Why Study the Cold War?
The Cold War is an extremely important era in both American and Soviet history, but also in the grand scheme of World History. Studying the Cold War helps both students and participants in world politics understand how close our world came to a nuclear war. The fact that the leaders, through diplomatic means, were able to keep the war "cold" was a feat on its own. The history of the Cold War is tarnished with small proxy wars throughout multiple continents, but an all out war was avoided on almost all fronts. The ideological war was one of command vs. free market economies and in the end almost all countries rejected the command economy. The power struggle over technological innovations and "space race" gave way to a healthy competition between the two nations and helped keep our nations out of a Post-War recession.