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The unpopular Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, who was supported by the US, was overthrown in 1959 by a movement led by Fidel Castro. Castro nationalized the Cuban economy and seized US-owned sugar mills and refineries. He then looked to the USSR for economic and military support. In response, Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered a embargo on all trade with Cuba, and in 1960, the CIA began training anti-Castro Cuban exiles. In 1961, the exiles invaded Cuba, landing at the Bay of Pigs. The Bay of Pigs invasion was a disaster, as US air support was massively scaled back, allowing Castro's forces to easily defeat the invaders. The failed operation convinced Nikita Khrushchev that the US would not resist Soviet expansion in Latin America, so in 1962 he began to build missile sited in Cuba. These missiles would be able to strike almost anywhere in the US, since Cuba was only 90 miles off the coast of Florida. John F. Kennedy responded to this by blockading Cuba with the US Navy. The US and USSR teetered on the brink of nuclear war until Kennedy agreed to remove US missiles from Turkey and promised not to invade Cuba after Khrushchev removed the missiles from Cuba. After the crisis abated, Cuba still relied on Soviet support, so when the USSR fell in 1991, Cuba was forced to be more open to relations with other countries, and Castro loosened his control over the Cuban economy. The US also still has a naval base in Cuba, so the Cuban missile crisis can be counted as a victory for the US, and therefore democracy.

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Korea became a divided nation after World War II, with Japanese forces to the North of the 38th parallel (a line crossing Korea at 38 degrees latitude) surrendering to the Soviets and Japanese forces to the South surrendering to Americans. As in Germany, two different countries developed: a communist North Korea supported by the USSR, and an anti-communist South Korea supported by the US. The USSR supplied the North Korean People's Army (NKPA) with weapons, and in 1950 the NKPA crossed the 38th parallel and invaded the Republic of Korea (ROK). The UN security council voted to send a force to fight against the NKPA and help the ROK. About 90% of these troops were American, and Harry S. Truman appointed General Douglas MacArthur to lead the force. He used a surprise amphibious assault and trapped the NKPA in a pincer move, causing them to surrender or retreat. However, once the UN forces started moving into North Korea, China joined the fight alongside the NKPA out of fear of the UN then attacking China. MacArthur wanted to use a nuclear attack on the Chinese, but Truman then fired him. 300,000 Chinese troops then pushed UN forces back to the 38th parallel, where a cease-fire was signed in 1953. The 38th parallel then became the de-militarized zone (DMZ). As no peace treaty has been signed, the Korean War technically never ended, and remains a stalemate to this day. This means that neither communism or democracy won.

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The Communist and Nationalist Parties in China put their civil war on hold when the Japanese invaded in 1937. Once World War II was over, however, they quickly resumed fighting. The Nationalist Party received aid from the US despite it's fairly dictatorial suppression, since it was the only option for keeping communism at bay in China. However, the Communist Party had much more popular support due to it's determined fighting against the Japanese. It also had superior military organization and morale, while the Nationalist Party was rife with corruption. In 1949, after a series of victories, the leader of the Communist Party, Mao Zedong, established the People's Republic of China (PRC). Chiang Kai-shek, the Nationalist Party leader, fled to the island of Taiwan and established the Republic of China (RC). The US recognized only the new RC as the true government of China until the 1970s, when it relented and recognized the PRC and RC as separate countries. In the PRC, Mao Zedong worked to implement his brand of Marxist socialism. After the success of his first Five-Year Plan, in 1958 Zedong proclaimed the "Great Leap Forward." He further collectivized farms into communes, which would support an average of 250,000 people. Life was strictly controlled, the workers owned nothing and shared everything, and they had little incentive to work when only the state profited. The program was shut down in 1961 after crop failures caused a famine resulting in 20 million deaths. Later, in 1966, after Zedong had reduced his role in government, he called upon China's young people to revive the revolution, as he believed China's new policies were straying away from the communist goal of equality. Millions of high school and college students formed militia units called Red Guards. They promoted the image of the hardworking peasant, and intellectual lifestyles were looked down upon. Thousands of intellectuals were imprisoned and executed, and by 1968 Zedong ordered the army to restore order. China has since become stable and arguably a world power in the following decades leading up to the present, making it easy to identify the Chinese Revolution as a victory for communism.

