ABSTRACT
The chapter looks at the connections between the Cold War, globalization, and technological development. It argues that the Cold War induced three revolutions that, in turn, stimulated the globalization wave of the 1990s. The first was the revolution in aviation transportation; the second, in electronics miniaturization; and the third, in environmental protection and ecology. It uses the civil aviation sector as a case study not only for demonstrating the first revolution, but also the latter two, for which this industry stood as a vital test bed. The chapter contrasts the developments in the West and the East, in the latter with particular emphasis on the USSR and Czechoslovakia and concludes that the inability of the countries within the Soviet orbit to address these three revolutions heavily contributed to the demise of the communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989.
