The Law of War

However, the aftermath of the Cold War is not always easily erased, as many of the
economic and social tensions that were exploited to fuel Cold War competition in parts
of the Third World remain acute. The breakdown of state control in a number of areas
formerly ruled by communist governments produced new civil and ethnic conflicts,
particularly in the former Yugoslavia. In Central and Eastern Europe, the end of the Cold
War has ushered in an era of economic growth and an increase in the number of liberal
democracies, while in other parts of the world, such as Afghanistan, independence was
accompanied by state failure.
In Popular Culture
During the Cold War itself, with the
United States and the Soviet Union
invested heavily in propaganda
designed to influence the hearts and
minds of people around the world,
especially using motion pictures.
The Cold War endures as a popular
topic reflected extensively in
entertainment media, and continuing
to the present with numerous post-
1991 Cold War-themed feature films,
novels, television, and other media.
In 2013, a KGB-sleeper-agentsliving-next-door
action drama series,
The Americans, set in the early 1980s, was ranked #6 on the Metacritic annual Best
New TV Shows list; its six-season run concluded in May of 2018. At the same time,
movies like Crimson Tide (1995) are shown in their entirety to educate college students
about the Cold War.
Historiography
As soon as the term "Cold War" was popularized to refer to post-war tensions between
the United States and the Soviet Union, interpreting the course and origins of the
conflict has been a source of heated controversy among historians, political scientists,
and journalists. In particular, historians have sharply disagreed as to who was
responsible for the breakdown of Soviet–US relations after the Second World War; and
whether the conflict between the two superpowers was inevitable, or could have been
avoided. Historians have also disagreed on what exactly the Cold War was, what the
sources of the conflict were, and how to disentangle patterns of action and reaction
between the two sides.
Although explanations of the origins of the conflict in academic discussions are complex
and diverse, several general schools of thought on the subject can be identified.
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