ABSTRACT
A global Cold War enveloped the greater part of the second half of the twentieth century. Developments in East and Southeast Asia, from the Chinese Civil War to the protracted conflict in Vietnam, are detailed to set the tone from without. In 1955, the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance was signed in Warsaw by the Soviet Union and seven other states, viz. Albania, Poland, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Bulgaria. In perusing the historiography of the Cold War, there are three general trends or schools of thought of divided opinions: the ‘traditional or orthodox’ stance, ‘revisionist’ counter-arguments, and the ‘post-revisionist’ thesis. The Chinese Civil War was a dress rehearsal of more protracted proxy wars to follow during the Cold War proper. Chiang’s Nationalist regime received moral and material support from the US in particular and from other Western democracies. The Indonesian Revolution is viewed from the global Cold War scenario.
