Section IV (Change in the Modern World): The Cold War 1945-1991

A focused answer to the HSC Modern History Cold War dot point on the extension of the Cold War to Asia, the communist victory in the Chinese Civil War (1 October 1949), the Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance (14 February 1950), NSC-68 (April 1950), and the impact on American policy that produced rearmament and the Korean War.

A focused answer to the HSC Modern History Cold War dot point on the Korean War (25 June 1950 to 27 July 1953), the United Nations response under American command, the Chinese intervention (October 1950), the stalemate at the 38th parallel, and the militarisation of containment under NSC-68 that produced a tripled American defence budget and rearmed West Germany.

A focused answer to the HSC Modern History Cold War dot point on the Berlin Wall (13 August 1961), the haemorrhage of East German refugees that produced the crisis, Khrushchev's failed 1958 ultimatum and the Vienna Summit of June 1961, the Kennedy administration's accommodation through the three essentials, and the Wall as the de facto solution to the German question.

A focused answer to the HSC Modern History Cold War dot point on the Cuban Missile Crisis (16 to 28 October 1962), the Soviet decision to deploy missiles in Cuba, the U-2 discovery, the naval quarantine, the secret deal on Jupiter missiles in Turkey, and the impact on superpower relations through the Moscow hotline and the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty.

A focused answer to the HSC Modern History Cold War dot point on detente, the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I, 26 May 1972; SALT II, 18 June 1979), the Helsinki Final Act (1 August 1975), the role of Nixon, Kissinger, Brezhnev, Carter, and the collapse of detente by the late 1970s through the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (December 1979) and the failure of SALT II ratification.

A focused answer to the HSC Modern History Cold War dot point on the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the rise of nationalism in the Baltics, Russia, and Ukraine, the Novo-Ogaryovo process, the August 1991 coup attempt against Gorbachev, the rise of Boris Yeltsin, the Belavezha Accords (8 December 1991), and the formal end of the USSR on 25 December 1991.

A focused answer to the HSC Modern History Cold War dot point on Gorbachev's accession (11 March 1985), the reform programmes of glasnost and perestroika, New Thinking in foreign policy, the Reykjavik Summit (October 1986), the INF Treaty (8 December 1987), the Sinatra Doctrine replacing the Brezhnev Doctrine, and the bilateral process that brought the Cold War to a managed end.

A focused answer to the HSC Modern History Cold War dot point on the revolutions of 1989, the Polish round-table elections (June 1989), the Hungarian opening of the Austrian border (10 September), the fall of the Berlin Wall (9 November), the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia (November), and the Romanian revolution (December) that ended communist rule across Eastern Europe.

A focused answer to the HSC Modern History Cold War dot point on historical interpretations, the orthodox school of the 1950s blaming Stalin, the revisionist school of the 1960s and 1970s blaming American economic imperialism, the post-revisionist synthesis of the 1980s, and the post-archive reassessment after 1991 reaffirming Stalin's responsibility while acknowledging structural causes.

A focused answer to the HSC Modern History Cold War dot point on the Berlin Blockade (24 June 1948 to 12 May 1949), the Berlin Airlift, the formation of NATO (4 April 1949), and the division of Germany into the FRG (23 May 1949) and the GDR (7 October 1949) as the moment the Cold War became militarised in Europe.

A focused answer to the HSC Modern History Cold War dot point on the rhetoric and ideology of the early Cold War, George Kennan's Long Telegram from Moscow (22 February 1946), Churchill's Iron Curtain speech at Fulton, Missouri (5 March 1946), Novikov's parallel Soviet telegram (September 1946), and the development of containment as American grand strategy.

A focused answer to the HSC Modern History Cold War dot point on the Truman Doctrine (March 1947) and the Marshall Plan (June 1947), the doctrine of containment derived from Kennan's Long Telegram and X article, the Soviet response through Cominform and Comecon, and the consolidation of the Western and Eastern blocs.

A focused answer to the HSC Modern History Cold War dot point on origins, the wartime conferences at Yalta (February 1945) and Potsdam (July to August 1945), and the breakdown of the Grand Alliance through ideological, strategic, and personal divisions between the United States, Britain, and the USSR.

A focused answer to the HSC Modern History Cold War dot point on proxy wars in the Third World, the Vietnam War (American escalation 1965, Tet 1968, withdrawal 1973, fall of Saigon 1975), the Soviet war in Afghanistan (invasion 24 December 1979, withdrawal 15 February 1989), and the symmetrical strategic damage the two wars caused to American confidence and Soviet capacity.