Shaping the Modern World: The Cultural Legacy of Twentieth-Century Global Conflicts

In the twentieth century, major global conflicts such as the Cold War and its proxy wars took place around the world, such as in Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, etc. These conflicts were mainly the results of constant distrust between the two opposing global superpowers, the Capitalist United States and the Communist Soviet Union, as well as the long-living dispute between two opposing sides such as the Israeli-Jews and the Palestinian-Muslims. These conflicts later would lead to drastic cultural and societal changes in areas such as the United States and Korea, which would later result in long-lasting tension in their society.

In the United States, during the period of the Cold war, an event called the “red scare” arose, which is the fear of potential Soviet Union spies amongst the crowd threatening the wellbeing of the country and the people. This is caused by the constant exchange of espionage activities between the two major superpowers during the period. This constant fear of the potential superiority over technology and information of the opposing side led to the conceptualization of the MAD principle and the Space Race. Space Race grew out of fear that the other country is going to aim their nuclear base from space, therefore the only way to prevent that is to have a space station in space for your country, changing the course of economic investment in American society to this day. Additionally, the United States and Soviet Union competed over the title of the first nation to reach the moon. The Soviet Union landed the first man-made object on its surface, and the United States completed the first roundtrip manned mission to the moon, ultimately winning this race to the moon. This inspired interests in space investments and therefore allowed the US to become a major space power to this day. Furthermore, the creation of Space X by Elon Musk marks a legacy left by the Space Race during the Cold War, where it excels at commercializing space travel and the expansion of a space-based Starlink network. If the two nations have not thought of moving their investing focus to Space, Elon Musk’s Space X program probably wouldn’t have been nearly as successful; the basic technological foundations set by early satellites such as Sputnik and Explorer allowed for the maturation of space engineering, paving the path for such programs and projects to develop upon and eventually surpass. The Space Race left a significant mark in American society that is still evident to this day, due to the political and economic tensions that it created throughout the world. However, despite the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the race has taken a new form in the modern world. Today people look to seek alien life in outer space, and the long-living tension changes form, from competing for the first to reach the moon, to the first in discovering alien life. Different nations have different points of view, therefore, creating tension lasting from the Cold War era.

Furthermore, another cultural change took place in America: the rise of minorities in face of long-term discrimination. For instance, the Kent State University incident and the Little Rock Nine incident are both events that led to shifts in segregation laws in America. The Kent State University was a protest calling for equal rights for African Americans; however it was put down by the government. The Little Rock Nine demanded that African American students are to be given the right to attend public schools. Even though these protests failed in making instant effective changes in America, they left a long-lasting legacy that is carried on to this day. For instance, the Black Lives Matter movement in America, in response to the murder of George Floyd by a police officer, propagated quickly throughout social media platforms, stirring public sentiment towards certain discriminatory law-enforcement practices, effectively pushing for racial equality and fighting against racial discrimination. If it wasn’t for preceding civil rights movements during the Cold war, the Black Lives Matter movement most likely wouldn’t have occurred; it serves as a source of inspiration for African Americans to realize a need for change in the American society.

Before World War II, the Korean peninsula was owned by the Japanese as a colony state. However, following the Japanese defeat in the war, the Korean peninsula is split into two by the United States and the Soviet Union to exert their spheres of influence, which is a key component of the Cold War. Due to the fact that North Korea was funded by the Soviet Union, and South Korea was funded by the United States, the Korean War soon broke out for the purpose of uniting the peninsula. However, in the end, both sides settled on a ceasefire defined by the 38th parallel, a ceasefire that still persists to today. Nowadays, the North is still a Communist single-party regime, and the South is a Capitalist and Democratic country. Tension is still strong on the 38th parallel between the countries, with armed soldiers and tanks facing each other, constantly ready to engage. This tension resulted in the cultural shift of native Korean-Confucianism into Capitalist-consumerism and Communism, further contributing to tensions between the two countries to this day.