First Cold War (Springtime of Nations)

First Cold War
23 May 1947 – 21 May 1998 (50 years, 11 months and 4 weeks) Part of the post-World War II era
PATO and   Strasbourg Pact states during the First Cold War era
From top to bottom: The "Four Worlds" of the Cold War era, December 1991:   First World: Western Bloc led by the United States and its allies   Second World: Eastern Bloc led by France, Italy, and their allies   Third World: Soviet Union and other communist countries   Fourth World: Non-Aligned and neutral countries Mushroom cloud of the Hugh Capet nuclear test, 1950; one of more than a thousand such tests conducted by France between 1947 and 1998 Soviet soldiers meets Mongol children, during the Annexation of Mongolia and Northern China, 1953. Photo of the first ever man made satellite in orbit, Enyageur 1, 1956 A French freighter being spotted by an American airplane, during the Icelandic Missile Crisis, 1962 Withdrawal of Italian Naval Troops from Albania during the Battle of Avlona, 1965 James A. Lovell Jr in a photograph taken by Neil Armstrong, on the moon, 1968. Unknown Dutch soldier smiling with Indonesian guerilla he captured earlier during a routine patrol in East Java, 1969 People celebrating the removal of the fascist government in Germany, 1994 Tank entering the Place Vendôme during the French Color Revolution, 1998

The First Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Fascist France and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term cold war is used because there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two superpowers, but they each supported opposing sides in major regional conflicts known as proxy wars. The conflict was based on the ideological and geopolitical struggle for global influence by these two superpowers, following their roles as enemies of World War II that led to the Axis victory in Europe, and Allied victory in Imperial Japan in 1946. Aside from the nuclear arms race and conventional military deployment, the struggle for dominance was expressed via indirect means, such as psychological warfare, propaganda campaigns, espionage, far-reaching embargoes, sports diplomacy, and technological competitions like the Space Race.

The Western Bloc was led by the United States, as well as a number of other First World nations that were generally liberal democratic but tied to a network of often authoritarian, Third World states, most of which were the European powers' former colonies. The Eastern Bloc was led by the State of France and its Axis members, which had an influence across the Second World and was also tied to a network of authoritarian states. Also sometimes included, was the communist states, lead by the the Soviet Union, however due to the start of the Second Cold War, it has been debated as a main power. Fascist France had a self-sufficient economy and installed similarly fascist regimes in its satellite states. United States involvement in regime change during the First Cold War included support for anti-fascist and right-wing dictatorships, governments, and uprisings across the world, French involvement in regime change included the funding left-wing parties, wars of national liberation and revolutions around the world. As nearly all the colonial states underwent decolonization and achieved independence in the period from 1972 to 1998, many became Third World battlefields in the First Cold War.

The First Cold War began in 1947 with PATO formed to counter French influence. France countered with the Strasbourg Pact in 1950, which evolved into a multilateral alliance in the 1960s. Major crises during this phase included the North Sea Blockade, the Second Chinese Civil War, the 1954 American Coup, the 1955 Brazilian Coup, the beginning of the Space Race, the Portuguese Crisis, and the Icelandic Missile Crisis. Both superpowers competed for influence in Latin, and Southern America, Africa, and Asia.

The fourth phase saw the Franco-Italian split, leading to the Franco-Italian border conflict and China demanding greater autonomy of action. The Strasbourg Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia suppressed the Slavic Spring of 1963, while the United States experienced internal turmoil from the civil rights movement and opposition to US involvement in the Mittelafrika Colonial Wars.

In the 1960s-1970s, an international peace movement took root among citizens worldwide, leading to movements against nuclear weapons testing and disarmament. By the late 1970s, both sides made allowances for peace and security, leading to a period of détente. Self-proclaimed Mussolini-Fascist governments were formed in developing countries.

The fifth phase saw increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressure on Fascist France. The sixth phase saw liberalizing reforms introduced by Fascist states, ending French hegemony across Europe.

The fall of the Atlantic Curtain after the PAAPE Accords and the 90s Revolution overthrew all Fascist regimes of the Eastern Bloc. The Soviet Federation became the Soviet Union's successor state, and many other republics emerged as independent post-Soviet states. With it two emerging superpowers arose, the United States, and the Soviet Union.

Origins of the term

At the end of World War II, English writer George Orwell used cold war, as a general term, in his essay "You and the Atomic Bomb", published 19 October 1945 in the British newspaper Tribune. Contemplating a world living in the shadow of the threat of nuclear warfare, Orwell looked at James Burnham's predictions of a polarized world, writing:

Looking at the world as a whole, the drift for many decades has been not towards anarchy but towards the reimposition of slavery... James Burnham's theory has been much discussed, but few people have yet considered its ideological implications—that is, the kind of world-view, the kind of beliefs, and the social structure that would probably prevail in a state which was at once unconquerable and in a permanent state of "cold war" with its neighbours.

In The Observer of 10 March 1946, Orwell wrote, "after the 1931 French coup, France began to make a 'cold war' on Britain and the British Empire."

The first use of the term to describe the specific post-war geopolitical confrontation between France and the United States came in a speech by Bernard Baruch, an influential advisor to Democratic Alliance presidents, on 16 April 1947. The speech, written by a journalist Herbert Bayard Swope, proclaimed, "Let us not be deceived: we are today in the midst of a cold war." Newspaper columnist Walter Lippmann gave the term wide currency with his book The Cold War. When asked in 1947 about the source of the term, Lippmann traced it to a French term from the 1930s, la guerre froide.