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Cold War (1985-1991)

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History of the
Cold War
Origins
1947–1953
1953–1962
1962–1979
1979–1985
1985–1991

The Cold War (1985-1991) discusses the period within the Cold War between the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev as Soviet leader, in 1985, to the collapse of the Soviet Union, in 1991.

In this period, the Republican president of the United States, Ronald Reagan led a no-compromise foreign policy which included the use of the Strategic Defense Initiative. On the other side, the Soviet leader Gorbachev attempted to reform the statist system.

Contents

[edit] Thaw

Various events within the Soviet Union worked to hasten the end of the war of the cold. These included the implementation of the policies of glasnost and perestroika, public disapproval of the Soviet Union's war in Afghanistan, and the socio-political effects of the Chernobyl accident in 1986.

East-West tensions eased rapidly after the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev. After the deaths of three elderly Soviet leaders in a row since 1982, the Politburo elected Gorbachev Soviet Communist Party chief in 1985, marking the rise of a new generation of leadership. Under Gorbachev, relatively young reform-oriented technocrats, who had begun their careers in the heyday of "de-Stalinization" under reformist leader Nikita Khrushchev (1953-1964), rapidly consolidated power, providing new momentum for political and economic liberalization, and the impetus for cultivating warmer relations and trade with the West.

Although committed to Marxist-Leninist principles, Gorbachev advocated greater liberalization as the answer to the economic and social problems facing the Soviet Union. By this stage, the country had entered a period of severe economic decline and needed reforms. With labour productivity falling and life expectancy dwindling[citation needed], the Chernobyl catastrophe in 1986 supposedly indicated the poor state of Soviet technology in comparison with the West. The costs of maintaining the so-called "Soviet empire" – the military, KGB, subsidies to foreign client states – further strained the stagnating economy. The twin burdens of the Cold War arms race on one hand, and the provision of large sums of foreign and military aid, which their socialist allies had grown to expect, possibly left Gorbachev's efforts to boost production of consumer goods and revitalize the Soviet command economy all but impossible.

Image:Reagan and Gorbachev signing.jpg

The result was a dual approach of cooperation with the West and economic restructuring (perestroika) and democratization (glasnost) domestically, which eventually made it impossible for Gorbachev to reassert central control and influence over Warsaw Pact member states. Reaganite hawks have since argued that pressures stemming from increased U.S. defense spending was an additional impetus for reform. On October 11, 1986 Reagan and Gorbachev met in Reykjavík, Iceland, in an effort to continue discussions about scaling back their intermediate missile arsenals in Europe. Notwithstanding some initial setbacks, these negotiations paved the way for further progress in the form of wide-ranging arms reduction treaties between the superpowers.

By the spring of 1989, the USSR had held its first multi-candidate elections which experienced lively media debate. The democratization process exposed how a once revolutionary Communist Party had become moribund at the very centre of the system. Despite attempts by a number of Eastern bloc leaders to shield their own states from perestroika and glasnost, Gorbachev-inspired waves of reform propagated throughout the other Warsaw Pact states, emboldening grassroots anti-communist organizations, such Poland's Solidarity movement. This ultimately culminated in the so-called Revolutions of 1989.

In 1989, the Communist governments in Poland and Hungary became the first to negotiate the organization of competitive elections. In Czechoslovakia and East Germany, mass protests unseated Communist leaders. The Communist regimes in Bulgaria and Romania also crumbled, in the latter case, during a violent uprising. The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 symbolized the fall of Eastern European Communist governments and the end of the Iron Curtain divide. The Kremlin's willingness to loosen its hegemony over Eastern Europe marked a dramatic shift by the Soviet Union and a fundamental paradigm change in international relations.

Image:Gorbachev with Yeltsin.jpg

The collapse of the Eastern European Communist governments with Gorbachev's tacit consent inadvertently encouraged several Soviet republics to seek greater independence from Moscow. Agitation in the Baltic States for independence lead to first Lithuania and then Estonia and Latvia declaring independence. Disaffection in the other republics was met by promises of greater decentralization. More open elections ineluctably led to the election of candidates opposed to Communist Party rule as the process of democratization effectively deprived Gorbachev of the authority to halt republic separatism.

