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1. Topic
Cold War: Different Phases and
Divergent Perspectives
B.A.(P) IV Semester

2. MEANING OF COLD WAR:
Cold war can be defined in different terms:
● In economic terms it aimed at expansion of capitalism on a
global scale; politically, it aimed at the development of highly
centralised state;
● Militarily it was preoccupied with nuclear arms race.
● Ideological conflict between US capitalism and Soviet
communism.
● Due to ideological differences each super power had
developed misperceptions about the others motives and
policies. Each perceived its own action as virtuous and other
malicious. Therefore, cold war was rooted in the
psychological factors and misperceptions, and ideological
factor became secondary.

3. IDEOLOGICAL PERCEPTIONS:
● Realists and Neorealists considered power vacuum in Central
Europe and East Asia as the real cause of the cold war.
● Liberals perceived the lack of economic cooperation due to
ideological differences between the two superpowers prevented
any possibility of elimination of conflict between them
● Constructivists consider the contrasting identities of the two
superpowers as the main source of conflict.
● Marxists interpreted cold war as western imperialism which
referred to the domination of weak peripheral countries by the
core.
Practically, Both USSR and US acted as imperialists by using their
economic and military prowess for centralisation of power on global
landscape.

4. PERCEPTION OF GLOBAL SOUTH
The superpowers cold war started in Europe but gradually
engulfed all the regions of global South which caused
immense instability and conflicts in most of the third world
regions
The cold war got encompassed the whole world and regions of
Global South became the battleground of both the superpowers
which kept most of the regions divided and conflict ridden.
Some of the regions experienced the most destructive wars in
the history of the cold war:
● Three years war in Korea,
● Fifteen years war in Vietnam and
● Ten years war in Afghanistan
These are some of the examples of superpowers proxy wars in
the third world that had long term implications for their security.

5. COLD WAR LED TO NEO-COLONIALISM AND NEO
IMPERIALISM
During the cold war period, there was hardly any region or
country that was free from the domination of superpowers. The
characteristic of imperialism and neo colonialism had a special
place in the cold war policies of superpowers. Most of the
countries in the southern world though obtained political
independence, they became neo colonies or semi colonies and
remained subordinate to the imperial powers. The super
powers neo colonialism was based on domination,
subordination and appropriation of new avenues of power.
The super powers policies and political and military elites in the
economically weak countries had been responsible for the
facilitation of neo imperialism in these countries by means of
economic and military aid.

6. REGIONAL HEGEMONS AND SUB-HEGEMONS:
● Some of the newly independent countries were cultivated as
intermediaries by the capitalists to play a major regional role..
The armies and ruling class of these subordinate states
constituted the category of agents of imperialism in their
respective regions. The cold war players used economic and
military aid to cultivate allies in the regions against those
nations not falling in the alliance system of the US.
● The US policy of creating regional hegemons gave rise to
dominant political and military hierarchy in different regions and
gave rise to sub imperialism . South Africa and Australia had
been supported by the US to play the role of regional hegemon
in South Africa and South Pacific respectively.
● The emergence of regional hegemonic powers suggest that
imperialism was altered but was not abolished completely.

7. INSTRUMENTS OF WAR:
● The USSR relied more on the use of force whereas the US
relied on cultural, ideological, economic and diplomatic means.
The USSR used military force to keep East European
Countries(EEC) under its domination therefore always faced
resistance to its control. The US on the contrary created
consent and consensus by use of economic and ideological
factors and was very successful in establishing its hegemony.
● The US domination was more hegemony than empire in
Europe. Hegemony has been more consensual in core but
laden with conflict in the periphery.
● The US used economic and military aid to cultivate
friendship with countries in different parts of the world as it
found this strategy more cost effective than fighting direct wars
to contain or oust Soviet occupation in any country.

8. COLD WAR AND THIRD WORLD CONFLICTS:
Both US and USSR sought allies in the third world on the basis
of economic, political and military means. Due to the
superpowers cold war politics, most of the African and Asian
countries became victim of their domination in the initial period
of their independence. Therefore cold war had inadvertent
impact on their socio-economic and political conditions of these
countries causing serious challenge to the very fabric of their
state system.
COLD WAR IN SOUTH ASIA
The ideological difference between the US and India was the
main source of contention between the two. US perception was
any country not allied to the US belonged to the other camp.
Kashmir issue between India and Pakistan had been exploited
by the practitioners of cold war which left the region in turmoil
and conflicting situation which is still haunting the South Asian
region.

