Comparison paragraphs/superpower conflicts 3rd world

Student Name
Course
Instructor
Date
Role of Superpowers in Historical Conflicts
Several countries around the world have attempted to gain significant and substantial global influence and which would basically make them world superpowers. It is as a result that the United States and the formerly renowned USSR were engaged in unending confrontations in most parts of the late 20th Century. The two countries in efforts to solidify and safeguard their positions after World War II participated and contributed in various conflicts around the world and more specifically in Asia including the Vietnam War and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The paper examines the role of the two superpowers in the aforementioned conflicts.
The Vietnam War and the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan
Soon after the end of the World War II, a geopolitical tension arose between the US and the USSR and which then commonly came to be referred to as the Cold War. The term Cold War was basically coined from the fact that despite the two nation’s vast and overwhelming military prowess, they could not afford to go into war with each other and hence they participated in proxy wars where they supported and armed differing sides (Luard 1006). Vietnam had then long been pegged in political turmoil’s even before World War II and greatly suffered under the French colonization which was also a major powerhouse in the Western bloc alliance. After the end of the World War II, the USSR with its communist ideologies spread its wings to Vietnam through the fronting and funding of Communist China and much to the dislike of US which still considered Vietnam as a part of its colony. Vietnam at that moment was engaged in civil unrest between people in the North and Southern Vietnam who held different economic and political ideologies. The civil unrest provided the perfect opportunity for the US and the USSR to engage in their Cold War. The USSR used its ide...