Gorbachev's response to the increasingly dysfunctional union structure was to draw up a new treaty of union which would have created a truly voluntary federation in a more democratic USSR. However, in an attempt to halt the rapid changes to the system, a group of Soviet hard-liners represented by Vice-President Gennadi Yanayev launched a coup overthrowing Gorbachev in August 1991. Russian President Boris Yeltsin rallied the people and much of the army against the coup and the effort collapsed. Although restored to power, Gorbachev's authority had been irreparably undermined. In September, the Baltic states were granted independence. On December 1, Ukraine withdrew from the USSR. On December 31, 1991, the USSR officially dissolved, breaking up into fifteen separate nations. The last chapter of the Cold War was over.

[edit] Legacy

Russia and the other Soviet successor states have faced a chaotic and harsh transition from a command economy to free-market capitalism following the collapse of the Soviet Union. A large percentage of the population currently lives in poverty, which was largely nonexistent in the last decades of the Soviet Union. GDP growth also declined, and life expectancy dropped sharply. Living conditions have also declined in other parts of the former Eastern bloc. Moreover, the political instability in the wake of the collapse of the Eastern bloc has led to a number of ethnic and religious wars around the globe, such as in the former Yugoslavia. Several former Soviet republics continue to be plagued by ethnically-based separatist conflicts, e.g. Russia, Moldova and Georgia.

Image:Changes in borders post cold war.PNG

In addition, the poverty and desperation of the Russians and Ukrainians post-Cold War have lead to the sale of many advanced Cold War-developed weapons systems, especially very capable modern upgraded versions, around the globe. World-class tanks (T-80/T-84), jet fighters (MiG-29 and Su-27/30/33), surface-to-air missile systems (S-300P, S-300V, 9K332 and Igla) and others have been placed on the market in order to obtain some much-needed cash. This could pose a headache for western powers in coming decades as they increasingly find hostile countries equipped with weapons which were designed by the Soviets to defeat them.

In the West, the reaction to the collapse of the Soviet Union led some to speak of a "short twentieth century" framed by the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the collapse of the Soviet Union, marking the "end of history."

Some have argued that as the "world's policeman," the United States, is left to fill the imperial role of nineteenth century colonial powers, quelling instability or threats to its geopolitical interests wherever they arise, much like the United Kingdom when it was building up its formal and informal empire in the Victorian era. The post-Cold War era saw a period of unprecedented prosperity in the West, especially in the United States, and a wave of democratization throughout Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe.

Prominent sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein expresses a less triumphalist view, arguing that the end of the Cold War is a prelude to the breakdown of Pax Americana. In his recent essay "Pax Americana is Over," Wallerstein argued, "The collapse of communism in effect signified the collapse of liberalism, removing the only ideological justification behind U.S. hegemony, a justification tacitly supported by liberalism's ostensible ideological opponent." [1]

Another legacy of the Cold War was the great economic boom in the West during the 1980s, which made the free market economies of the West such an alluring model for discontent citizens of the Eastern bloc countries. However, that boom was financed by American deficit spending, with federal debt totaling US$2.6 trillion by 1988, as the Reagan Administration risked the country's own economic stability to fund the arms race against the Soviet Union [2]. Labelling the Reagan Administration's military expenditure as "a classic example of Keynesian deficit-spending", Cold War historian Martin Walker noted the "folly of public investment in the economically fruitless field of weapons", asserting that an extra US$100 billion per year of public investment into other areas like education and infrastructure might have shown a greater economic return for the United States (The Cold War - A History, 1994).

With the collapse of the USSR and its East European satellites, the most prominent officially Communist states were China, Vietnam, Cuba, and North Korea. During the early 1990's, China opened itself up to foreign investment and began to develop a booming industrial economy. Cuba has nurtured economic and political relations with many non-Communist nations, although relations with US remain cool at best. In 1995, Vietnam and the US reopened diplomatic relations and subsequently established trade ties. Only North Korea has remained staunchly Communist, plagued with an economy in near-collapse resulting in famine, strained relations with the international community over its nuclear program, and a totalitarian regime that has resisted all real change.

Cold War institutions such as NATO have found new roles, while other products of the Cold War-era such as the European Union have gone on to great success. The space exploration has petered out in both the United States and Russia without the competitive pressure of the space race.

