The end of the Cold War

COLD WAR. GEOPOLITICS, 2014

Background to the Study The Cold War was essentially a period of time that was characterized by political, military and economic tensions between the major powers of the Eastern Bloc and the Western Bloc following the end of World War II. The Eastern powers were the Soviet Union and other powers in the Warsaw Pact. The Western Bloc, on the other hand, consisted of the United States of America (US) and its NATO allies (Fousek, 2000). It is not clearly known when the Cold War officially started; and different dates have been given. However, the most commonly cited date for the commencement of the Cold War is 1947. The War ended in 1991. This happened following the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The Cold War was simply a period of intense political and military tensions between the world’s major powers; but did not involve any direct military confrontations. Instead, the confrontations often took place in the form of proxy wars fought in other countries and places. The Vietnam War, the Korean War, and the first Afghanistan War are notable proxy wars between these two sides. The Eastern Bloc and the Western Bloc supported different sides in these wars; and this was the closest that they came to confronting each other (Gaddis, 1989). The Cold War, therefore, can be said to have been a supremacy and hegemonic battle to determine the greatest power in the world after the end of World War II and the devastating defeat of Japan and East Germany (Gaddis, 1997). Although the US and the Soviet Union had been allies against Nazi Germany during World War II, they were split by the Cold War. This split would prove to be quite disastrous for both sides both economically and politically. The major differences were that the Soviet Union pursued a Marxist-Leninist political ideology while the US and its allies pursued a capitalist ideology (Fousek, 2000). Although there was no full-scale armed combat between the two superpowers, they nonetheless armed themselves heavily in anticipation for a possible real war. With both sides owning nuclear and other lethal weapons, there was an expectation that a worldwide nuclear war might erupt (Grenville, 2005; Nalebuff, 1988). However, it was largely because of their possession of nuclear weapons that each side was able to deter the other. Both the US and the Soviet Union were not willing to initiate a direct nuclear confrontation for fear that the nuclear weapons held by the other would be used. The state of tension between two continued until 1991 when the Soviet Union disintegrated (Freedman, 2004).

Jurnal Hubungan Internasional, 2015 - journal.umy.ac.id

Abstrak Tulisan ini akan membahas berakhirnya Perang Dingin dan factor kritis yang mempengaruhi keberakhiran tersebut. Telah dikemukakan bahwa Perang Dingain merupakan konflik ideologi antara Uni Soviet dan Amerika Serikat. Namun, konflik antara negara adi kuasa telah memicu konfrontasi militer dan pendekatan keamanan di dunia setelah berakirnya Perang Dunia Kedua. Akibatnya, banyak Negara, terutama negara dunia ketiga menjadi korban persaingan ideologi antara Amerika Serikat dan Uni Soviet. Kata kunci: pendekatan antar-sistemik, konflik ideologi, runtuhnya komunisme, kebijakan luar negeri Abstract This essay will discuss the end of the Cold War and the critical factors which influenced its ending. It has been suggested that the Cold War actually was the ideological conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States. However, the conflict between the superpowers has triggered the military confrontation and security approach in the world after the end of the Second World War. As a result, many countries, especially the Third World countries became victims of the ideological rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Diplomatic History, 1992

The Soviet and Post-soviet Review, 1995

Between the "discovery" of the Cold War in 1946 and its "dissolution" in 1989, the world for scholars, citizens and policymakers was simple. There was an assumed and apparently undeniable dichotomy between "them" and "us"; the "evil empire" and "the City on the Hill"; a "Free World" and a "Communist" one that yvas in the "Soviet bloc" behind a virtually impregnable "Iron Curtain"; and pure democracy and capitalism yersus Communism. if effect, the assumptions that justified and kept the Cold War "heated" created a Cold War or, at least, 'Iron Curtain" from west to east in scholarship and in virtually every other area. To the extent the differences between the Soviet Union, its purported "satellites" in Eastern Eu

To a very large extent the current policies developed for dealing with the strife between Russia and the West echo the policy and ideological stresses of the Cold War. There is an underlying theme of anti-communism in dealing with Russia which colours the strategy. For most scholars, academics and analysts the term Cold War is viewed as a general rubric for the competition between the U.S. and its allies in the West against the Soviet Union and its allies around the world. The Cold War has been described as a game of tactics and coercion conducted by nation states under the umbrella of Mutual Assured Destruction where nuclear attacks were the ultimate weapons. This interaction by sovereign states may, indeed, be the vital component of the Cold War struggle but it was not really the arena in which most the Cold War interactions took place. The Cold War was rarely conducted on a battlefield with soldiers (except for Korea); the real Cold War battlefield was in the factories, ports, schools, universities and cultural centres across the world where the covert forces of the U.S. and the Soviets were pitted against each other; occasionally with deadly consequences. It involved the most important elements of our societies: political parties; labour unions; national unions of students; organisations of cultural freedom; organised criminal structures; and organised religious groups. These were the battlefields of the real Cold War and the loci of competition and coercion by the KGB, the GRU, the CIA, MI6, the BND, the Stasi and many others. Without understanding the crucial dimensions of these conflicts any real understanding of the term 'Cold War' is woefully deficient. The modern development of social media and the internet has added the capability of the competitors to lie, exaggerate and confuse.

Kritika, 2019

Several years ago, Odd Arne Westad, James Hershberg, Geir Lundestad, and others advocated a "new Cold War history." 1 Multiarchival research, integration of different spheres and protagonists of international and transnational life, multicultural sensibility as well as multipolar perspectives on developments since 1945 were expected to shed light on interconnections between parallel processes, on the importance of assumed peripheries, and on the interrelated roles of hard and soft power in international relations. 2 Raising awareness of those interdependencies, mechanisms, and influences would challenge traditional superpower narratives, emphases, and conventional cesura. Indeed, a vast number of original approaches and fascinating studies have enormously extended former borders of research and knowledge 1 See, e.g.

An overview of the myriad circumstances that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the de facto victory of democracy over communism in the geopolitical arena.