AP®︎ European History: Topic 9.3 Flashcards

The mid-1940s–1991 political, ideological, economic, military, and cultural rivalry between the U.S.-led Western bloc and Soviet-led Eastern bloc without sustained direct war

An armed conflict contained geographically or politically enough to avoid becoming a direct general war between the United States and Soviet Union

A regional conflict in which the superpowers supported opposing states or movements rather than fighting one another directly

A situation in which one state's defensive measures appear aggressive to another, provoking countermeasures that make both less secure

The February 1945 Allied meeting that arranged occupation zones in Germany and Berlin and endorsed ambiguously defined democratic elections in liberated Europe

The July–August 1945 Allied meeting at which growing distrust over Germany, Eastern Europe, and Soviet-backed governments revealed the wartime alliance's breakdown

The postwar world system organized primarily around two superpowers, the United States and Soviet Union, rather than a European balance of power

The international organization founded in 1945 to preserve peace and cooperation, though superpower vetoes often limited action on Cold War disputes

The political, military, ideological, and increasingly physical boundary separating Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe from Western Europe

The Western strategy of preventing further communist expansion rather than overthrowing every government already under communist rule

The 1947 American commitment to support Greece and Turkey against communist pressure as part of containment

American economic aid that strengthened Western European reconstruction and containment while the Soviet Union barred its satellites from participating

The Western military alliance created in 1949 that bound Western Europe and North America together against the Soviet bloc

The Soviet-bloc economic organization that helped bind the communist states of Eastern Europe to the USSR.

The Soviet-led military alliance established in 1955 to organize the armed forces of the Eastern bloc

Speeches, media, education, culture, and public displays used by each bloc to praise its system and discredit the other

U.S.-Soviet competition in satellites and human spaceflight used to demonstrate scientific, military, and ideological superiority

Espionage secretly gathers information; covert action secretly attempts to change political outcomes

The 1960 Soviet downing of Francis Gary Powers's American reconnaissance plane, exposing U.S. deception and helping collapse a planned summit

The U.S.-Soviet buildup of conventional forces and increasingly destructive nuclear weapons, missiles, bombers, and submarines

Preventing attack by convincing an opponent that aggression would produce unacceptable nuclear retaliation

The condition in which both superpowers could survive a first strike and retaliate with enough nuclear force to destroy the attacker

The willingness to approach the edge of war to force an opponent to retreat, despite the risk of catastrophic miscalculation

The failed American-backed 1961 invasion of Cuba that strengthened Fidel Castro's reliance on the Soviet Union

The 1962 confrontation over Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba that ended with their removal, a U.S. noninvasion pledge, and secret removal of U.S. missiles from Turkey

The period of reduced U.S.-Soviet tension from the later 1960s through the 1970s, characterized by negotiation without ending Cold War competition

The 1963 agreement prohibiting nuclear tests in the atmosphere, outer space, and underwater

The 1968 agreement intended to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to additional states

The 1972 U.S.-Soviet agreement that placed limits on parts of the two superpowers' strategic nuclear forces

The 1972 U.S.-Soviet treaty limiting systems designed to defend against ballistic missiles

The 1950–1953 war in which U.S.-led UN forces defended South Korea against Soviet-supported North Korea and Chinese intervention, leaving Korea divided

The Cold War-era conflict in which the U.S. supported South Vietnam against Soviet- and Chinese-backed communist forces, ending with communist reunification in 1975

The 1973 Egyptian-Syrian attack on U.S.-supported Israel, backed by Soviet aid, that raised superpower tensions and helped trigger an Arab oil embargo

The 1979–1989 Soviet war to preserve Afghanistan's communist government against foreign-supported mujahideen, weakening détente and burdening the USSR.

A post-1975 conflict in which the USSR and Cuba supported the Marxist MPLA government while the U.S. and South Africa supported its opponents

A movement of states seeking independent action rather than formal alignment with either Cold War bloc, though many accepted aid from both

The 1948–1949 Soviet cutoff of Western land access to West Berlin, intended to pressure the Western powers

The successful Western operation that supplied West Berlin by air until the Soviet blockade ended in 1949

The Western-aligned German state created from the western occupation zones in May 1949, with West Berlin tied to it politically and economically

The Soviet-aligned German state created from the Soviet occupation zone in October 1949