@Pervavita:
Koria and Vietnam, even the Afgan-USSR conflicts/wars were all part of a larger operation. the USSR or China were spreading and the US with allies support moved to stop the spread of Communism. just because there was no big battles between US/Allied troops and USSR/China troops dosn’t mean that it wasn’t a war (other then there were but history dosn’t play them up enough for the masses to even recongize them). nether force wanted to fully declare war in such a public display as that could lead to nukes getting used. it was a war and it invalved many of the countrys of the world. it’s just not called a “war” in the normal sence of the word because that would look bad to the political powers.
Korea & Vietnam were civil wars (and in some ways, antimperial conflicts) escalated, by other countries. The core conflict was about areas that were trying to gain unified independence. They were just carved up post WW2 by the victors who now were fighting against each other for superiority, fueling the initial grudge with their own desires.
Afghanistan is probably closer to the Cold War, but again, no direct conflict with the key nations involved in that nonconflict.
They were all definitely wars, but could only relatively be applied to the Cold War since you had 2 superpowers (and others) getting involved into any conflict that might help them. But none of them ever did.
The Cold War was more about world domination than stopping Communism anyway. Stopping communism was just the excuse.
Besides, we were originally arguing for/against the Cold War being WW3. It was no where near the scope or depth of WW1 or WW2, even when you consider several isolated conflicts over the 50 year period, so my point is that it was not a World War.
@Cmdr:
Those civil wars were caused by the Cold War though. If there was no cold war, there would have been no strife and thus no conflict in which to fight a civil war.
Just my opinion, of course.
Not going to comment on the rest just yet, but they were not caused by the Cold War. As I said, they are easily attributed to the Cold War because of the involvement of the US, USSR, and possibly others, but they were simply Civil Wars. These were countries looking from independence from everyone, and a unified homeland. They’d been through occupation for sometime, even before WW2. It was the time for self determination. We just never saw that - we thought we were keeping the Russkies from controlling the world. That’s why we couldn’t win Vietnam and why the Koreas are still separate today.
@ncscswitch:
Beyond the Proxy Wars already mentioned (Vietnam and Korea) there were a LOT of other proxy wars fought… Angola, Chile, Cuba, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, The Sinai, Berlin… All of these engagements were conflicts of the larger World War 3.
I’m sorry, but I just don’t agree. There were some limited conflicts that could be related easily to the Cold War, but example after example usually has a deeper conflict that sparked the situation in the first place. And each of those examples you mention are too few and far between to be considered a World War. They were tied together because of the 2 superpowers backing one side or the other, but it only served to extend the conflict.
And there was direct confrontation too, not just via proxies. Submarines fought and died under the waves due to direct enemy action, we reached DEFCON 2 in another direct challenge, “advisers” and “mercenaries” on both sides that were but “weren’t” active duty military…
But do limited skirmishes amount to a World War? And being prepared for war/nuclear launch is still not active battle.
Desert Storm 1 may have had more shock and awe for television, but DS1 and DS2 still have not even begun to hit the casualty figures racked up during the Cold War… and at the current rate of loss it will take about 30 more years for it to get close.
I only mentioned DS1 because I feel it is still a more legitimate “war” than the Cold War (although, to steal from Bill Hicks, it wasn’t even a war because war involves TWO armies). The Cold War is a completely abstract interpretation of the period of power struggle between post-WW2 and late 80s/early 90s.
@Cmdr:
My personal opinion? Desert Storm was more a coups de grass of the Cold War then anything else. If it was REALLY about stopping a dictator from destabilizing the region, we would have invaded Iraq in 1991, instead of waiting a whole extra decade and then sending our boys back to finish the job.
As for the Cold War being over, I think that will happen when and if China becomes capitalist. That’s my opinion anyway.
In this very post, you say that we ended the Cold War with DS1, but then say that it is still alive with China.
And what could Iraq possibly have to do with the Cold War after the USSR collapsed? They weren’t even Communist!
