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The Third World: Invention of the Cold War

 

            The most significant development in international relations since the end of World War II has been the rise of a new political entity known as the Third World. The term Third World is a historical construct which create the notion of countries that are relatively poor, underdeveloped, racially minor, and thus politically non-influential. The identity and role of the Third World is shaped by the historical experience of colonialism, the involvement in ideological and political conflicts among major powers, and is more and more reinforced, rather than ameliorated through their tottering participation in the global capitalist economy. Third World under these various global movements have been facing persistent hardship to escape embroilment at the confines of the struggles between major powers, to assert their national identities, and to celebrate and pursue the ideal of self-determination.
             The term Third World, generally thought, was an invented term from the Cold War phase. Third World countries then including countries that belong either to the western European and US bloc or Soviet socialist countries bloc. Since the Third World countries basically share similarities such as colonial history, underdeveloped economic condition, and non-white ethnicity, after Cold War Third World has been commonly used in a slightly different way --- generally referring to underdeveloped and racial minority countries (countries like China Mongolia, Cuba, Vietnam, and Laos in earlier phase were not included in Third World due to their Socialist property, but were considered in later). I will be using the later notion by mentioning Third World in this article, global south and global north will be alternative expression.
             The Cold War was a split of the world into two political ideologically differentiated spheres, it was the reconstruction of the international political structure after World War –.


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