A Distant Front in the Cold WarA Distant Front in the Cold War reveals West Africa as a significant site of Cold War conflict in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Although the region avoided the extreme tensions of the standoff in Eastern Europe or in the Cuban missile crisis, it nevertheless offers a vivid example of political, economic, and propagandistic rivalry between the U. S. and the USSR. For Africa, this was a critical period characterized by decolonization and the formation