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After World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union emerged as rival superpowers. At first, only the US had nuclear weapons, but in 1949 the Soviets successfully detonated their first atomic bomb, thereby kicking off an arms race that would last more than four decades. Dwight D. Eisenhower's Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, adopted the policy of brinkmanship in 1953. Brinkmanship was the willingness to go to the brink, or edge of nuclear war, and it required a lot of nuclear weapons and other military resources. Therefore, throughout the rest of the Cold War, the US and the USSR would continue to try to gain the advantage by developing and manufacturing powerful nuclear weapons by the thousands. Critically though, they never actually fired any nuclear weapons at each other. This was because of the nuclear deterrent, also known as Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). MAD essentially meant that each side was certain to be completely destroyed in the event of a nuclear war, so neither side would risk starting one. There were other factors keeping World War III at bay, however. One was the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). In 1967, Lyndon B. Johnson met with Alexei Kosygin to talk about SALT, but no treaties were signed. In 1972, SALT I was signed by Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev, and in 1979 SALT II was signed by Gerald Ford and Brezhnev. These monumental treaties limited the nuclear stockpiles as well as other military technologies of each side, with the hope of decreasing tension. Just because these treaties were signed, however, didn't mean the tension went away. In 1983, Ronald Reagan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a system of space-based lasers which would defend against a Soviet nuclear ICBM attack. However, the project was deemed too expensive and far-fetched. It was formally scrapped by Bill Clinton in 1993. The arms race only truly stopped in 1991, when the USSR collapsed. Although it was not an outright conflict, the arms race was perhaps one of the most important aspects of the Cold War, and since the USSR collapsed under the weight of it's own spending and the US is still a superpower today, it is safe to conclude that it was a victory for the US and therefore a victory for democracy.

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Following Japanese rule over Vietnam during World War II, Ho Chi Minh, a leader of a Vietnamese Workers Party, took over Hanoi in northern Vietnam. The French supported Emperor Bao created Vietnam in 1949, making Saigon its capital. Both sides would continuously fight until 1954, where the French eventually left, defeated. In July 1954, Vietnam agreed and signed the Geneva Accords, which divided Vietnam into South and North Vietnam along the 17th Parallel. South Vietnam was democratic and North Vietnam was Communist. From 1957, the Viet Cong, a North Vietnamese guerilla force and the North Vietnamese fought the South Vietnamese who were backed by US aid and military experts. In 1964, following an attack on a US ship in the Gulf of Tonkin, President Johnson lied about a second attack, which prompted US involvement in Vietnam. In the years following, the war proved to be brutal and difficult. US troops committed the mass murder of 400 Vietnamese people, growing already existing anti-war sentiment in the US. The US troops found the terrain especially difficult, which did not change as the North Vietnamese forces launched the Tet Offensive in 1968. This planned attack took out many South Vietnamese targets and key areas. This anti-war sentiment grew even more following US invasions of Cambodia and Laos and in November of 1969, Nixon agreed to slowly shift the responsibility of the war towards South Vietnam, in a policy called Vietnamization. Troops, supplies, and training were funneled to South Vietnam in the following years. In early 1973 a ceasefire was agreed and US troops leave later that year. The final nail in the coffin for democracy was following the North Vietnamese invasion of Saigon in 1975, which is now Ho Chi Minh City. This was a major victory for Communism as Vietnam is still a communist nation today. It also humiliated an incredibly powerful and pro-democracy US military on a global scale.

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The division of Germany meant that West Germany and West Berlin were controlled by the US and its allies. The Soviet Union controlled East Germany and East Berlin. Berlin was locked deep in Soviet East Germany. The Soviets saw East Germany as a threat to their Communist society. They initially sought to force the US and its allies out of West Berlin through a blockade, but this was thwarted by the Berlin Airlift. In the years following, millions of people left East Germany and East Berlin for West Berlin. To stop this, the Soviets decided to create the Berlin Wall. This wall stopped defections, and travel that was once free, was now heavily restricted. For almost 30 years it prevented free travel, and only those brave enough attempted to escape, many of which were killed by guards. Many opposed the wall, including President Ronald Reagan, who famously demanded that Mikhail Gorbachev tear down the wall. During the 80s however, tensions between the two superpowers relaxed, and Reagan and Bush both began building relationships with Gorbachev and accepted his promises on Glasnost and Perestroika. On November 9, 1989, it was announced that Berliners could freely move between East and West Berlin. Many went into the streets with tools and began destroying the wall. The fall of the Berlin Wall symbolized the beginning of the end for the USSR. What was once a major win for communism, became a win for democracy as the destruction weakened the USSR and humiliated them on a global scale.

