Cold War Study Guide: 96 Flashcards from the Truman Doctrine to 1991
Study the Cold War with 96 flashcards: containment, Berlin, Cuba, détente, arms treaties and the Soviet collapse, plus 3 corrections and a four-era study plan.
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The Cold War deck (GN8180, 96 cards) is a solid question-and-answer survey of 1947-1991: blocs, doctrines, crises, treaties and the collapse. Its facts are mostly right; its weakness is order. Yalta and Potsdam (1945) sit at cards 73-74, the purpose of the Truman Doctrine at card 92. Reorder it and it becomes a clean timeline.
Study this deck: Cold War
1 / 10What was the Cold War?
Tap the card for the answer · swipe right if you knew it, left if not
Cards worth quoting
| Front | Back |
|---|---|
| When did the Cold War begin? | Commonly dated to March 12, 1947 with the Truman Doctrine |
| Who formulated the containment policy? | George F. Kennan in his 'Long Telegram' and 'X Article' |
| What was the Berlin Blockade? | 1948-1949 Soviet attempt to cut off Western access to West Berlin |
| How was the Cuban Missile Crisis resolved? | Soviets withdrew missiles from Cuba; U.S. secretly agreed to remove missiles from Turkey |
| What was the Brezhnev Doctrine? | Soviet policy justifying intervention in Eastern Bloc countries to preserve communist rule |
| What was the Able Archer 83 incident? | 1983 NATO exercise that nearly caused nuclear war due to Soviet misinterpretation |
| What was the Olympic boycott? | U.S.-led boycott of 1980 Moscow Olympics; Soviet-led boycott of 1984 Los Angeles Olympics |
| What was peaceful coexistence? | Khrushchev's policy that communist and capitalist countries could coexist without war |
What you'll cover
Iron Curtain and Churchill's Fulton speech, Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, containment, NATO (1949), Warsaw Pact (1955), Berlin Airlift, Berlin Wall (1961-1989), Korean War and the 38th parallel, Vietnam, Gulf of Tonkin, Rolling Thunder, Tet Offensive, Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis, the hotline, Sputnik, Gagarin, Armstrong, MAD, détente, SALT I/II, Helsinki Accords, domino theory, McCarthyism, HUAC, the Rosenbergs, Hungary 1956, Prague Spring, Sino-Soviet split, ping-pong diplomacy, Suez, Afghanistan, Reagan Doctrine, SDI, glasnost, perestroika, Solidarity, the U-2 incident, Radio Free Europe, the Test Ban Treaty, NPT, INF Treaty, Angola, Nicaragua, Chernobyl and German reunification.
Three corrections to write into your cards
- Card 46 says Nixon's 1972 trip "normalized U.S.-China relations". It produced the Shanghai Communiqué; formal normalization came on January 1, 1979, under Carter.
- Card 13: the Warsaw Pact answered not NATO's founding in 1949 but West Germany joining NATO in May 1955 — that six-year gap is a classic exam question.
- Card 34: SALT II was signed in 1979 but never ratified after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Tip 1: rebuild it as four eras
Sort the cards into origins (1945-1949: Yalta, Potsdam, Iron Curtain, Truman, Marshall, Berlin Blockade, NATO), confrontation (1950-1962: Korea to Cuba), détente (1963-1979: Test Ban to SALT II) and endgame (1979-1991: Afghanistan to dissolution). Then suspend the duplicates: card 59 repeats card 4 (December 26, 1991), 61 repeats 54 (Gorbachev), 88 repeats 18 (the Wall) and 92 extends 8.
Tip 2: add the missing leaders
Reagan, Gorbachev, Castro, Mao and Ho Chi Minh each get a card, but Stalin, Khrushchev and Kennedy appear only inside lists (cards 73, 94-96). Kennedy is never named in the Cuban Missile Crisis cards. Write three "Who was…?" cards before you start — they anchor half the deck.
Related reading
For what came after 1991, continue with contemporary world history from Bretton Woods to the fall of Assad.
Open GN8180 – Cold War in the library on Flip It.
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