How Did The Cold War Affect The Economy

Politics in The Developing World
21 November 2012

Cold War Alliances and the Transition into Today’s World Economy
Throughout the twentieth century during the Cold War era the world has seen many revolutions, especially in developing countries. Whether they be for independence from colonialism or for a new change, we have seen how those developing nations have constantly been transforming themselves into the nations we now know them by in today’s world. Moreover, we see the superpowers they took up alliances with in terms of economic and military aid. I have always had the question of the Superpower’s alliances and how these very alliances helped maintain their interests. The relevance of these alliances are strong even in today’s
To many this is considered the point in which the “Cold War got hot.” In 1954 at the Geneva conference-which the United States, Britain, China, the Soviet Union, France, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos were all present, there came an agreement in the accords to divide Vietnam in half at the 17th parallel, having Ho Chi Minh and his Communists to have control the North where Bao Dai’s regime received control of the South. After the accords were set in motion Ho Chi Minh resurfaces after eight long years of hiding to formally regain control of Vietnam while in South Vietnam Bao Dai installs Ngo Dinh Diem as his Prime Minister. This gave the United States hope for a democratic South Vietnam under the anti-communist ideologies of Ngo Dinh Diem. As a devout Christian in a South Asia that was overwhelmingly Buddhist, Diem encouraged for the South Vietnamese living in the North to flee and migrate into South Vietnam while the Northerners living in the South to flee to the North. An estimated one million South Vietnamese flee to the North while 90,000 Communists form the North flee the South. The main conflict was among the Communist Northern Vietnamese under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh and the Anti-Communists who were under the leadership of Ngo Dinh Diem. In 1955 the first direct shipment of United States military aid to Saigon, where the United States offers the training of the weak South Vietnamese army. Meanwhile the South Vietnamese receive aid from the United States and other anti communist nations such as South Korea and Australia, in that very same year Ho Chi Minh visited Moscow and agreed on the aid provided by the Soviet Union. As Bao Dai is ousted from power by means of a plebiscite, which was backed by the United States, Diem is advised to fortify his position of power by the Air Force Col. Edward G. Lansdale, who