Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Fall 2010
• Westad, Odd Arne. The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our
Times. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Odd Westad seeks to remind his readers that the Cold War was indeed a global
phenomena in his latest monograph. Of great interest when seeking connections between Cold
War scenarios and contemporary conflict in 2010, Westad points out how, in a multipolar much
like a bipolar one, opposition to one does not always mean support for another. Westad also
documents the slow trend from north to south Africa throughout the latter decades of the Cold
War as Marxist regimes pushed Western allies further south. Using extensive archival research
all over the world, Westad argues that there were connections between the superpower hegemony
Following his symposium address in the late 1990s on the use of Soviet and other
language archives when trying to redraw what we really know about the Cold War, Westad
moves the traditional Anglo-centric narrative to Third World nations. Westad contends both the
United States and the Soviet Union had visions of a new world system based on the perceived
strengths of their regimes: liberty and social justice respectively. Westad orients narrative in the
direction of showing what he believes to be the largest tragedy of the cold war; that two projects
both genuinely anti colonial in origins became part of a much older pattern of colonial
domination.
Because of the alarming moves that ended up imposing a new colonialist trend in
superpower policies, Westad concludes that Soviet engagement in Afghanistan hastened the
collapse of the Soviet Union. Not only did it exacerbate a deteriorating economy, but the
intended result of bettering relations with Iran under Khomeini failed to come to fruition because
involved with Third World interventions. However, Westad does not go so far as to throw out the
When discussing Ronald Reagan’s policies, Westad contends his attempts at spreading
counterrevolutions in hopes of pushing the Soviets back failed throughout his first
administration. Rather, American pressures actually forced the Soviets to retrench in their
escapades to the point that successive attempts at proxy conflicts turned into quagmires instead;
Afghanistan is the largest case for this. Wested sees Gorbachev as the first enlightened Soviet
leader with an understanding and appreciation of self determination, but note that his ascension
to power was simply too late to save face for the Soviet Union.
Westad concludes with perceptions of the superpowers from the Third World states. He
asserts that the results of American interventions ruined American prestige in many regions of
the world. He contends that, “Instead of being a force for good--which they were no doubt
intended to be--these incursions have devastated many societies and left them more vulnerable to
further disasters of their own making.” He forecasts a point in time when Third World nations
will rise up against the West, and as the first decade of the twenty-first century comes to a close,
he ends up proven more correct with each escalating crisis in Third World states.