What’s the difference between first, second, and third countries?

Question

I’ve read about it but don’t really understand the concept.

In: Other

Answer 1

It’s terminology used from the Cold War between the USA and the USSR that no longer really applies today.

The First World countries were the US and its allies. The Second World countries were the USSR and its allies. The Third World countries were the unaligned nations, which were primarily poor countries that had just been released from being colonized by European powers.

Today, we still use “Third World” to refer to those poorer countries that had previously been colonized by European powers and have been struggling to recover from that, and “First World” to refer to the US and its allies, but as the USSR no longer exists, “Second World” has fallen out of use.