APWH Unit 8 Vocab

A conflict that was between the US and the Soviet Union from 1945-1991; the nations never directly confronted each other on the battlefield but deadly threats went on for years

The group of nations that didn't side with either the US or the Soviet Union during the Cold War; led by India and Yugoslavia

Leader of Indonesian independence movement; first president of Indonesia and leading member of the Non-Aligned Movement

Military alliance created in 1949 made up of 12 non-Communist countries including the United States that support each other if attacked

An alliance between the Soviet Union and other Eastern European nations; dictated that Eastern European nations would fully support the Soviet Union in the event of a military conflict with Western countries

the spread of nuclear weapons to new nations

A war in which the powers in conflict use third parties as substitutes instead of fighting each other directly; a major feature of the Cold War era

Conflict that began with North Korea's invasion of South Korea and came to involve the United Nations (primarily the United States) allying with South Korea and the People's Republic of China allying with North Korea; an example of a proxy war in the Cold War

When Angola achieved independence, the two major liberation movements began to squabble over how to rule the country; ultimately, the United States, the Soviet Union, and Cuba interfered and exacerbated the problem in attempts to dictate the new government's ideology

The Sandinista government ousted and replaced a dictatorship in Nicaragua in 1979, but the United States feared Sandinistas were moving toward communism; the CIA trained, armed, and funded counter-revolutionaries called contras in an attempt to take down Sandinistas; resulted in a violent civil war between the Sandinistas and contras.

Battle between the nationalist and communist forces after the conclusion of WW2; the communist forces led by Mao Zedong win the war and establish a communist government; the nationalist forces flee China and establish government in exile on the island of Taiwan

Started by Mao Zedong, combined collective farms into People's Communes to centralize agricultural production; ended as a failure after two years due to millions dead from starvation; similar to Joseph Stalin's Five Year Plans

Nonviolent period of the modernization and westernization of Iran; the shah's policies included women's suffrage, social welfare system, and land redistribution to Iranian peasants; problems with the programs encouraged religious conservatives to consider revolution against western moderates

A historical period that saw the collapse of colonial empires; between 1947 and 1962, practically all former colonies in Asia and Africa gained independence

A movement and political party founded in 1885 to demand greater Indian participation in government. Its membership was middle class, and its demands were modest until World War I; led after 1920 by Mohandas K. Gandhi, who helped secure Indian independence after World War II

1950s and 60s; communist leader of North Vietnam; used guerilla warfare to fight anti-communist, American-funded attacks under the Truman Doctrine; brilliant strategy that drew out war and made it unwinnable for the French, and eventually the Americans in the Vietnam War

Overthrew the king of Egypt and established the Republic of Egypt in 1952; a proponent of Pan-Arabism that blended Islam and socialism in his policies; nationalized the Suez Canal which led to an international crisis and Israeli invasion of Egypt

A conflict between France and Algerian independence movements from 1954 to 1962, which led to Algeria gaining its independence from France; was an example of independence through armed struggle

Region of the Atlantic coast of West Africa occupied by modern Ghana; named for its gold exports to Europe from the 1470s onward; negotiated its freedom from the British Empire in the era of decolonization

An organization formed in 1906 to protect the interests of India's Muslims, which later proposed that India be divided into separate Muslim and Hindu nations; saw its goal achieved with the establishment of the Islamic state of Pakistan

A movement in the Canadian state of Quebec to declare independence from the rest of the country due to its French heritage, as opposed to a heavy British heritage in the rest of Canada...expanded during the Quiet Revolution in the 1960s

A civil war fought between the government of Nigeria and the Republic of Biafra, a secessionist state which had declared its independence from Nigeria in 1967; Biafra was a westernized, predominantly Christian region with rich oil deposits; the secession movement failed and led to establishment of a federal state with a lot of local control

The establishment of the independent states of India and Pakistan after the British ceded control; this led to the movement of millions of people in South Asia and geopolitical rivalry between the two countries

A Jewish state on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, both in antiquity and again founded in 1948 after centuries of Jewish diaspora; its creation was a project of the United Nations after first being promised by the British's Balfour Declaration after WWI; its presence led to immediate conflict with the stateless Palestinians and its Arabic neighbors

Daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister; She was also prime minister of India from 1966 to 1977, establishing a strong role in guiding economic life to promoting development; her 20-point economic program helped curb inflation, reformed corrupt laws, and increased national production; assassinated in 1984 during her second term in office

Large cities of former colonial rulers; saw increased immigration from people who lived in former colonies due to economic opportunities (Indians emigrating to London, for example)

Leader of the Indian independence movement and advocate of nonviolent resistance; challenged British rule through the Homespun Movement and the Salt March; was assassinated in 1948 by an extremist Hindu for supposedly giving too many concessions to Muslims during the Partition

U.S. Baptist minister and civil rights leader; a noted orator, he opposed discrimination against Black Americans by organizing nonviolent resistance and peaceful mass demonstrations; he was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee in 1968

South African statesman who became the nation's first democratically elected president in 1994; was thrown in prison during the 1960s for protesting against the segregationist system of apartheid

Chilean military leader who in a coup deposed Salvador Allende, a communist, elected leader; created one party rule dictatorship and ruled with iron fist; human rights abuses were a part of his reign

Ugandan military leader/president during the 1970s; responsible for hundreds of thousands of Christian/tribal deaths; forcefully expelled 60,000 Asians from Uganda, most of whom were Indian descent; Ugandan nationalists teamed with Tanzanian forces to force him into exile

Eisenhower first coined this phrase when he warned American against it in his last State of the Union Address; He feared that the combined lobbying efforts of the armed services and industries that contracted with the military would lead to excessive Congressional spending on defense

