6 Bases during the Cold War

Early on in the Cold War, the U.S. and Soviet basing networks tended to beseparate and demarcated, but also rivalrous. As the Soviets leapfrogged therimland alliance structure set up by the U.S. in the 1950s – Syria, Egypt, Libya,Algeria, China, Guinea, Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, South Yemen, India,Cuba, Vietnam – the rival basing points came more to be cheek-by-jowl, interpenetrated.Scenarios for “protracted conventional phase” warfare came to dwellon possible rival efforts to “pick off” the enemy’s bases and, hence, to tilt thebalance of power in global conflict. But, that never came to pass, in part becausethe dangers of escalation of conflict to the nuclear level precluded a moremodern version of conflict “beyond the line,” i.e., outside Europe, that was anearlier tradition. The two superpowers eyed each others’ bases, engaged in acold war of nerves, but never directly attacked their rivals’ bases