Cold War Vocabulary
This term describes a state of tension and rivalry without direct military conflict.
What is the Cold War?
This Soviet leader ruled during much of the early Cold War.
Who is Joseph Stalin?
This city became a major Cold War hotspot despite being deep inside East Germany.
What is Berlin?
This 1962 event brought the U.S. and USSR closest to nuclear war.
What is the Cuban Missile Crisis?
One major weakness of communist economies by the 1980s.
What is economic inefficiency?
This phrase described the political division between Eastern and Western Europe.
What is the Iron Curtain?
He was the U.S. president during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Who is John F. Kennedy?
This 1948–49 event occurred when the Soviets blocked land access to West Berlin.
What is the Berlin Airlift?
These wars allowed the U.S. and Soviet Union to compete without fighting directly.
What are proxy wars?
This problem drained the Soviet economy during the Cold War.
What is unsustainable military spending?
This Cold War idea argued that nuclear war would destroy both sides completely.
What is Mutually Assured Destruction?
This leader introduced glasnost and perestroika in the Soviet Union.
Who is Mikhail Gorbachev?
This structure physically divided a city and symbolized the Cold War.
What is the Berlin Wall?
This Asian war was an early Cold War proxy conflict.
What is the Korean War?
These public demonstrations pressured communist governments in the late 1980s.
What are mass protests?
This U.S. program helped rebuild European economies after World War II.
What is the Marshall Plan?
He led the communist revolution in China.
Who is Mao Zedong?
This 1956 uprising challenged Soviet control in Eastern Europe.
What is the Hungarian Revolution?
This long conflict showed Cold War competition in Southeast Asia.
What is the Vietnam War?
This year marks the official collapse of the Soviet Union.
What is 1991?
These two military alliances organized Europe into rival power blocs.
What are NATO and the Warsaw Pact?
This Cuban leader allied with the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Who is Fidel Castro?
This 1968 reform movement in Czechoslovakia was crushed by Soviet troops.
What is the Prague Spring?
This war demonstrated Cold War rivalry in Central Asia during the 1980s.
What is the Soviet-Afghan War?
Name two reasons communism collapsed in Eastern Europe.
What are economic problems, military costs, Gorbachev’s reforms, mass protests, or foreign pressure?