History of International Relations: the Cold War Years

The international relations in the Cold War years is an integral part of the history of international relations. It is a distinct period distinguished by its specific features, such as the bipolarity and the increasingly global competition between the East and the West and the alliances led by the two nuclear superpowers – the Soviet Union and the US. This period, also known as the Yalta order, the distinguished feature of which was the division of Europe and of Germany, extends from 1945 through 1991 until the collapse of communist regimes in Europe in 1989, the unification of Germany in 1990, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The course provides the state-of-the-art insights into the origins of the Cold War, its driving forces, challenges to the bipolarity as the organizing principle of the Yalta order, the short period of détente in East-West relations in the late 1960s and the early 1970s, and the end of the Cold War.