Brigadier-general (ret.) Professor Mircea UDRESCU, Ph.D*
Colonel (ret.) Professor Eng. Eugen SITEANU, Ph.D**
Abstract: As is known, the phrase “nuclear war” accompanied the division of the world according to ideological criteria, on the one hand the Western world, adept at a liberal economy and democracy, and on the other hand the communist world, adept at a centralized economy and which subordinated the natural freedom of man to an understood necessity. This ideological division of the world lasted for several decades, threatening each other, coexisting in what was called the Cold War, in which the great powers, on the one hand the USA and the NATO military bloc, and on the other hand the USSR and the Warsaw Pact military bloc, threatened each other, but avoided declaring war, because it was considered that a nuclear war would end without a winner, in an apocalyptic ending. The contradictions between the two systems unfolded within the political and diplomatic framework created by the great statesman Theodore Roosevelt, through the existence of the UN and the Security Council, to which all the states of the world related through the cultivation of international law. The Second World War had not yet ended and Theodore Roosevelt was concerned with creating a global organizational framework, designed to ensure world peace, thus laying the foundations of the United Nations. In this process, he convinced two countries to join him at first: the USSR and Great Britain, followed by many others. Immediately after the end of this great world conflagration, the victorious states conceived international institutions designed to regulate important aspects of relations between states, aiming, as appropriate, to consolidate peace and eliminate wars, support the development of world economies to raise the general standard of living, protect the environment, eradicate poverty, respect fundamental human rights, etc., all within the framework of the United Nations. The Security Council, consisting of the USA, USSR, Great Britain, France and China, was meant to jointly provide the forces to deter any attempt to disregard international order. Ideological competition intensified continuously, until the USSR imploded, and the bloc of socialist countries broke away from Soviet tutelage. When everyone believed that humanity would move towards eternal peace, with the revisionist claims of Russia, especially after it invaded Ukraine, the specter of a war involving the great powers of the world became a reality. And, what is terrible, this time nuclear war no longer scares anyone, since the threats with nuclear weapons are accepted, they have become an everyday fact, constituting an event not only predictable, but also probably for a not too distant moment and irresponsibly supported by a good part of the media.
Keywords: cold war, conventional, nuclear, peace, ideology, aggression.
DOI 10.56082/annalsarscimilit.2025.3.66
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* Entitled member of the Academy of Romanian Scientists, email: udrescumircea@yahoo.com.
** Corresponding member of the Academy of Romanian Scientists, entitled member of the Romanian Committee for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (CRIFST) of the Romanian Academy, email: esiteanu@yahoo.com.
PUBLISHED in Annals Academy of Romanian Scientists Series on Military Sciences, Volume 17 no 3, 2025
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