The Adaptation of the Middle East, Asia, and Africa to the Divided World of the Cold War
From 1945 to 1962 the number of nations on Earth quadrupled to around 200. These agrarian nations, emerging from colonialism, were forced to adapt to a world influenced by the Cold War and dominated economically by the United States and the Soviet Union. In an attempt to adapt to the divided world of the Cold War, the elites in these newly independent countries in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa came to embrace a mixed capitalist-democratic and socialist regime, with heavy state investments in basic industries and pursued a policy of nonalignment, which often resulted in heavy borrowing from more powerful capitalist-democratic nations.
Parallel to that of China ridding itself of Japanese colonialism after World War II, independence movements arose in the Middle East against the British and French colonial regimes. Here, countries received their independence as a result of local pressures or though the realization of the colonial governments that they were no longer powerful enough to maintain their empires in a world now dominated by the United States and Soviet Union. For example, in Egypt following the Suez War in which Britain and France aimed to regain Western control of the Suez Canal and to remove from power, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser scored a resounding diplomatic victory, effectively removing the last remnants of British and French imperialism in the Middle East
From 1945 to 1962 the number of nations on Earth quadrupled to around 200. These agrarian nations, emerging from colonialism, were forced to adapt to a world influenced by the Cold War and dominated economically by the United States and the Soviet Union. In an attempt to adapt to the divided world of the Cold War, the elites in these newly independent countries in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa came to embrace a mixed capitalist-democratic and socialist regime, with heavy state investments in basic industries and pursued a policy of nonalignment, which often resulted in heavy borrowing from more powerful capitalist-democratic nations.
Parallel to that of China ridding itself of Japanese colonialism after World War II, independence movements arose in the Middle East against the British and French colonial regimes. Here, countries received their independence as a result of local pressures or though the realization of the colonial governments that they were no longer powerful enough to maintain their empires in a world now dominated by the United States and Soviet Union. For example, in Egypt following the Suez War in which Britain and France aimed to regain Western control of the Suez Canal and to remove from power, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser scored a resounding diplomatic victory, effectively removing the last remnants of British and French imperialism in the Middle East