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European defence before and after the ‘Turn of the Tide’
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 October 2009
Extract
The last fifty years were bloody and dismal for many war-torn regions of the world. The end of the Second World War ushered in a new era of local and ‘limited’ wars throughout Asia, Africa and Latin America. Hardly a day went by without a war, civil or international, claiming its victims somewhere on our planet. Yet Europe experienced a ‘Long Peace’ (J. L. Gaddis). The direct confrontation of the superpowers, the Soviet and US tanks on either side of the inner German border, immunized Europe from the plague of war. In the great wrestling match between East and West, Europe was the prime prize, and too much was at stake for all sides to allow any wars, even minor wars, to erupt anywhere on this continent.1
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- Review article
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- Copyright © British International Studies Association 1993
References
1 The one exception, the Greek civil war of 1946–9, was of course ended at Stalin's command precisely because he feared an escalation of the conflict.
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