·      Soviet Union vis-à-vis China and other Asian countries; Korean War and its implications for USA-USSR relations; expansion of the NATO in the 1950s; SEATO and CENTO; Soviet economic and political infiltration to Asia in the 1950s; Suez crisis 1956; Eisenhower doctrine 1957.

·      Neutralisation of Austria 1955; Second Berlin Crisis (1958-1961) and Cuban Missile Crisis 1962 and their implications for the US-USSR relations; SALT I and SALT II; Ostpolitik; CSCE in Helsinki 1975; reasons of the USSR and the West leading to détente; impact of “China card” on the USA-USSR relations at the turn of the 1960s and the 1970s; the Middle Eastern conflicts of the 1960s and the 1970s and their implications for global Cold War.

·      Soviet foreign expansion during the Brezhnev years (Angola, Vietnam, Afghanistan); continuity and discontinuity of the US détente policy during Ford´s and Carter´s presidencies; Reagan´s position vis-à-vis the USSR.

·      Theorising the end of the Cold War: full and moderate triumphalism versus admirers of Gorbachev; Talks Reagan-Gorbachev 1985-1986, INF Treaty 1987; Gorbachev views on foreign policy and their practical application; New Soviet course vis-à-vis Central Eastern European satellites in the late 1980s; role of the human rights agenda in dismantling the Eastern Bloc in Europe.