ABSTRACT

Although the East-West confrontation of the cold war years did not lead to a world war, or even to a direct conflict between NATO and Warsaw Pact forces, one of its main consequences was a series of proxy wars fought throughout the Third World. These, together with many regional conflicts, meant that the period from 1945 to 2000 saw substantial losses of life and serious injuries, with 25 million people killed and 75 million seriously injured, and repeated disruption to local and regional economies, mostly in the Third World (Sivard 1996; IISS 2006).