Talk:Cold War/Archive 2

message: 172, where did you put the section "Intelligence agencies' role" that you removed from the third page? --Shallot 19:59, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: It's in this article. 172 23:23, 5 Jan 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: General discussion 2004

message: Apparently the idea that the Nazi-Soviet Pact, Lech Walesa, gulags, the Baltic States, or the space race might have something to do with the Cold War is "normative b.s.".
And my criticism about the emphasis on the US wasn't just that it was all about the US.  The space race involved the US, for instance, but wasn't mentioned at all.  And references to the Soviets don't just get fewer lines, they are also phrased in such a way as to take blame off the Soviets.  Would you really have said "the unfortunate US presence in Vietnam" no matter how many or few lines you gave it?
:Look, in case you haven't realized, Wikipedia is a work in progress. If I had the time, I literally could sit in front of my computer for days on end adding more content to this article series until I passed out for need of rest. When I see articles that are possibly incomplete, I don't become a conspiracy theorist. Nor am I interested in writing propaganda for either side.
:When I wrote about Hungary '56, e.g., I noted that although the Soviets had ensured continued control of Hungary, this was a sign that the Soviets' control of their own camp was imperiled, foreshadowing the fall of the Soviet bloc more than three decades later. By the late '80s, the Soviets were no longer able to withstand nationalist, ethnic, and democratic demands in Eastern Europe any longer.
:I admit that I saw no need to elaborate on how the invasion of Hungary was a shitty thing to do. Isn't this what the readers are going to be thinking anyway? Even if it were perfectly valid, putting in anti-Soviet content, for the sake of an anti-Soviet POV, wouldn't strengthen readers' understanding of the sources and trajectories of superpower tensions in the Cold War era. But noting, e.g., underlying cracks in Soviet power that would result in the sudden overthrow of pro-Soviet regimes in the late '80s, or the nature of Soviet economic growth, is essential.
:Also, keep in mind that the last two articles in the series are naturally going to spend more time on the US. Here's why: in the '50s and early '60s, the postwar world dominated by the two superpowers and the old European colonial powers was now transformed into a pluralistic world of de-colonized African, Asian, and Middle Eastern nations, and of surging nationalism in Latin America. Although the first time the status quo balance of power between the superpowers was tested seriously occurred during the Berlin blockade of 1948–49, from that period onward the Third World would generally become the principal arena of superpower competition. For the sake of brevity, here's a good rule of thumb: a greater focus on Europe means more focus on the Soviet bloc, while greater focus on the Third World means greater focus on the US. As mentioned, there's no contesting the notion that the US played the far greater role organizing, regulating, and stabilizing the politics and economics of the Third World.
:The Soviets, in contrast, only managed to send troops beyond the confines of the Warsaw Pact once (Afghanistan - a country with a long common border with the USSR). The legacies of these divergences obviously live on today. The US GDP, e.g., is more than twice as large as that of the country with the world's second largest GDP, while Russia's GDP is smaller than the Netherlands. Hell, it's even smaller than Mexico's! So there's little wonder why there tends to be more content focused on the US than on Russia.
:Even back in July 1947, George Kennan, in his then-anonymous Foreign Affairs article entitled "The Sources of Soviet Conduct," made it clear that the US exerted far more power on international affairs than the USSR:
::It would be an exaggeration to say that American behavior unassisted and alone could exercise a power of life and death over the communist movement and bring about the early fall of Soviet power in Russia. But the United States has it in its power to increase enormously the strains under which Soviet policy must operate, to force upon the Kremlin a far greater degree of moderation and circumspection than it has had to observe in recent years, and in this way to promote tendencies which must eventually find their outlet in either the break-up or the gradual mellowing of Soviet power.
:Not bad, right? The Soviets managed to stay put in the areas where they had had troops stationed at the end of WWII in Europe on 5/8/45 for roughly four decades. But they were cordoned off and "contained," and Soviet power collapsed faster than we all had been expecting. Not to oversimplify, but the ball wasn't in their court very often, so there's little wonder why the US warrants more attention most of the time. 172 05:18, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Uh-huh. 