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The Soviet Union began one of its worst economic periods ever following the reliance on imports of American grains and other produce and their stubbornness of the Government to not reduce military spending. This was brought to the forefront when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and began the Soviet-Afghan War. As the US would find out 20 years later, they realized that fighting in Afghanistan was nearly impossible. The CIA began supplying the mujahideen, a rebel group who would later go on to form Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Mikhail Gorbachev came into power in 1985, and knew that he needed to overhaul the Soviet economy and social structure. This coincided with his policy of "Perestrokia" which means restructuring. This policy decentralized the previous Soviet economy and encouraged participation in the free market. His introduction of Glasnost allowed Soviet citizens to have new freedoms. Prisoners were freed, the press had freedom, and elections were held for the first time ever. Glasnost led to the media and people exposing problems that were covered up previously. Countries that were under Soviet control began having nationalistic tensions and wanted to be independent. Polish United Workers' Party successfully negotiated reforms in the Round Table Talks. This led to elections in 1989 in which the Solidarity party won 99% of the seats. East Germans fled for Hungary, which weakened the Soviet state and led to the reunification of Germany. The dissolution of the Soviet Union was complete in 1991, marking a huge victory for democracy.

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-Causes: In February 1945, the "Big Three" of FDR, Stalin, and Churchill met at Yalta to discuss the division of Germany post-war. Germany would be divided into West Germany and East Germany respectively. Berlin was also divided into West and East Germany. The Soviet Union Controlled East Germany and East Berlin, which was located deep in the East Germany and Soviet occupied territory. The Soviets wanted to get rid of the US and their associates from Berlin, leading to the Berlin Wall and Berlin Airlift. Berlin's importance was crucial to both the Allies and the Soviet Union. As mentioned, it was deep inside a Soviet controlled area, acting as the beginning of the Iron Curtain of Europe that separated Communist Countries and Western Democracies.

-Marshall Plan: The Marshall Plan was an economic policy that spread economic aid throughout Europe to help nations who had been ravaged by World War II. It was also  containment, to stop Communism from spreading throughout Europe by giving aid to countries to rebuild, stopping communism from spreading during tough and vulnerable periods of time. It was put into place in 1948 after being created by George Marshall, who was Secretary of State at the time. The Marshall Plan was an overall success for Democracy as it boosted the economies of Western European countries and US allies. It also gave money to the CIA, helping them establish US interests in countries to help spread US influence.

-Berlin Airlift: In June 1948, following the combination of the three allied western zones of Berlin and the creation of a new currency, the Soviets were worried that it could lead to the reunification of Berlin. The response was to blockade West Berlin. This meant that no supplies could  go in or out of West Berlin. The allies decided to supply the city with necessary goods through an airlift. This lasted for approximately one year, and was a great success for democracy and the Allies. Once the Soviets realized that the blockade was failing, they lifted it.

-Berlin Wall: On August 13, 1961, the East German Government began building the Berlin Wall. It's main purpose was to keep people from fleeing to West Berlin from East Berlin. Following the Soviet Blockade and subsequent Berlin Airlift, millions of East Berliners left the city for West Berlin. The Berlin Wall accomplished its main goal: stop crossings. Crossing was difficult and hundreds died doing so. The Berlin Wall also stopped many conflicts as well, mainly because the wall ceased any reason for conflict. For nearly 30 years it stood, one of the biggest symbols of the Cold War. President John F. Kennedy opposed the wall, but realized the wall stopped conflicts.  While initially it was a victory for Communism by eliminating border crossings, the eventual destruction of the wall by Berliners and the reunification of Berlin was a major win for Democracy.