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The Cold War Was A Large Period Of Political Tension Essay

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The cold war was a large period of political tension between the two great powers of the time and its allies (United States of America and NATO, USSR and the communist states). It was a clash of ideologies as well as of Nations, with both countries trying to expand and consolidate their way of governing and living. The end of the cold war in 1991 signaled a victory for the USA and its allies, the Soviet Union fell and therefore so did communism. At the time the victory seemed final: The West was left unrivaled economically, politically and militarily. It seemed as if the new millennium was going to be an era of expansion and consolidation of western influence and values. The events of the last 25 years have, however, suggested otherwise. In particular, it’s the rise of China and India that has raised eyebrows. In 1991 their respective GDP’s were $415,603 million and $274,842 million, putting them 10th and 16th in the world at that time, since then their exponential growth has made them the world’s second and seventh largest economies (www.imf.org, 2016). This has led some to proclaim that we are now in the Asian Century.
First and foremost, to be able to answer this question correctly we have to establish what it’s actually asking. When we say that a group of countries are dominant on the world stage, we are effectively saying that these countries have a certain relationship of power with the other states. As we know, there are different types of power: Firstly, “soft

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