message: This article is written for acedemics to read. We need to re-organize it. I hope to have some time this week. Kingturtle 03:08, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you'll find it's very easy to get overwhelmed, because there's a lot of material to organize. I'm guessing you're partly reacting to the historiography content; the outline at talk:Cold War/temp proposes making a separate article for the more academic discussion of the historiography (although that could be enlivened with a few quotes of the historians calling each other "blithering idiots" in best professional style :-) ). Stan 05:10, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with that idea too. I should've mentioned earlier that I favor a separate article, like for, say, historiography, in addition to the articles I've listed above- so an organization along the lines of New Imperialism's. 172 06:34, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  this article needs major work 

message: It can be argued that the Cold War started in 1917 when aid was sent to the White Russians, or  Yalta Conference or End of World War II in 1945. But the best date for defining the start is March 5, 1946 when Winston Churchill spoke at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri: "From Stettin on the Baltic to Trieste on the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent..." because that is when most people in the West realised for the first time that there might be a new war and that is what lead to NATO etc. (Not that Churchill had ever had ever had any illusions in that area: "If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons." – Winston Churchill.)
The best date for the end of the cold war is the day that the Iron Curtain was ripped open in Berlin on November 9, 1989. It was all over and everone knew it. 
There can be mention of events before and afterwards which contributed to the start and end,  but those are the two key dates for the Start and End. PBS 00:54, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Cold War started on March 5, 1946 &ndash;  ended on November 9, 1989

message: This article is written for acedemics to read. We need to re-organize it. I hope to have some time this week. Kingturtle 03:08, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you'll find it's very easy to get overwhelmed, because there's a lot of material to organize. I'm guessing you're partly reacting to the historiography content; the outline at talk:Cold War/temp proposes making a separate article for the more academic discussion of the historiography (although that could be enlivened with a few quotes of the historians calling each other "blithering idiots" in best professional style :-) ). Stan 05:10, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with that idea too. I should've mentioned earlier that I favor a separate article, like for, say, historiography, in addition to the articles I've listed above- so an organization along the lines of New Imperialism's. 172 06:34, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I think terms like first/second world are pointless. They should be replaced by capitalist-predominantly democratic (or Free World), Communist-poorer (Communist Bloc). 3rd World I think is fine. --CJWilly 22:57, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  this article needs major work 

message: It can be argued that the Cold War started in 1917 when aid was sent to the White Russians, or  Yalta Conference or End of World War II in 1945. But the best date for defining the start is March 5, 1946 when Winston Churchill spoke at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri: "From Stettin on the Baltic to Trieste on the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent..." because that is when most people in the West realised for the first time that there might be a new war and that is what lead to NATO etc. (Not that Churchill had ever had ever had any illusions in that area: "If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons." – Winston Churchill.)
The best date for the end of the cold war is the day that the Iron Curtain was ripped open in Berlin on November 9, 1989. It was all over and everone knew it. 
There can be mention of events before and afterwards which contributed to the start and end,  but those are the two key dates for the Start and End. PBS 00:54, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Cold War started on March 5, 1946 &ndash;  ended on November 9, 1989

message: I have some problems with the intelligence agencies section; mainly it makes it out like the rest of the world did nothing during the whole Cold War than play a spy game. Such is patently ridiculous. Aside from major conflicts involving superpowers (Korean War, Vietnam War, War in Afghanistan) there was many proxy wars, coups, insurrections, etc. I think it is really pretty ridiculous to say: "The agent war of mutual espionage both of civilian and military targets may have caused most casualties of the Cold War." I find this really, really unlikely. I mean, the Vietnam War alone had around 50,000 US deaths and 1.5-5 million Vietnamese deaths. Can the agent war compete? --Fastfission 05:16, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Intelligence agencies

message: There was no universally held expression to describe the two camps of the Cold War. I think most of the expressions used should be listed in the opening paragraph. Revealingly, this article has gone from 1st World VS 2nd World to West VS Eastern Blocs. It just shows how there are many, equally valid expressions. There is no sense in trying to pic the most neutral, especially as many of the terms have subtly different meanings (Warsaw Pact is not the same as Communist Bloc or 2nd World), many of these terms have seperate articles. I therefore vote to have the seperate terms listed, Free World/NATO/Western Bloc/1st World alongside Communist World/Warsaw Pact/Eastern Bloc/2nd World. --CJWilly 19:10, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Different names for Eastern and Western Blocs