Islamist terrorist organization that launched a series of attacks against U.S., including the attacks on September 11th; an example of a movement that used violence during the late 20th century to accomplish its goals

Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan in 1979 to help the Afghan communist government crush anticommunist Muslim guerrillas; anti communist guerrillas received support from US and GB; USSR withdrew→ communist party remained in power but would eventually be overtaken by Islamist forces (the Taliban)

A policy initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev that involved restructuring of the social and economic status quo in communist Russia towards a market based economy and society

A policy of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev which called for more openness with the nations of West, and a relaxing of restraints on Soviet citizenry

Head of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991; his liberalization effort improved relations with the West, but he lost power after his reforms led to the collapse of Communist governments in eastern Europe

American president during the 1980s; committed to increased defense spending to create an Arms Race with the Soviet Union, hoping their economy could not handle the increased defense spending strain; worked with Mikhail Gorbachev to improve relations with the Soviet Union

President Truman's policy of providing economic and military aid to any country threatened by communism or totalitarian ideology; applied first to Greece and Turkey in the late 1940s

A U.S. foreign policy adopted by President Harry Truman in the late 1940s, in which the United States tried to stop the spread of communism by creating alliances and helping weak countries to resist Soviet advance - related directly to the Truman Doctrine

FDR, Churchill and Stalin met here in the final days of WW2; Stalin agreed to allow free elections in territories freed by the Soviets from Nazi control during the Nazi retreat

Final wartime meeting of the leaders of the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union was held at Potsdamn, outside Berlin; Stalin reverses position on free elections and imposes Soviet control over Eastern Europe; deteriorating relations between US/GB and USSR leads to outbreak of Cold War

An international organization formed after WWII to promote international peace, security, and cooperation; tasked with addressing numerous proxy wars that sprouted as a result of Cold War tensions, along with dozens of cases of ethnic violence in the 20th century

A political barrier that isolated the peoples of Eastern Europe after WWII from the rest of democratic and capitalist western Europe, restricting their ability to travel outside the region; coined by Churchill during a speech in Missouri in 1946

A United States program of economic aid for the reconstruction of Europe (1948-1952); done in part to strengthen bonds between the US and western Europe in order to prevent the spread of communism

An economic organization of Communist states meant to help rebuild Eastern Bloc (satellite states) countries under Soviet auspices; a response to the American policy called the Marshall Plan

Russian satellite with the distinction of the world's first space satellite; set off panic in United States that led to increased scientific funding for space exploration

A wall separating East and West Berlin built by East Germany in 1961 to keep citizens from escaping to the democratic and capitalist West; a strong visual symbol of the effects of the Cold War, it did not fall until 1990

A prolonged war (1954-1975) between the communist armies of North Vietnam led by Ho Chi Minh who were supported by the Chinese and (loosely) the Soviet Union, and the non-communist armies of South Vietnam who were supported by the United States

The 1962 confrontation between US and the Soviet Union over Soviet missiles that had been built in communist Cuba...the closest the two countries came to hot war and nuclear destruction during the Cold War

Failed American invasion of Cuba in 1961 when a force of 1,200 Cuban exiles, backed by the United States, landed at the Bay of Pigs; a major foreign policy embarrassment for John F. Kennedy and the United States, leading world opinion to shift in the Soviet Union's direction

Cuban socialist leader who overthrew a dictator in 1959 and established a Marxist socialist state in Cuba; sought to build close relations with the Soviet Union in order to stand against American influence in the Caribbean

Campaign in China ordered by Mao Zedong to purge the Communist Party of his opponents and instill revolutionary values in the younger generation; was so ordered in a response to Mao's slipping popularity after the failure of the Great Leap Forward

Site in Beijing where Chinese students and workers gathered to demand greater political openness in 1989; the demonstration was crushed by Chinese military with hundreds being killed

Nasser (leader of Egypt) nationalizes the Suez Canal, leading British, French, and Israeli forces to attack Egypt; UN forced British to withdraw, making clear the era of the British Empire had ended

Military conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors, including Syria, Egypt, and Jordan; war ended with an Israeli victory and territorial expansion into the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank; a humiliation for several Arab states though some land would be returned to these various Arab states over the next decade

Organization created for the purpose of creating an Arab state in Palestine; sought a two-state solution which did not eliminate Israel from the map in the quest to establish Palestine

A militant Islamic fundamentalist political movement that opposes peace with Israel and uses terrorism as a weapon; has taken control of the Gaza Strip and does not recognize the legitimacy of the two-state solution, unlike the PLO

Communist party in Cambodia that imposed a reign of terror on Cambodian citizens and furthered regional instability in southeast Asia along with the Vietnam War; led by Pol Pot

Leader of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, who terrorized the people of Cambodia throughout the 1970's; imposed a ruthless form of communism and conducted a "cultural revolution" that targeted intellectuals and dissenters; slaughter and famine that followed took more than two million lives (25% of the population) and disposed of bodies in "killing fields"

A series of revolts across communist Czechoslovakia during the spring of 1968 against Soviet control and the repressive regime of communism; was largely suppressed by the Soviet Union but planted the seeds for the Velvet Revolution of the early 1990s that led to the Soviet's withdrawal and the end of communist government

An unofficial nationalist military force seeking independence for Northern Ireland from Great Britain, seeking to exploit religious differences between Catholics and Protestants; employed aspects of terrorism to accomplish their aims

A policy of reducing Cold War tensions that was adopted by the United States and the Soviet Union, primarily during the 1970s with the policies of Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev

Soviet leader during the Cuban Missile Crisis; gained initial American approval for denouncing Stalin and allowed criticism of Stalin within Russia; was forced out of power after Kennedy was perceived to get the better of him during the Cuban Missile Crisis negotiations