• Conflict: Korean War, Vietnam War, Cuban Missile Crisis, Afghanistan, dozens of proxy wars
• Power and abuse of power: Stalin's continued repression, Mao's Great Leap and Cultural Revolution, Pinochet's Chile, North Korea
• Impact of technology: Nuclear weapons, satellites, space race, information technology, missile systems
• Human rights violations: Forced collectivization, Cultural Revolution, Khmer Rouge genocide, Tiananmen Square
• Cultural diffusion: American culture spread globally, communist ideology spread to many countries, eventually globalization accelerated cultural exchange
• Desire for human rights: Dissident movements in USSR (Sakharov, Solzhenitsyn) and Eastern Europe (Havel, Walesa), Tiananmen protesters

XI. Key Terms and People to Memorize

Concepts and Terms

• Cold War: Ideological, political, economic, and proxy military competition between the U.S. and USSR, 1945-1991
• Superpower: A state with the ability to project power globally; U.S. and USSR after WWII
• Iron Curtain: Churchill's term for the line dividing Western from Eastern (Soviet-controlled) Europe
• Containment: U.S. policy of resisting Soviet expansion without direct military confrontation
• Truman Doctrine (1947): U.S. policy of supporting free peoples resisting Soviet pressure
• Marshall Plan (1948): Massive U.S. economic aid to rebuild Western European economies
• Berlin Blockade and Airlift (1948-49): Soviet blockade of West Berlin defeated by Allied airlift
• NATO (1949): North Atlantic Treaty Organization; defensive alliance of Western democracies
• Warsaw Pact (1955): Soviet-led military alliance of Eastern European communist states
• Yalta Conference (1945): Big Three meeting that shaped postwar Europe
• Potsdam Conference (1945): Postwar Allied meeting; tensions visible
• United Nations: Created 1945 to replace failed League of Nations
• Security Council: UN body with five permanent veto-wielding members (U.S., USSR/Russia, UK, France, China)
• Arms race: Cold War nuclear weapons buildup
• Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD): Doctrine that nuclear retaliation made first strikes irrational
• Domino theory: If one country falls to communism, neighbors will follow
• Détente: Period of reduced Cold War tension in the 1970s
• SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks): U.S.-Soviet arms control negotiations
• Brezhnev Doctrine: Soviet claim of the right to intervene in communist states to preserve socialism
• Bay of Pigs (1961): Failed CIA-backed invasion of Cuba
• Cuban Missile Crisis (1962): Closest approach to nuclear war during the Cold War
• Korean War (1950-1953): First major hot war of the Cold War
• 38th parallel: Dividing line between North and South Korea
• DMZ (Demilitarized Zone): Border zone between North and South Korea
• Vietnam War (1955-1975): Cold War proxy conflict ending in communist victory
• Dien Bien Phu (1954): Vietnamese victory over France ending French colonial rule

Key Events and Concepts

• Geneva Accords (1954): Temporarily divided Vietnam at 17th parallel
• Viet Cong: Communist insurgents in South Vietnam
• Tet Offensive (1968): North Vietnamese/Viet Cong attacks that turned U.S. opinion against the war
• Vietnamization: Nixon's policy of withdrawing U.S. troops while training South Vietnamese
• Great Leap Forward (1958-62): Mao's failed industrialization campaign
• Cultural Revolution (1966-76): Mao's purge that traumatized Chinese society
• Red Guards: Young Maoists who attacked traditional culture and party rivals
• Sino-Soviet Split: Breakdown of the Soviet-Chinese alliance in the 1960s
• Tiananmen Square (June 1989): Chinese government's violent suppression of pro-democracy protests
• Glasnost: Gorbachev's policy of political openness
• Perestroika: Gorbachev's policy of economic restructuring
• Solidarity: Polish independent labor union founded 1980
• Berlin Wall (1961-1989): Wall built to stop East Germans fleeing to the West; symbol of Cold War division
• Velvet Revolution (1989): Peaceful overthrow of Czechoslovak communism
• Helsinki Accords (1975): Recognized European borders but committed signatories to human rights, becoming a basis for dissident movements

People

• Joseph Stalin: Soviet leader until 1953
• Harry Truman: U.S. president 1945-1953, articulator of containment
• Winston Churchill: British PM, gave Iron Curtain speech
• George Marshall: U.S. Secretary of State, namesake of Marshall Plan
• George Kennan: Diplomat who articulated containment
• Nikita Khrushchev: Soviet leader 1955-1964, denounced Stalin
• John F. Kennedy: U.S. president 1961-1963
• Fidel Castro: Cuban revolutionary leader
• Mao Zedong: Chinese Communist leader, founder of PRC
• Chiang Kai-shek: Nationalist Chinese leader, fled to Taiwan
• Zhou Enlai: Chinese Premier under Mao
• Deng Xiaoping: Chinese leader after Mao, market reformer
• Ho Chi Minh: Vietnamese communist independence leader

Key Figures in 20th Century Politics

• Ngo Dinh Diem: South Vietnamese president, overthrown 1963
• Lyndon Johnson: U.S. president 1963-1969, escalated Vietnam
• Richard Nixon: U.S. president 1969-1974, opening to China, Vietnamization, détente
• Leonid Brezhnev: Soviet leader 1964-1982
• Mikhail Gorbachev: Last Soviet leader, reformer whose policies led to USSR collapse
• Ronald Reagan: U.S. president 1981-1989, military buildup, summits with Gorbachev
• Lech Walesa: Polish Solidarity leader
• Vaclav Havel: Czech dissident writer, post-1989 president
• Boris Yeltsin: First president of post-Soviet Russia
• Pope John Paul II: Polish-born pope whose support for Solidarity helped end communism
• Andrei Sakharov: Soviet physicist and dissident, advocate for human rights
• Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: Soviet writer whose Gulag Archipelago exposed Soviet repression
• Kim Il-sung: North Korean communist leader

XII. Typical Regents Questions and Topics

Unit 10.6 typically generates 4-6 MC questions and is commonly used for CRQ sets on the Cold War and Mao's China. The Cuban Missile Crisis, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and the end of the Cold War under Gorbachev are particularly common topics.

Question Format 1: Origins of the Cold War

Questions about Yalta, Potsdam, Iron Curtain, containment, Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, Berlin Airlift, NATO and Warsaw Pact.

Strategy: Match the policy to its function. Truman Doctrine signals support for free peoples resisting communism. Marshall Plan is economic aid to Western Europe. Berlin Airlift is the response to Soviet blockade. NATO is a defensive military alliance.

Question Format 2: Identify Containment

A passage describes American policy of resisting Soviet expansion through long-term pressure short of war. Maria identifies containment as the policy.

Question Format 3: Korean War

Questions about North Korean invasion, UN response, Chinese intervention, armistice, division at 38th parallel, DMZ.

Question Format 4: Mao and Communist China

Questions about the 1949 revolution, Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, the Sino-Soviet split, Nixon's opening, Deng's reforms, Tiananmen Square.

Question Format 5: Cuban Missile Crisis

Questions about the cause (Soviet missiles in Cuba), the response (Kennedy's quarantine), the resolution (Khrushchev's withdrawal of missiles in exchange for U.S. pledge not to invade Cuba), and the significance (closest approach to nuclear war).

Question Format 6: Vietnam War

Questions about Ho Chi Minh, Dien Bien Phu, division of Vietnam, U.S. escalation, Tet Offensive, Vietnamization, fall of Saigon.