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Kindle Notes & Highlights
The Cold War was an ideological clash between two different economic systems, which were championed by two world superpowers.
“The Red Army and Navy and the whole Soviet people must fight for every inch of Soviet soil, fight to the last drop of blood for our towns and villages…onward, to victory!” —Joseph Stalin
The United States and the Soviet Union did not (and perhaps could not) fight each other directly. Instead, they fought for control and for allies everywhere else.
Communist governments were created in much of Eastern Europe. The Soviet-aligned countries came to be known as the Eastern Bloc and included the U.S.S.R., Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia (until the 1960s).
Only Switzerland and Finland managed to remain neutral; Europe was truly divided.
under the Marshall Plan, the United States offered aid to any country needing it, provided that they were not affiliated with Communism.
The goal of covert operations was often regime change. This meant overthrowing the current government and replacing it with one that leaders at the time think will be more friendly to their interests. One such incident has now become famous—the overthrow of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran in 1953.
In an embarrassing moment later on, Soviet Premier Khrushchev ordered the infamous Berlin Wall built between East and West Berlin.
The Berlin Blockade and Airlift set another important precedent: the countries would fight, but not directly, even when tensions became very hot.
What was more, the Bay of Pigs set the stage for the Cuban Missile Crisis.
America was not content to sit idly by and allow matters in Afghanistan to run their course. Rather, they began secretly smuggling valuable, destructive weapons to the group fighting the Soviets: the Mujahedeen. The irony is that the Mujahedeen would in the future provide the historical roots of the Taliban and Al Qaeda; one of their leaders was Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the U.S.