Another legacy of the Cold War was a large number of military decorations which were created and bestowed by the major powers during the near 50 years of undeclared hostilities.

[edit] Timeline

[edit] Significant documents

  • Partial or Limited Test Ban Treaty (PTBT/LTBT): 1963. Also put forth by Kennedy; banned nuclear tests in the atmosphere, underwater and in space. However, neither France nor China (both Nuclear Weapon States) signed.
  • Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT): 1968. Established the U.S., USSR, UK, France, and China as five "Nuclear-Weapon States". Non-Nuclear Weapon states were prohibited from (among other things) possessing, manufacturing, or acquiring nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. All 187 signatories were committed to the goal of (eventual) nuclear disarmament.
  • Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM): 1972. Entered into between the U.S. and USSR to limit the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems used in defending areas against missile-delivered nuclear weapons; ended by the US in 2002.
  • Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties I & II (SALT I & II): 1972 / 1979. Limited the growth of US and Soviet missile arsenals.
  • Prevention of Nuclear War Agreement: 1973. Committed the U.S. and USSR to consult with one another during conditions of nuclear confrontation.
  • Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF): 1987. Eliminated tactical ("battlefield") nuclear devices and GLCMs from Europe.
  • Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty I (START I): 1991. This was signed by George H. W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev; reduced the numbers of U.S. and Soviet long-range missiles and nuclear warheads from 10,000 per side to 6,000 per side.
  • Mutual Detargeting Treaty (MDT): 1994. U.S. and Russian missiles no longer automatically target the other country; nuclear forces are no longer operated in a manner that presumes that the two nations are adversaries.
  • Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) 1996. Prohibits all nuclear test explosions in all environments; was signed by 71 States (US is not signatory).
  • Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty II (START II): 2000. Will reduce the numbers of U.S. and Russian long-range missiles and nuclear warheads from 6,000 per side to 3,500-3,000 per side. (START III proposed for 2007).
  • Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (Moscow Treaty): 2002. Established bilateral strategic nuclear arms reductions and a new "strategic nuclear framework"; also invited all countries to adopt non-proliferation principles aimed at preventing terrorists, or those that harbored them, from acquiring or developing all types of WMD's and related materials, equipment, and tech.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • Ball, S. J. The Cold War: An International History, 1947-1991 (1998). British perspective
  • Gaddis, John Lewis. The Cold War: A New History (2005)
  • Long Peace: Inquiries into the History of the Cold War (1987)]
  • Gaddis, John Lewis. * LaFeber, Walter. America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-1992 7th ed. (1993)
  • Powaski, Ronald E. The Cold War: The United States and the Soviet Union, 1917-1991 (1998)
  • Sivachev, Nikolai and Nikolai Yakolev, Russia and the United States (1979), by Soviet historians
  • Brzezinski, Zbigniew. Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Adviser, 1977-1981 (1983);
  • Edmonds, Robin. Soviet Foreign Policy: The Brezhnev Years (1983)
  • Mower, A. Glenn Jr. Human Rights and American Foreign Policy: The Carter and Reagan Experiences ( 1987),
  • Smith, Gaddis. Morality, Reason and Power:American Diplomacy in the Carter Years (1986).
  • Beschloss, Michael, and Strobe Talbott. At the Highest Levels:The Inside Story of the End of the Cold War (1993)
  • Bialer, Seweryn and Michael Mandelbaum, eds. Gorbachev's Russia and American Foreign Policy (1988).
  • Gaddis, John Lewis. The United States and the End of the Cold War: Implications, Reconsiderations, Provocations (1992)
  • Garthoff, Raymond. The Great Transition:American-Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War (1994)
  • Hogan, Michael ed. The End of the Cold War. Its Meaning and Implications (1992) articles from Diplomatic History online at JSTOR
  • Kyvig, David ed. Reagan and the World (1990)
  • Matlock, Jack F. Autopsy of an Empire (1995) by US ambassador to Moscow
  • Shultz, George P. Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State (1993).
  • Walker, Martin. The Cold War - A History (1994).


History of the Cold War
Origins of the Cold War | 1947–1953 | 1953–1962 | 1962–1979 | 1979–1991 | 1985–1991
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