9. The 1956 Suez Canal Crisis
What Was It? While the Suez Canal Crisis- also known as the Suez War- only lasted for 10 days, it was an incredibly significant event in the Cold War. The background revolved around Egypt's Communist President, General Nasser Nationalising the Suez Canal, which makes it possible to travel between Europe and Asia by water without navigating around Africa. Such a tactic had much of the Western World in a state of shock as they tried to work out the ramifications of such an event. As such, France, Isreal and Great Britain attempted to invade the Suez peninsula in order to liberate from Nasser's troops. However, the United States took a dim view of such a bare-faced showing of militarism and threatened both France and Britain economically if they did not pull out. Furthermore, the USSR had begin offering support of their won to Egypt if the crisis continued. It led to the resignation of Anthony Eden as Prime Minister of Great Britain and the death knell of Britain as an imperial power. Why Would COD Never Happen Here? Again, no Americans were in this conflict and in fact the United States- as said above- vehemently opposed this war even taking place. Secondly, the war was a major cock-up in every facet for the British and French. One could make some argument that this would be a good game for the more clandestine Black Ops Series except whatever was top secret was revealed fairly early on. Furthermore, it was not the troops on the ground that ultimately made the difference to the conflict but rather geopolitical forces.