ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by examining how to explain the onset of Cold War using different levels of analysis and different theoretical lenses. The Korean War, thousands of miles from Europe, globalized the Cold War. At the individual level, explanation of the Cold War's onset emphasizes the anti-communism of Western leaders like Winston Churchill and Harry Truman. At the unit level, the most prominent explanation of the Cold War is that it was caused by the collision of two competing economic and political systems. At the global-system level, neorealists focus on the bipolar distribution of military power as an explanation for the Cold War. The chapter examines the Vietnam War and the 1962 Cuban missile crisis and its consequences, including Soviet–American detente in the 1970s. In 1967, the group Vietnam Veterans against the War was formed.
