The Cold War Explained (1945 - 1991)

The video picks up after Germany's surrender, as the cracks begin to form between the Western Allied democracies and the communist USSR, as an Iron Curtain descends across Europe along with the division of West Germany and East Germany and the emergence of NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

We then move on to Asia, where the Chinese Civil War resumes between the Communists and Nationalists. From there, we move onto the borders of China, as we explore the Korean War and Indochina War in Vietnam.

Back in Europe, the 1950s and 60s bring us the Eisenhower-Khrushchev era, the Hungarian Revolution, the infamous Kitchen Debate, the Sino-Soviet Split, the Berlin Wall, the emergence of the Third World, or Non-Aligned Movement, Castro's Cuban Revolution, and the Cuban Missile Crisis under Kennedy.

The last chapter deals with President Johnson and the Vietnam War, President Nixon's diplomacy with China and Brezhnev, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the Reagan-Gorbachev era, culminating in the Revolutions of 1989, and the eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union.

0:00 Post-War Europe (NATO and Warsaw Pact)
12:03 Cold War in Asia (Chinese Civil War, Korean War, Indochina War)
30:32 1950s - 1960s (Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam War)
58:25 Détente to Dissolution (Brezhnev-Nixon, Soviet-Afghan War, Revolutions of 1989)