Talk:Cold War/Archive 3
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this article needs major work
This article is written for acedemics to read. We need to re-organize it. I hope to have some time this week. Kingturtle 03:08, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
- I think you'll find it's very easy to get overwhelmed, because there's a lot of material to organize. I'm guessing you're partly reacting to the historiography content; the outline at talk:Cold War/temp proposes making a separate article for the more academic discussion of the historiography (although that could be enlivened with a few quotes of the historians calling each other "blithering idiots" in best professional style :-) ). Stan 05:10, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
- I agree with that idea too. I should've mentioned earlier that I favor a separate article, like for, say, historiography, in addition to the articles I've listed above- so an organization along the lines of New Imperialism's. 172 06:34, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
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- I think terms like first/second world are pointless. They should be replaced by capitalist-predominantly democratic (or Free World), Communist-poorer (Communist Bloc). 3rd World I think is fine. --CJWilly 22:57, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
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Cold War started on March 5, 1946 – ended on November 9, 1989
It can be argued that the Cold War started in 1917 when aid was sent to the White Russians, or Yalta Conference or End of World War II in 1945. But the best date for defining the start is March 5, 1946 when Winston Churchill spoke at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri: "From Stettin on the Baltic to Trieste on the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent..." because that is when most people in the West realised for the first time that there might be a new war and that is what lead to NATO etc. (Not that Churchill had ever had ever had any illusions in that area: "If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons." – Winston Churchill.)
The best date for the end of the cold war is the day that the Iron Curtain was ripped open in Berlin on November 9, 1989. It was all over and everone knew it.
There can be mention of events before and afterwards which contributed to the start and end, but those are the two key dates for the Start and End. Philip Baird Shearer 00:54, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Intelligence agencies
I have some problems with the intelligence agencies section; mainly it makes it out like the rest of the world did nothing during the whole Cold War than play a spy game. Such is patently ridiculous. Aside from major conflicts involving superpowers (Korean War, Vietnam War, War in Afghanistan) there was many proxy wars, coups, insurrections, etc. I think it is really pretty ridiculous to say: "The agent war of mutual espionage both of civilian and military targets may have caused most casualties of the Cold War." I find this really, really unlikely. I mean, the Vietnam War alone had around 50,000 US deaths and 1.5-5 million Vietnamese deaths. Can the agent war compete? --Fastfission 05:16, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Different names for Eastern and Western Blocs
There was no universally held expression to describe the two camps of the Cold War. I think most of the expressions used should be listed in the opening paragraph. Revealingly, this article has gone from 1st World VS 2nd World to West VS Eastern Blocs. It just shows how there are many, equally valid expressions. There is no sense in trying to pic the most neutral, especially as many of the terms have subtly different meanings (Warsaw Pact is not the same as Communist Bloc or 2nd World), many of these terms have seperate articles. I therefore vote to have the seperate terms listed, Free World/NATO/Western Bloc/1st World alongside Communist World/Warsaw Pact/Eastern Bloc/2nd World. --CJWilly 19:10, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Comments
Better than the old article, but I see a lot of the same problems, just to a lesser degree.
There are still some references to "socialist" that should be more specific and say "Communist". Using the word "socialist" this way was a staple of Cold War era Communist propaganda and used to imply that only Communists are true socialists.
Lech Walesa and Afghanistan are now mentioned, but take up little space compared to, for instance, Iran. The article uses loaded phrasing such as 'a melodramatic polemic denouncing the "containment" of the Truman administration, and espousing an active program of "liberation"' which have no business being there. And count the references to the CIA, and compare to the number of references to the KGB. Likewise, the Nazi-Soviet pact is mentioned, but gets a sentence, yet the US economy below gets ten times the space.
And then we have paragraphs such as the following:
"US behavior in South Asia during the Cold War has been criticized for supporting autocratic governments in Pakistan, and for contributing to the ongoing conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir."
The problem with that paragraph is that one way to make an article one-sided is to accurately report what claims are made by one side, but simply to omit any rebuttals that the other side made. I'm sure that while some people criticized US behavior in South Asia, other people had replies to that criticism, but you'd never know from reading this.
And a much simpler problem:
'The Atlantic Charter was publicized regarding this with principles such as "people have right to choose own government" - this was given about as much credence by the West as by the East however.'
That is neither NPOV nor true. (Note that it's a much stronger statement than merely saying "the West didn't always let people choose their own government", which would be true).
"Nixon ordered illegal military incursions into Cambodia". Umm, NPOV?
"Enormous deficits to pay for the bloated defense budgets". NPOV?
And I'm just picking examples. It's full of this stuff.
