| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| satellite states | a country that is formally independent but under heavy political, economic, and military influence or control from another country. |
| policy of containment | a geopolitical strategic foreign policy pursued by the United States during the Cold War to prevent the spread of communism after the end of World War II. |
| Berlin Airlift | organized by the Western Allies from 26 June 1948 to 30 September 1949 to carry supplies to the people of West Berlin after teh Soviet Union blocked the Western Allies' railway, road, and canal access to the sectors of Berlin under Western control. |
| arms race | a race between hostile nations to accumulate or develop weapons |
| deterrance | the maintenance of military power for the purpose of discouraging attack |
| The Great Leap Forward | an economic and social campaign within the People's Republic of China (PRC) from 1958 to 1962, led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) |
| communes | a group of people who have chosen to live together with a common purpose, working cooperatively to create a lifestyle that reflects their shared core values |
| proxy wars | an armed conflict fought between two belligerents, wherein one belligerent is a non-state actor supported by an external third-party power. |
| Cuban Missile Crisis | a 13-day confrontation between the governments of the United Statesand the Soviet Union, when American deployments of nuclear missiles in Italy and Turkey were matched by Soviet deployments of nuclear missiles in Cuba |
| apartheid | a former policy of segregation and political, social, and economic discrimination against the non-white majority in the Republic of South Africa |
| De-Stalinization | a series of political reforms in the Soviet Union after the death of long-time leader Joseph Stalin in 1953, which denounced Stalin's cult of personality and the Stalinist political system. |
| Detente | the relaxation of strained relations or tensions (as between nations) |
| Perestroika | the policy of economic and governmental reform instituted by Mikhail Gorbachev in the Soviet Union during the mid-1980s |
| Glasnost | a Soviet policy permitting open discussion of political and social issues and freer dissemination of news and information |
| ethnic cleansing | the expulsion, imprisonment, or killing of an ethnic minority by a dominant majority in order to achieve ethnic homogeneity |
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