Unit 8 · Cold War and Decolonization, c. 1900–Present

Anti-imperialism ● (core concept) — Growing opposition to colonial and imperial rule in the years after World War II. Anti-imperialist sentiment fueled nationalist movements and pushed European empires to give up their colonies.

Dissolution of empires ● (core concept) — The breakup of European colonial empires after World War II, as anti-imperialist movements forced imperial powers to withdraw and states were restructured across Asia and Africa.

Shift in the global balance of power ● (core concept) — During World War II, the victorious nations made major technological and economic gains that shifted global power in their favor. This left the United States and the Soviet Union as the two dominant powers, setting the stage for the Cold War.

The Cold War ● (core concept) — The decades-long ideological and power struggle (c. 1945-1991) between the capitalist, democratic United States and the authoritarian, communist Soviet Union. The two superpowers competed for global influence through alliances, arms races, and proxy wars rather than fighting each other directly.

Superpowers ● (core concept) — The United States and the Soviet Union, which emerged from World War II as the world's two dominant powers, with unmatched economic, military, and political reach.

Ideological struggle: capitalism vs. communism ● (core concept) — The global conflict between capitalism (market economies, in the U.S. model paired with democratic government) and communism (state-controlled economies under authoritarian rule, the Soviet model). This ideological divide structured the Cold War's power struggle across the globe.

Non-Aligned Movement ● (core concept) — A coalition of states, many newly independent, that refused to align with either the U.S. or Soviet bloc during the Cold War. Led by figures such as Sukarno of Indonesia and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, it promoted alternatives to the existing economic, political, and social orders.

NATO ● (core concept) — The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a U.S.-led military alliance of Western (capitalist) states formed during the Cold War for collective defense against the Soviet Union.

Warsaw Pact ● (core concept) — The Soviet-led military alliance of communist Eastern Bloc states, formed as the counterpart to NATO.

Nuclear proliferation ● (core concept) — The spread of nuclear weapons to additional states during the Cold War, as the U.S.-Soviet arms race raised the stakes of their rivalry.

Proxy wars ● (core concept) — Conflicts in which the United States and the Soviet Union backed opposing sides instead of fighting each other directly. They were fought between and within postcolonial states (newly independent states) in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

Korean War ○ — The 1950-1953 war in which U.S.-backed South Korea fought Soviet- and Chinese-backed North Korea to a stalemate. A classic Cold War proxy war: the superpowers armed opposing sides without fighting each other directly.

Chinese Communist Revolution ● (core concept) — The communist seizure of power in China in 1949, driven by internal tensions and resistance to Japanese aggression during World War II. It established the People's Republic of China under communist rule.

Great Leap Forward ● (core concept) — Mao Zedong's 1958-1962 campaign to rapidly industrialize and collectivize China through intense state control of the economy. The CED describes only 'negative repercussions for the population'; in fact the campaign produced a massive famine (1959-1961), one of history's deadliest.

State control of the economy (Communist China) ● (core concept) — In communist China, the government controlled the national economy, directing production and agriculture through campaigns like the Great Leap Forward, often implementing repressive policies with negative consequences for the population.

Land and resource redistribution movements ● (core concept) — Movements within states in Africa, Asia, and Latin America that sought to redistribute land and economic resources, sometimes advocating communism or socialism.

Decolonization ● (core concept) — The process by which colonies in Asia and Africa gained autonomy or independence from imperial rule after 1900, accelerating sharply after World War II.

Anti-colonial nationalism ● (core concept) — Nationalist leaders and parties in Asia and Africa who mobilized their peoples to demand self-rule, seeking varying degrees of autonomy within empires or full independence from imperial rule.

Negotiated independence ● (core concept) — The peaceful, diplomatic path to decolonization, in which colonies bargained with imperial powers for their independence after World War II (for example, India and the Gold Coast from the British Empire).

Independence through armed struggle ● (core concept) — The violent path to decolonization, in which colonies won independence by fighting their imperial rulers (for example, Algeria and Vietnam against France, and Angola against Portugal).

Autonomy vs. independence ● (core concept) — Decolonization produced different outcomes: autonomy meant self-government within or alongside imperial rule, while independence meant full sovereignty, free of imperial control.

Regional, religious, and ethnic movements ● (core concept) — Movements that challenged colonial rule and the inherited imperial boundaries (colonial-era borders that often ignored ethnic and religious divisions). Some of these movements advocated for autonomy for their own group.

Redrawing of political boundaries ● (core concept) — After colonial authorities withdrew, political boundaries were redrawn, leading to the creation of new states. In some cases this redrawing produced conflict as well as population displacement.

Partition of India ● (core concept) — The 1947 division of British India into the independent states of India and Pakistan. The redrawing of boundaries triggered mass population displacement and violent communal conflict.

Creation of the state of Israel ● (core concept) — The establishment of Israel as a new state in 1948 amid the redrawing of political boundaries in the Middle East. Like the Partition of India, it produced conflict and population displacement.

Population displacement and resettlements ● (core concept) — The forced movement and resettlement of peoples caused by newly drawn post-colonial boundaries, such as the millions displaced by the Partition of India and by the creation of Israel.

State-guided economic development ● (core concept) — In newly independent states after World War II, governments often took a strong role in guiding economic life, directing investment and industry to promote development.

Migration to imperial metropoles ● (core concept) — The migration of former colonial subjects to the imperial metropole (the former colonizing country), usually settling in its major cities. These migrations maintained cultural and economic ties between the colony and the metropole even after empires dissolved.

Nonviolence ● (core concept) — The practice of resisting injustice without physical violence, promoted by figures such as Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela as a way to bring about political change.

Mohandas Gandhi ● (core concept) — Indian leader who promoted nonviolent resistance against British colonial rule, helping lead the movement that won India's independence.

Martin Luther King Jr. ● (core concept) — American civil rights leader who used nonviolent protest to challenge racial segregation and demand equal rights in the United States.

Nelson Mandela ● (core concept) — South African anti-apartheid leader who became the country's first Black president. In his later career he championed a nonviolent, negotiated end to apartheid (the CED's framing); note, however, that earlier in life he endorsed armed resistance against the apartheid regime, co-founding the ANC's armed wing (Umkhonto we Sizwe) in 1961.

Militarized states ● (core concept) — States in which the military dominated politics and responded to the century's conflicts with force, often intensifying the violence rather than resolving it, including through arms buildups and weapons trading.

Violence against civilians for political aims ● (core concept) — Some movements used violence against civilians (terrorism) as a deliberate strategy to achieve political aims.

End of the Cold War ● (core concept) — The Cold War ended around 1991 as U.S. military and technological advances, the Soviet Union's costly and failed invasion of Afghanistan, and public discontent and economic weakness in communist countries undermined the Soviet system.

Soviet invasion of Afghanistan ● (core concept) — The Soviet Union's 1979 invasion of Afghanistan, which became a costly, draining, and ultimately failed war that weakened the USSR and helped bring about the end of the Cold War.

Collapse of the Soviet Union ● (core concept) — The breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 into independent states, marking the end of the Cold War.