This chapter examines the number, scope and extent of major actors in the international system and uses the concept of political alignment, qua polarity, to examine the war proneness of certain types of international systems. In addition, it examines the major changes in the international system, and the potential effects of these changes.
One interesting link that has a great deal of information about how the cold war structure was created is the Soviet exhibit at the University of North Carolina SUNsite Here you will find many links to hypertext media, such as letters and telegrams (19 year olds probably have never seen a telegram, afterall).
These Soviet Archives are absolutely fantastic and will be of interest to your students. There are two basic floors, the first is a tour of the internal workings of the Soviet system, and the second deals with the cold-war era of US-Soviet relations.