11.3 - Conflicts and Endings
Indochina and Afghanistan
- Indochina
- modern day Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam
- Colonized by France during 1800s
- Overrun by Japanese during WWII
- French returned to try and reconquer the area
- French are unsuccessful
- Geneva Conference (1954)
- Future of Indochina was determined
- Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia were declared as nations
- Ho Chi Minh
- led North Vietnam
- Tet Offensive (January 1968)
- North Vietnamese Army allied with Vietkong to seize the upper hand in the war
- Heavy losses on both sides
- Led to loss of support of the war in the US and elsewhere
- Khmer Rouge
- In Cambodia, communist revolutionaries
- Pol Pot was the leader
- “Killing Fields”
- Systematic killing of 1.5-2 million Cambodians, carried out by Pol Pot
- 1/4 of the population
- Systematic killing of 1.5-2 million Cambodians, carried out by Pol Pot
- Soviet-Afghan conflict (1979-1989)
- Soviets try to support the communists
- Soviets had better technology, but Afghan resistance had better fighting technique
- Mujahideen
- Jihadist warriors
- Likeminded fighters
- Keep fighting no matter what!
- Osama bin Laden
- Part of the Muhajideen
- Brezhnev Doctrine
- Soviets should support socialist countries in war
- Leonid Brezhnev
- Leader of USSR during the Soviet-Afghan conflict
Fall of the Iron Curtain/Soviet Collapse
- détente
- Agreements that led to less tension between US and USSR
- Mikhail Gorbachev
- Took power in 1985
- Perestroika (restructuring)
- Glasnost (openess)
- Did not turn fully to capitalism
- Ronald Reagan
- Increased tension between US and USSR
- Increased military spending a ton
- Strategic Defense Initiative (“Star Wars”)
- Space-based anti-missile projects
- Lech Walesa
- Leader of a Polish trade union Solidarity
- Advocated for several reforms
- Became president of Poland
- Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu
- Romanian dictators w/ cult of personality
- Led to violent overthrow of regime
- Francis Fukuyama and the “end of history”
- Believed the events at the end of Communism would lead to the "universalization of Western liberal democracy"
- Velvet Revolution
- End of Communism across much of Europe
- Boris Yeltsin
- former mayor of Moscow