Analyze the impact of decolonization on the cold war.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The removal of Europe from its imperial holdings in Africa and Asia (in particular) made these territories seem an opportunity to extend either Western or Eastern bloc influences for the promotion of the respective political ideology. Many continued to depend heavily on Europe, now with support from the Americans as well, while others opted to embrace the Soviet side of the cold war. Yet some states chose a third way: nonalignment. The first testing ground of the struggle for decolonized territories came in Korea because it had been split at the end of the war into two separate political entities. This former Japanese territory was divided into a communist Democratic People's Republic in the north and the Republic of Korea in the south. As the West began to actively support a policy of containment to restrict the spread of communism, the USSR intervened on behalf of the North Korean government to choose its path. This escalated into the first military faceoff in the cold war. The United States invoked the decision of the UN and asked for military support; the Russians, who were boycotting the UN at this point, did not vote and so the action was agreed upon. The war ultimately ensued with neither side really winning, but this example of proxy war became typical of the use of third parties between the superpowers. Decolonization of the French presence in Vietnam also brought up the issue of containment because Ho Chi Minh, the Vietnamese Communist leader, defeated the French in 1954, and the West became increasingly entrenched in maintaining an actively anticommunist policy, eventually bringing the United States into the Vietnam War in the 1960s.