Cold War: One World, Two Armed Camps Quiz

Answer: NATO

NATO saw a new balance of power created following the cooling in relations between the US and Soviet Union - the need for such resolve was highlighted when China became Communist (1949) and the Soviet Union had developed its first A-bomb (and carried out its first test in 1949, too).

Answer: The Warsaw Pact

The Warsaw Pact, founded in 1955, mirrored the NATO alliance and provided symbolic symmetry to the European defence systems.

Answer: 1961

The 'Iron Curtain' was a system of defences, completed in 1952 that separated the NATO and Soviet (later Warsaw Pact) countries. It ran from just east of Lübeck on the Baltic to the Bulgarian-Turkish border on the Black Sea. One of its main purposes was to prevent people leaving the Eastern Bloc countries. Berlin had a special status and the Berlin Wall (built in 1961) plugged as it were a gap in the 'Iron Curtain'.

It was the only part of the 'Iron Curtain' that ran through a city and acquired a symbolic signifance.

In the past, walls had been built to keep people out of a city but with so many people voting with their feet, this wall was built to keep people in.

Answer: Switzerland

The US played an instrumental role in many coups throughout the world and this policy has returned to haunt them on a number of occasions. In 1953 a US-backed and CIA-organized coup saw the Mossadegh government overthrown. In 1954 the US supplied arms, plane and pilots to overthrow the Arbenz Government of Guatemala.
The 1964 covert US programme, aimed at precipitating a military coup in Brazil, ultimately failed.

Answer: Khrushchev

Peaceful co-existence began with the death on Stalin and the end of the Korean War in 1953 and ended in 1960 when an American U2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union.

Answer: Nixon

Nixon visited in 1972. In the following year, Brezhnev visted the USA.

Answer: The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

The Soviet Union was eager to establish a pro-communist regime in Afghanistan as Afghanistan shares a large border Russia and is surrounded by nations under the rule of militant Islam. This was to become another conflict by proxy, with the US backing and the CIA training organisations to fight the Soviets.

Answer: Mutually Assured Destruction

MAD was adopted to alert nations to the dangers of nuclear war rather than to describe how a nuclear war should be fought.

Answer: The ability of nations to inflict an unacceptable degree of damage even after absorbing an attack.

The idea was that even if, for example, the USA had sustained an attack that destroyed the nation, they would still be able to deploy their weaponry against the aggressor from other missile sites around the world and destroy them too. It promised that no one would win such a war.

The policy was also referred to as 'mutual deterrence'. In other words, all sides were guaranteed destruction in a nuclear war without a winner

Answer: Cuban Missile Crisis

Probably the most tense 14 days in October for Kennedy, Khrushchev and many people throughout the world!

Answer: Yes

The USA left Vietnam on 29 March 1973, apart from some security troops at the embassy in Saigon. South Vietnam fell to the North on 30 April 1975. The last few Americans still there were airlifted out on this day.

Answer: A programme involving a defensive shield above the Earth's atmosphere to protect the US from a nuclear missile attack

It was hoped that this would provide the elusive solution to the nuclear threat. It has been suggested that the threat that US may achieve superiority forced the Soviet Union to increase defence spending, hastening the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union. But it must be noted that other elements were changing in the Soviet Union at the time too.

Answer: Reagan

Reagan was well known for his hardline conservative views and his intense hostility to the Soviet Union.

Answer: Bill Clinton

George W. Bush was then occupied with other defense matters that couldn't be solved by a shield in space ...

Answer: Mikhail Gorbachev

Gorbachev is largely responsible for ending the Cold War. His reforms introduced elements that brought down the Soviet system and when the satellite states began to revolt in 1989, he did not send the tanks in. Gorbachev also keenly sought arms cuts.

Answer: Former Warsaw Pact members were invited to take part in military co-operation without implying any form of membership

By 1998, many of the former Warsaw Pact members had become NATO members.

Answer: Saddam Hussein

Russia did this for geopolitical reasons owing to Iraq's close proximity to Russian borders.

Answer: They were unsuitable for the NEW Russia

It was unclear to the world what Yeltsin meant by the 'new' Russia but, it appears that this was his attempt to introduce reform.

Answer: Chechnya

Russia has refused to give Chechnya independence and has fought a protracted series of wars against Chechen rebels.

Answer: Afghanistan

In the War Against Terrorism in Afghanistan in 2001 Russia was only too happy to offer assistance in its chance to defeat the regime that the US had helped create back in 1979.