Today we looked at the Cold War's impact on Latin America because it was a key site of this conflict. Cuba, for example, was originally an American satellite before a revolution brought Fidel Castro, a communist dictator, to power. When the USSR stationed nukes in Cuba, a major international crisis erupted—the Cuban Missile Crisis—which almost brought about nuclear war.
Meanwhile, the US and USSR intervened in and sponsored rival factions in civil wars across Latin America, including in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. Notably, Guatemala’s civil war lasted 36 years. Nicaragua’s civil war consisted of left-wing rebels, the Sandinistas, fighting against the government, then seizing power and fighting against right-wing rebels. When the USSR finally collapsed in 1991, the remaining civil wars died down. However, political conflict remains between Russia and the US, as well as between left-wing and right-wing forces in Latin America.