9. REASONS OF EMERGENCE OF COLD WAR AND ITS IMPACT ON
THE THIRD WORLD
● Various developments and factors contributory to the evolution and
development of cold war:
● Development and use of the atom bomb against Japan;
● Ideological conflict
● Misperceptions about each other;
● Soviet expansionist move in Europe after the end of the second
world war, Kennan’s policy of containment
● Arms race
● The US steps to strengthen western economic and military position
to counter Soviet threat,
● Alliance system and emergence of bipolar world by creation of
NATO and Warsaw
● Proxy wars: Korean war, Cuban missile crisis, the Vietnam war and
the Afghanistan war - both super powers fought restrained and
limited war but implicated the socio- political and economic systems
of these countries adversely and had long term implications for the
peace and security of these nations and their respective regions.

10. DIFFERENT PHASES OF COLD WAR:
The world had gone through the structural changes due to
the cold war between US and USSR. The cold war
entered the real dangerous phase in 1947 after Truman
Doctrine and Marshall Plans had been introduced to
extend economic aid to Greece and Turkey and the west
European countries respectively. It was felt that the
economic aid will lead to economic and political integration
of Europe under the US leadership.
● First Phase-1950: The Korean War 1950s was the first
incident of expansion of superpower cold war in Asia. The
Korean War began with communists’ diplomatic and
military support to North Korea to invade South Korea by
crossing the 38th parallel dividing line between North and
South Korea.
Korean war in which both super powers (USA and USSR)
were involved by proxy. It which gave rise to the concept
of limited and restrained war.

11. Soviet expansionism in non-communist-third world
countries: The USSR adopted a new approach towards
non-communist countries in the third world. The Soviet aim
in establishing relations in the third world region- Africa,
Asia and Latin America was not to establish communist
governments but to disentangle them from the control of
the US and its allies.
Suez Crisis,1956: The cold war was shifted to Africa when
Egypt imposed blockade on Suez Canal. On 26 July 1956,
Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser announced the
nationalisation of Suez Canal. Both GB and France
protested as it was the shortest trading route as well as it
was internationalised water ways. The matter was taken to
the UN but remained unresolved. Therefore to lift the
Egyptian blockade on Suez, GB, France and Israel joined
hands to attack Egypt. In the UN, the US instead of
supporting its NATO allies asked them to withdrawal from
the war.

12. ● Second Phase-1960s: Cuban missile crisis which was
only a crisis but brought the entire world on the brink of
nuclear war. It was the climax period of cold war which
gave rise to the concept of detente.
Vietnam war: was a proxy war where US got involved in
undeclared war for about 15 years and could not win
despite being the most powerful country fighting a small
country using the strategy of guerrilla warfare. The defeat
in Vietnam gave rise to ‘no more no Vietnam’ in the US
foreign policy. The Us decided to create friends on the
borders of USSR to contain and fight it on behalf of US.
● Third Phase 1970s-1980s: The US mood of weariness
after the Vietnam war had expedited the process of
detente.

13. End of Détente
Detente was short lived due to the Soviet expansionist
policies.
During this period the USSR tried to establish its
influence in Africa and West Asia. The Soviet action of
expansionism in Ethiopia, Angola, Nicaragua and
Afghanistan was contradictory to the essence of
detente. The Soviet military occupation of
Afghanistan(1979) was perceived as its attempt to
proliferate its influence to West Asia. In order to out
Soviets from Afghanistan, the US supported
insurgents in Afghanistan to oust Soviets from there.

14. CONCLUSION
In the perspective of global South the cold war
competition had been proved most disastrous for the
third world countries. Due to cold war politics in their
regions, global South suffered from the deficit of good
governance, development and human security which
in turn is giving rise to internal instability, insurgencies
and civil war situations ,which in turn threatens the
very fabric of the state structure in these countries.

15. REFERENCES
• Jindal, Nirmal, eds., 2020, International Relations:
Theory and Practice, Delhi: SAGE
• Baylis, John, Steve Smith and Patricia Owens.
2011. The Globalization of World Politics: An
Introduction to International Politics. 5th ed. New
York : Oxford Press.