Geographic and chronological scope

The Cold War's primary axis ran between Washington and Moscow, but it played out in every region. Europe was the central front, with the Iron Curtain dividing East from West. East Asia saw the communist victory in China and the wars in Korea and Vietnam. Latin America experienced the Cuban

Missile Crisis and a series of U.S. interventions. Africa and the Middle East became proxy battlegrounds. Afghanistan was the last major Cold War proxy war. The conflict ended where it began, in Europe, with the collapse of communist regimes between 1989 and 1991.