The Cold War -- Not WW2 -- Was Arguably the Defining Event of the 20th Century

History Unplugged Podcast

History Unplugged

Society & Culture, History

4.2 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 5 March 2020

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Cold War existed vaguely in a fifty-year stretch and lacked the defining moments of a major military conflict. However, there is a strong argument to be made that it defined the 20th century. While most point to World Wars One and Two as the most important events of the century, the institutions that dominate today's nations are by-products of the Cold War: the military-industrial complex, their political systems (whether capitalist, socialist, or something in between), funding for scientific research, and even space programs.

Fundamentally at stake was a question of whether the world would accept the political beliefs of Soviet Union of collectivism and communism, or the principles of economic and political democracy supported by the United States. The Cold War established America as the leader of the free world and a global superpower. It shaped U.S. military strategy, economic policy, and domestic politics for nearly 50 years.
In this episode, we recount the pivotal events of this protracted struggle and explain the strategies that eventually led to its end. This includes the development and implementation of containment, détente, and finally President Reagan's philosophy: "they lose, we win."

Transcript

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0:00.0	The History of North America podcast is a sweeping historical saga of the United States,
0:09.4	Canada, and Mexico from their deep origins to our present epoch.
0:13.9	Join me, Mark Vinet, on this exciting, fascinating epic journey through time, focusing on the compelling,
0:20.7	wonderful, and tragic stories of North America's inhabitants, heroes, villains, leaders,
0:27.1	environment, and geography.
0:29.5	I invite you to come along for the ride.
0:44.5	History is in just a bunch of names and dates and facts.
0:47.7	It's the collection of all the stories throughout human history that explain how and why we got here.
0:53.1	Welcome to the History and Plug podcast, where we look at the forgotten, neglected, strange,
0:58.0	and even counterfactual stories that made our world what it is.
1:02.1	I'm your host, Scott Rank.
1:14.7	Hey everyone, welcome to today's episode.
1:16.6	We have a lot to bite off today.
1:18.8	Basically, we're going to try to understand how all of geopolitics worked in the 20th century.
1:24.5	Specifically, I'm answering a question from listener Chris, who says,
1:28.1	what really brought an end to the Cold War?
1:30.4	Specifically speaking, what events, political decisions, and socioeconomic factors ended the silent hostilities between the US and USSR?
1:38.7	Now, that is a great question, and I get asked a lot of questions about history.
1:42.3	A lot of them have to do with World War II.
1:44.0	Sometimes there's medieval history, but the Cold War doesn't come up that often.
1:48.6	And I was thinking about that, and I thought, what would people think of if they hear Cold War?
1:53.4	You're around high school college, you're probably remembering some of the questions that you had to study up for for an AP exam for history or for a class,
	...

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