Tijdvak 10 Paradoxes of Global Acceleration 1945-2004

1. Tijdvak 10 Paradoxes of Global Acceleration 1945-2004

2. The World in 1945: • 50 million people killed during WW II • Parts of Europe, Asia, and North Africa in ruins • World trade severely damaged Much of the world looked pretty bleak.

3. Many European economies in shambles • European Colonial empires crumbling • Growing nationalist movements in Africa and Asia • U.S. the major industrial and atomic power The world entered a new era.

4. Cold War policies developed: • The Soviet Union occupied Eastern Europe and part of Germany. • The U.S. moves to encircle the Soviet Union with a system of alliances and military aid. • U.S. offers Marshal plan to rebuild Europe and gives $13 billion in aid. • The U.S. adopted a policy of “Containment” of the Soviet Union with military bases around the world. • An “Iron Curtain” of tense relations separated the Western allies from the U.S.S.R. and its allies.

5. The World became divided into two hostile camps: The U.S.S.R. and the U.S. Joseph Stalin Pres. Harry Truman 1946-60

6. I guess it made sense at the time. During the Cold War, the U.S.S.R and the U.S. followed a policy of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). Mutual Assured Destruction is a military deterrence strategy in which a full scale use of nuclear weapons by one of the opposing powers would result in the destruction of both. The U.S. and U.S.S.R had enough nuclear bombs to destroy the world about 400 times.

7. The Cold War was very costly in lives. 1950-53 - A divided Korea led to war, separated family members, and cost a million lives, including 48,000 Americans. 1963-1972 - Three million people died in the Vietnam War, including 58,000 Americans.

8. The forty years of the Cold War were costly in resources. We spent 3.5 trillion, and for what? We spent 5.5 trillion dollars on nuclear arms, and we won! How much is a trillion dollars? Michail Gorbachev George H.W. Bush A trillion dollars is enough to give each family in the U.S. $100,000.

9. During the cold war many former colonized peoples created new nations. • India gained independence from Britain in 1947. • Indonesia gained independence from the Dutch in 1949. • Ghana gained independence from Great Britain in 1957. • By 1965 most former European colonies had become newly created independent nation-states. . The U.S. and the U.S.S.R. competed for the loyalties of these new nations.

10. In 1989, the Berlin Wall came down and the Cold War ended. Eastern European countries broke away from Soviet control. The Soviet Union itself broke into more than a dozen new states. The Berlin Wall was built in August 1961 The Wall was destroyed on November 9, 1989

11. Several of the new nations pursued a non-aligned policy. • In 1955 India, Indonesia, and Yugoslavia sponsored the Bandung Conference of Non-Aligned nations. It aimed to promote solidarity among newly independent states and to prevent the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. from meddling in their domestic affairs. • Nehru and Sukarno led the meeting. Sukarno of Indonesia Nehru of India

12. Colonialism left new nations “Underdeveloped.”This table shows how shares of world Gross Domestic Product changed between 1870 and 1998. What might we learn from this table about patterns of economic development in the world?