Superpower Relations & the Cold War Topic 2
Cold War Crises, 1958-70
What is this topic about?
In this key topic, we will learn how the Cold War rose and fell again in the 1970s and 1980s. We will look at détente, when the superpowers tried to work together and limit nuclear weapons, and how this hope faded with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, President Reagan’s harder approach, and the new “Star Wars” defence plans.
We will then learn how things changed after 1985, when Gorbachev became the Soviet leader and began to work with the USA in a new way. We will explore how their cooperation, along with pressure from people across Eastern Europe, helped bring the Cold War to an end. This includes the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, and the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991.
