The Cold War

Part of what I feel is so interesting about the cold war is that because of nuclear weapons, the two couldn't just have a big war, but had to work through proxy countries. However, what I find more interesting than that is the fact that the proxy countries proved to be so difficult to conquer. It would appear that something like that would be easy - Vietnam had little military strength - but America's quagmire that it ultimately became trapped in would end up revealing the uselessness of warfare during this period, which was part of what was so important - the major countries stopped getting involved, playing the role of the man behind the man rather than directly fighting.