic systems: capitalist and communist, can’t be said to be “over” until every communist country is overthrown.
Most of their color revolutions succeeded, but they failed in Cuba, China, and the DPRK.
And of course even that interpretation isn’t fully correct, because they also overthrow any country that doesn’t bend the knee to the US, libya being the most recent.
Recently I’ve been asking myself if the Cold War ever started or existed. Did the USSR even refer to it (by this name or any other)?
It’s the war against communism. The USSR had been attacked ever since Lenin, and China was attacked ever since Mao. WW2 just put things on hold because there was a bigger primary contradiction.
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