essay on end of cold war

The Cold War

The end of the cold war.

Three events heralded the end of the Cold War: the fall of the Berlin Wall , the reunification of Germany and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. All came at the end of a tumultuous decade where ordinary people challenged the viability of socialism and socialist governments. The pressures they applied undermined and eroded political authority in Soviet bloc nations. With Moscow no longer demanding adherence to socialist policies, these governments relented, allowing political reforms or relaxing restrictions such as border controls. In East Germany , the epicentre of Cold War division, popular unrest brought about a change in leadership and the collapse of the Berlin Wall (November 1989). Within a few months, the two Germanys were rejoined after 45 years of division. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union was also in its death throes. After two decades of economic stagnation , the USSR was weakening internally. As the historian John Lewis Gaddis put it, the USSR was a “troubled triceratops”: it remained powerful and intimidating but on the inside its “digestive, circulatory and respiratory systems were slowly clogging up then shutting down”. Mikhail Gorbachev ‘s twin reforms, glasnost and perestroika , failed to save the beast.

The demise of the Berlin Wall cleared the road to the reunification of Germany. Internal borders between East and West Germany, as well as those within the divided city of Berlin, were quickly removed. West German chancellor Helmut Kohl seized the moment by drafting a ten-point plan for German reunification, without consulting NATO allies or members of his own party. While most Germans welcomed the move, the prospect of a reunified Germany did not please everyone. It was particularly troubling for older Europeans with lingering memories of Nazism and World War II. British prime minister Margaret Thatcher was privately concerned about it, as were many French, Italians and indeed the Soviets. Israel, now home to thousands of Holocaust survivors, was the most vocal opponent of German reunification.

In March 1990, East Germany held its first free elections, producing a resounding defeat for the communists. The two German states stepped up their political and economic co-operation, agreeing to a single currency (the Deutschmark ) in July 1990. Work was already underway on the formalities of reunification and the composition of a new German state. These questions were finalised by the Unification Treaty , which was signed in August 1990 and came into effect on October 3rd. A general election – the first all-German free election since 1932 – was held in December 1990. A coalition of Christian conservative parties won almost half the seats in the Bundestag (parliament), while Helmut Kohl was endorsed as chancellor. In the years that followed, Germany would dispel concerns about its wartime past by becoming one of the most prosperous and progressive states in Europe.

The Soviet Union passes into history

The Soviet Union remained the last bastion of socialism in Europe – but it too was rapidly changing. Gorbachev’s reforms of the mid-1980s failed to arrest critical problems in the Soviet economy. Soviet industries faced critical shortages of resources, leading to a decline in productivity. Meanwhile, Soviet citizens endured shortages of state-provided food items and consumer goods, giving rise to a thriving black market. Moscow’s big-ticket spending on the military, space exploration and propping up satellite states further drained the stagnating Soviet economy. More reforms in 1988 allowed private ownership in many sectors, though this came too late to achieve any reversal. It became clear that the Soviet economy could not recover on its own: it needed access to Western markets and emerging technologies.

The political dissolution of the Soviet Union unfolded gradually in the late 1980s. A series of reforms in 1987-88 loosened Communist Party control of elections, released political prisoners and expanded freedom of speech under glasnost . Outside Russia, the Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia) agitated for independence while separatist-driven violence was reported in Azerbaijan and Armenia. In early 1990, the Communist Party accepted Gorbachev’s recommendation that Soviet bloc nations be permitted to hold free elections and referendums on independence. By the end of 1990, the citizens in six states – Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Armenia, Georgia and Moldova – had voted to leave the Soviet Union. Ukraine, a region of considerable economic value, also declared its independence in July 1990. The Soviet republics that remained were given greater political and economic autonomy.

