Cold War Culture

There is so much I could center this blog post around, but let's just narrow it down to music.  A lot of what people heard on the popular radio was a representation of cultural sentiments, often antagonistic towards the Establishment.  There are links to three songs below--listen to all of them if you'd like, but I want you to look up the lyrics (or in the case of the third, consider the song and the performance) to at least one of them and consider why this song is so monumental toward the times.

We will try to talk music, film, sports, and as much culture as we can in class!

Songs:

Sex pistols - "Anarchy in the UK" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrSXn3JOvAs

The Beatles - "Back in the USSR" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvTI-LBopo0

Jimi Hendrix - "Star Spangled Banner" - Live at Woodstock 1969 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjzZh6-h9fM

End of the Cold War

In a more simplified examination of the Cold War's end, America is seen as the victor due to the disintegration of the USSR and the independence of the Eastern bloc countries.  Who were some other potential victors in the post Cold-War world?  What kinds of questions are left unanswered as to how the post Cold-War world will develop economically and militarily?

China's Path

While China may have initially shaped its communist policies more directly in tandem with the Soviet Union, its Cold War evolution deviated much more drastically from the USSR than most policy analysts at the time could recognize.  In your interpretation of the reading, what are some of the most prominent reasons for China developing its own identity apart from the Soviet Union?  Why does it take so long for Americans to recognize this difference?  Once we did recognize the changes, how did US opinions towards China shift?  How do you think this Cold War evolution has shaped the US relationship with China today?

Cold War Tensions and the Congo

What happens in the Congo is another example of how Western powers may be more accepting of dictatorship than a communist government.  Why was the Lumumba leadership problematic in the Congo, especially in the eyes of the US?  Why do they agree to support an un-democratic government led by Mobutu, and how does this remind us of governments in certain parts of Latin America?

Does Detente Work?

Your reading outlines some of the practices of detente in the late 1960s through early 1980s.  Which of the talks or treaties (i.e. SALT, START -- note the typo on p. 483), seemed to successfully ease some of the tensions between the US and the USSR, and which did not? Even though detente is over by the early 1980s, did some of its accomplishments lead to lessening the sphere of influence of the USSR (consider Germany)?

Hungarian Uprising--Why doesn't the US intervene?

When Hungarians make the effort in 1956 to establish a government free from the influences of the Warsaw Pact, they assumed they would have US support in the event of a revolution.  Instead, the Hungarians were easily crushed by the Warsaw Pact troops, and American aid never came.

What, then, can we derive the US position to be in terms of assisting other countries in their independence movements from the Soviet Union?  Why were they more willing to intervene in Vietnam than Hungary?