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Course: World History Project AP® > Unit 8
Lesson 1: 8.0—Setting the Stage- BEFORE YOU WATCH: Unit 8 Overview - Cold War and Decolonization
- WATCH: Unit 8 Overview
- READ: Unit 8 Introduction - Cold War & Decolonization, 1945–1990
- READ: Spread of Communism
- READ: Devastation of Old Markets
- READ: Data Exploration – Global Inequality
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WATCH: Unit 8 Overview
Two conflicts dominated the latter half of the twentieth century: decolonization and the Cold War. Two superpowers emerged from the destruction of World War II: the US and Soviet Union. They each sought influence around the world during the ideological conflict known as the Cold War. Meanwhile, colonized peoples everywhere fought for their independence. The US and Soviet Union wanted allies and influence among newly independent states. Often, both superpowers supported different factions, resulting in several “hot” wars in the decolonizing world. The battle of Cuito Cuanavale is one example of the linkages between the Cold War and decolonization. Like what you see? This video is part of a comprehensive social studies curriculum from OER Project, a family of free, online social studies courses. OER Project aims to empower teachers by offering free and fully supported social studies courses for middle- and high-school students. Your account is the key to accessing our standards-aligned courses that are designed with built-in supports like leveled readings, audio recordings of texts, video transcripts, and more. Register today at oerproject.com!
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Twitter: https://twitter.com/oerproject. Created by World History Project.
Video transcript
It was the summer of 1987. Madonna sat atop the
Billboard 100. The Cold War was almost over. Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev had shaken hands in
Iceland. No one knew it yet, but the Soviet Union would collapse just a few years later. And almost
every country in Africa had won its independence from colonial rule. And yet, in Cuito Cuanavale—
a small, sleepy farming town in southern Angola— two armies converged. Well, I say two armies, but
it was more like nine or ten. Several factions of Angolan nationalists, Cuban, South African, and
other soldiers from around Africa, faced off in the small town. But there were only two sides: the one
secretly supported by the United States and the one secretly supported by the Soviet Union. This
seven-month battle was the largest in Angola's Civil War and it was the last battle in a decades-long
struggle for independence. It was perhaps the final "hot" battle of the Cold War between the U.S. and
the Soviet Union. What can the battle of Cuito Cuanavale teach us about the entangled histories
of the Cold War and decolonization? Let's find out. Hi, I'm John Arthur, and this is Unit 8: Cold
War and Decolonization 1900 to Present. Two global struggles dominated the
second half of the 20th century. One struggle was the clash between two alliances—
one led by the United States and the other by the Soviet Union—in what is known as the
Cold War. The other struggle was a conflict between the remaining global empires and
their colonized peoples, who were fighting for independence. This is known as decolonization.
These two struggles are often studied separately, but the Cold War and decolonization are best
understood together. When the Second World War ended with an Allied victory, the world paused
to take a deep breath. But almost immediately, new challenges emerged. The first was a confrontation
between the United States and the Soviet Union. The two countries made stronger, rather than
weaker, by the war. The United States and the Soviet Union emerged as the two new superpowers.
But they had vastly different interests and values. These two governments distrusted each other
and they competed for influence around the world, though they mostly avoided a direct conflict with
each other—that's why we call it a "cold" war. The Cold War was entangled with decolonization
struggles. You see, after World War II, colonized peoples wondered why they shouldn't
benefit from the struggle for freedom. After fighting to preserve the world from fascism, they
demanded their own independent nation-states. These feelings drove a flood of anti-colonial movements
that brought down weakened European empires. Dozens of new independent nation-
states rose all around the world. The Cold War and decolonization were both
continuations of some of the trends you saw at the end of Unit 7. And we can better understand the
ways these two post-war struggles were entangled by looking at continuity and change through the
course themes. On the surface, the Cold War was a confrontation between the two most powerful
states in the late 20th century as they sought to dominate international politics. Yet, this
was also a struggle of economics and ideology, the United States was deeply supportive of
a free-market capitalist world economy, while the Soviet Union championed communism and ran
the world's largest centralized, command economy. But these ideologies extended beyond simple
economics. Capitalism and communism developed as competing ideologies with very different
understandings of the world and human morality. They each developed distinct ideas
about how society ought to be ordered and who should control resources. And these
weren't the only two ideologies in the world. Some decolonized nations created the non-aligned
movement—a promise to remain neutral in the Cold War—to chart their own course and preserve their
own cultural and economic preferences in the face of superpower pressure. Capitalism and communism
each had their own strengths and weaknesses. But they also had similar needs. One of those needs
was for raw materials. The battles to control the raw materials of former colonies helped draw
both superpowers into decolonization conflicts. Both the United States and the Soviet Union saw
decolonization conflicts as opportunities in their struggle against each other. They supported
leaders who sided with them and targeted those who favored their enemies. Nuclear weapons made
direct conflict between the Soviets and Americans unimaginably risky. And so the two superpowers
often engaged in proxy wars. In the Angolan Civil War, we can see one example of this strategy as
the armies converged on Cuito Cuanavale in 1987. Angola is a country in Southern Africa, and
it was a Portuguese colony from the mid-16th century until 1975. You'll remember from Unit
6 the stories of European empires using forced labor to extract resources from their colonies. The
private companies that Portugal allowed to operate in Angola also use forest labor as they mined land
for oil, diamonds, and other resources. Portugal was a dictatorship until 1975, and its colonial rule
was brutally repressive. Nationalist resistance movements arose in Angola in the 1960s as people began demanding
independence and an end to oppression. In 1975, the dictatorship was overthrown, and the new government
announced their plans to withdraw from Angola. As the Portuguese withdrew, several of the nationalist
factions battled each other for control of Angola's future. The socialist MPLA party prevailed
and led the new government of Angola. They aligned themselves with the Soviet Union, who had helped
fund the Angolan struggle against the Portuguese. In reply, the United States and its allies,
including the government of South Africa, supported an Angolan rebel group called UNITA.
Throughout the 1970s, the Angolan government was backed by Soviet advisers and volunteers
from other communist countries such as Cuba. They battled UNITA and its supporters,
particularly South Africa. In late 1987, Angolan government forces finally closed in
on the UNITA strongholds in southern Angola. The South African military quickly sent aid
to the UNITA forces trapped there. In response to that move, Cuba sent tens of thousands of
volunteers to aid the Angolan government forces. As a result, the small town of Cuito Cuanavale
turned into a massive battlefield as Cold War and decolonization conflicts collided. Throughout
February and March 1988, Cuban and Angolan forces battled the UNITA rebels and troops from South
Africa, eventually driving them off. Neither the United States nor the Soviet Union were directly
involved. Instead, their conflict was fought through their allies and local forces. But this was
definitely a Cold War confrontation between the capitalist and communist worlds. And it was also
the last battle for the decolonization of Angola. The battle of Cuito Cuanavale is only one
example of the ways in which the Cold War and decolonization overlapped. In this unit,
you'll encounter many more as the superpowers challenge each other for dominance and emerging
nations struggle against the forces of colonialism.