Expanding+Power

= Expanding Power =

**Military Competition** media type="custom" key="5636269" align="right" -Under what form of government was North Korea under during the time of the Cold War? North Korea and South Korea were enemies. North Korea was communist along with the Soviet Union and South Korea was democratic along with the United States. The United States tried to keep communist influence low through out the world and the Soviet Union wanted it to spread. Becoming communist, North Korea's economy fell, but with the help of the United States the economy of South Korea became better.

**Arms and Space Race** -On what day was the Russian satellite "Sputnik 1" launched? The nuclear arms race was a competition in nuclear warfare between the United States, and the Soviet Union, and their respective allies during the Cold War. During the Cold War, in addition to the American and Soviet nuclear stockpiles, other countries also developed nuclear weapons, though none engaged in warhead production on nearly the same scale as the two superpowers. The Space Race was an informal competition between the Unites States and the Soviet Union, as they tried to match or beat the others accomplishments in exploring outer space. It involved the efforts to explore outer space with satellites to send man into space, and to land him on the Moon. The Space Race effectively began after the Soviet launch of Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957. The Space Race became an important part of the cultural, technological, and ideological rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Space Technology became a particularly important arena in this conflict, because of both its potential military applications and the morale-boosting social benefits.

media type="custom" key="5636209"In 1962, the Soviet Union was desperately behind the United States in the arms race. Soviet missiles were only powerful enough to be launched against Europe but U.S. missiles were capable of striking the entire Soviet Union. In late April 1962, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev conceived the idea of placing intermediate-range missiles in Cuba. A deployment in Cuba would provide a real deterrent to a potential U.S. attack against the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, Fidel Castro was looking for a way to defend his island nation from an attack by the U.S. Ever since the failed [|Bay of pigs] invasion in 1961, Castro felt a second attack was inevitable. Consequently, he approved of Khrushchev's plan to place missiles on the island. In the summer of 1962 the Soviet Union worked quickly and secretly to build its missile installations in Cuba. In 1947, during the Cold War, the clock was started at seven minutes to midnight and was subsequently advanced or rewound per the state of the world and nuclear war prospects. This was decided by the directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reflecting global affairs. The clock has not always been set and reset as quickly as events occur; the closest nuclear war threat, the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, reached crisis, climax, and resolution before it could be set to reflect that possible doomsday. Link to Cuban Missile Crisis Video
 * Cuban Missile Crisis** -Why did the Bay of Pigs invasion fail?
 * Doomsday Clock:**

After the passing of several Soviet Union leaders, Mikhail Gorbachev assumed control of Soviet Union. U.S.-Soviet relations improved considerably during the middle 1980s. At a dramatic summit meeting in Iceland, in October 1986, Gorbachev proposed a 50-percent reduction in the nuclear arsenals of each side, and for a time it seemed as though a historic agreement would be reached. On December 8, 1987, the INF(Intermediate Nuclear Forces) was signed in Washington, eliminating an entire class of nuclear weapons. The INF Treaty was the first arms-control pact to require an actual reduction in nuclear arsenals rather than merely restricting their proliferation. As the decade came to an end, much of the Eastern Bloc began to an end. The Hungarian government took down the barbed wire on its border with Austria and the West. The Soviet Union did nothing in response. Although travel was still not completely free, the Iron Curtain was starting to unravel. On November 10, 1989, one of the most famous symbols of the Cold War came down: the Berlin Wall. By the end of the year, leaders of every Eastern European nation except Bulgaria had been ousted by popular uprisings.
 * End of Cold War** -What was the INF (Intermediate Nuclear Forces)?



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