The Effect of the Cold War on the World

The question suggests that the rivalry between the superpowers were responsible for worsening and prolonging the regional conflicts. The Cold War was the elongated tension between the Soviet Union and the United States of America. It started in the mid 40's after WWII had left Europe in shambles and USSR and US in superpower positions. The Cold War was a clash of these superpowers in political, ideological, security, and economic values and ideas. It caused a bipolar system in the world where there were two dominant powers fighting to become the dominant power. US and USSR being on opposing sides in Europe by the 1950s have extended the conflicts to other parts of the world. By using other countries as platforms to host their competition either to win or undermine the other what was supposedly a regional conflict became a global one. The mutual hostility and rivalry between the 2 opposing ideologues certainly aggravated the conflict once it started. But we also need to examine if these conflicts being localized conflicts did indeed aggravate the hostility and rivalry between the US and USSR.

Most of the regional conflicts were not mastermind or instigated by the superpowers. They mostly began out of local conflicts or revolutions that eventually attracted the superpowers because of the opportunities that became available with these conflicts like nationalist wars and because by at that point of time Europe was in a deadlock. The Superpowers were involved indirect and could not do anything to control the conflicts as the regional conflict were already in progress. In the Middle East, due to the decolonization after WWII, there was the emergence of new nations; new states that are more nationalistic - Nasserism and Pan Arabism. There were also states that were fighting for the same piece of land( territorial claims): Arab – Israeli wars and historic tension that caused the local conflicts to arise. This brought the superpowers into the picture as the Middle East