Given below are two statements:
Statement (I): The Cold War was a matter of power rivalries and of military alliances. It was an outcome of the emergence of USA and USSR as two super powers rivals to each other.
Statement (II): The Cold War was also accompanied by a difference between the superpowers to organize political, social and economic life of the world according to their ideology.
In the light of the above statements, choose the most appropriate answer from the options given below:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → Both Statement I and Statement II are true
Statement I. The Cold War was a matter of power rivalries and of military alliances. It was an outcome of the emergence of USA and USSR as two superpowers rivals to each other. Correct. The Cold War was an outcome of the emergence of the US and the USSR as two superpowers rival to each other, and it was a matter of power rivalries, of military alliances and of the balance of power.
Statement II. The Cold War was also accompanied by a difference between the superpowers to organize political, social and economic life of the world according to their ideology. Correct. The power rivalries were accompanied by a real ideological conflict as well, a difference over the best way of organising political, economic and social life all over the world: liberal democracy and capitalism in the western alliance, socialism and communism in the eastern alliance.
Note: This question is taken from the chapter ‘The Cold War Era’ which was there in the pre-rationalised NCERT and has been deleted from subsequent editions of NCERT, including the NCERT book (2026-27). The NCERT book (2026-27) still mentions, in the chapter ‘The End of Bipolarity’, the ideological dispute of the Cold War over whether the socialist system would beat the capitalist system.
NCERT (2026-27): “Consequences of Disintegration … First of all, it meant the end of Cold War confrontations. The ideological dispute over whether the socialist system would beat the capitalist system was not an issue any more.…” NCERT (Pre-rationalised), chapter ‘The Cold War Era’: “Cuban Missile Crisis … The Cuban Missile Crisis was a high point of what came to be known as the Cold War. The Cold War referred to the competition, the tensions and a series of confrontations between the United States and Soviet Union, backed by their respective allies. Fortunately, however, it never escalated into a ‘hot war’, that is, a full-scale war between these two powers. There were wars in various regions, with the two powers and their allies involved in warfare and in supporting regional allies, but at least the world avoided another global war. The Cold War was not simply a matter of power rivalries, of military alliances, and of the balance of power. These were accompanied by a real ideological conflict as well, a difference over the best and the most appropriate way of organising political, economic, and social life all over the world. The western alliance, headed by the US, represented the ideology of liberal democracy and capitalism while the eastern alliance, headed by the Soviet Union, was committed to the ideology of socialism and communism. You have already studied these ideologies in Class XI. …While the Cold War was an outcome of the emergence of the US and the USSR as two superpowers rival to each other, it was also rooted in the understanding that the destruction caused by the use of atom bombs is too costly for any country to bear.…” |