Proxy Wars and the Dilemma of Global Peace: Interrogating the Roles of the Super Powers (1946-1991)

Abstract

The end of the Second World War brought about the emergence of two super powers, the United States and the Soviet Union that assumed major key players in global Politics. The two superpowers adopted expansionist policies in their attempt to build alliances so as to implement and protect their diverse ideological interests. In the process, proxy wars ensued in different part of the globe. Adopting secondary source of data and Content Analysis as well as Power Theory, the paper examined the roles of the super powers in proxy wars and the consequences on global peace. The paper discovered that the Super-powers dominated the global political system through proxy wars such as the Vietnam War, Korean War and the Cuba Missile Crisis among others. The paper further noted the consequences of proxy war on global peace to include arms proliferations and the development of nuclear weapons, high human fatalities and destruction of major cities and the rise in global terrorist groups and attacks. The paper made recommendations among others that global ideological rigidity should be softened to accommodate varieties and the United Nations should give more attention to the situation in Korea Peninsula to prevent the repeat of the 1950s.