The August 1991 coup

“Many Russians sympathised with the plotters… because they approved of their motivation, that of preventing the Soviet Union from unravelling. After the initial euphoria… had died down, and people began to face the realities of a disbanded Soviet empire, disenchantment set in. Within a couple of years, the Yeltsin administration was itself pushing for a ‘reintegration’ of the former Soviet republics.” Amy Knight, historian In 1991 Gorbachev attempted to restructure and decentralise the Soviet Union by granting its member-states greater autonomy. Under Gorbachev’s proposed model, the USSR would become the “Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics”, a confederation of independent nations sharing a military force, foreign policy and economic ties. These proposed changes angered some Communist Party leaders, who feared they would erode Soviet power and bringing about the collapse of the USSR. In August 1991 a group of hardliners including Gorbachev’s vice-president, prime minister, defence minister and KGB chief, decided to act. With Gorbachev at his dacha in Crimea, the group ordered his arrest, shut down the media and attempted to seize control of the government. The coup leaders misread the mood of the public, however, which came out in support of Gorbachev. The coup collapsed after three days and Gorbachev was returned to office, though with his authority reduced. By Christmas 1991, the Soviet Union had passed into history. It was formally dissolved and replaced by a looser confederation called the Commonwealth of Independent States. The death of the Soviet Union marked the curtain call of the Cold War. While communist regimes remained in China , North Korea and Cuba , the perceived threat of Soviet imperialism had been lifted from the world. Debate raged among commentators and historians about who was responsible for ending the Cold War. Some hailed Gorbachev and other Soviet bloc reformers as the architects of change and reform. Others credited strong-minded Western leaders like Ronald Reagan and Thatcher with bringing down the Soviet empire. Some believed communism was defeated by its own false promises: it was an unsustainable economic system that had collapsed from within. There was some truth in all three perspectives. In the tumultuous 1980s, however, ordinary people were the true engine of change. For decades citizens in the Soviet bloc had lived under oppressive one-party regimes and had little or no say in government. They were forced to work, denied the right to protest or speak and denied the choices available to their neighbours in the West. The final years of the Cold War were defined by these ordinary people, who risked their lives to rejoin the free world. Their determination and heroism were noted by novelist John Le Carre: “It was man who ended the Cold War, in case you didn’t notice. It wasn’t weaponry, or technology, or armies or campaigns. It was just man. Not even Western man either, as it happened, but our sworn enemy in the East, who went into the streets, faced the bullets and the batons and said: ‘We’ve had enough’. It was their emperor, not ours, who had the nerve to mount the rostrum and declare he had no clothes. And the ideologies trailed after these impossible events like condemned prisoners, as ideologies do when they’ve had their day.”

1. Three significant events heralded the end of the Cold War: the fall of the Berlin Wall, the reunification of Germany and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

2. The fall of the Berlin Wall prompted the removal of borders between East and West Germany, while West German chancellor Helmut Kohl began pushing for the reunification of the two states.

3. Despite opposition from some quarters, reunification proceeded during 1990. It was finalised by the Reunification Treaty (October) and free elections for a single Germany (December).

4. Beset by internal economic and political problems, the Soviet Union weakened during the late 1980s. After an unsuccessful coup attempt by hardliners, the USSR was dissolved in 1991.

5. There is much debate about the factors that brought the Cold War to an end. Some attribute it to Gorbachev’s reforms, strong leadership in the West or the unsustainability of socialist economic systems. The role of ordinary people in the late 1980s is also undeniable.

US intelligence paper: ‘The Soviet system in crisis’ (November 1989) The German Unification Treaty (August 1990) Communist hardliners justify their attempted coup to unseat Mikhail Gorbachev (August 1991) The Minsk Agreement dissolves the Soviet Union (December 1991)

Content on this page is © Alpha History 2018. This content may not be republished or distributed without permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use . This page was written by Jennifer Llewellyn, Jim Southey and Steve Thompson. To reference this page, use the following citation: J. Llewellyn et al, “The end of the Cold War”, Alpha History, accessed [today’s date], https://alphahistory.com/coldwar/end-of-the-cold-war/.

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Cold War History

By: History.com Editors

Updated: June 26, 2023 | Original: October 27, 2009

The Cold War was a period of geopolitical tension marked by competition and confrontation between communist nations led by the Soviet Union and Western democracies including the United States. During World War II , the United States and the Soviets fought together as allies against Nazi Germany . However, U.S./Soviet relations were never truly friendly: Americans had long been wary of Soviet communism and Russian leader Joseph Stalin ’s tyrannical rule. The Soviets resented Americans’ refusal to give them a leading role in the international community, as well as America’s delayed entry into World War II, in which millions of Russians died.

These grievances ripened into an overwhelming sense of mutual distrust and enmity that never developed into open warfare (thus the term “cold war”). Soviet expansionism into Eastern Europe fueled many Americans’ fears of a Russian plan to control the world. Meanwhile, the USSR came to resent what they perceived as U.S. officials’ bellicose rhetoric, arms buildup and strident approach to international relations. In such a hostile atmosphere, no single party was entirely to blame for the Cold War; in fact, some historians believe it was inevitable.

Containment

By the time World War II ended, most American officials agreed that the best defense against the Soviet threat was a strategy called “containment.” In his famous “Long Telegram,” the diplomat George Kennan (1904-2005) explained the policy: The Soviet Union, he wrote, was “a political force committed fanatically to the belief that with the U.S. there can be no permanent modus vivendi [agreement between parties that disagree].” As a result, America’s only choice was the “long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.”

“It must be the policy of the United States,” he declared before Congress in 1947, “to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation…by outside pressures.” This way of thinking would shape American foreign policy for the next four decades.

Did you know? The term 'cold war' first appeared in a 1945 essay by the English writer George Orwell called 'You and the Atomic Bomb.'

The Cold War: The Atomic Age

The containment strategy also provided the rationale for an unprecedented arms buildup in the United States. In 1950, a National Security Council Report known as NSC–68 had echoed Truman’s recommendation that the country use military force to contain communist expansionism anywhere it seemed to be occurring. To that end, the report called for a four-fold increase in defense spending.

In particular, American officials encouraged the development of atomic weapons like the ones that had ended World War II. Thus began a deadly “ arms race .” In 1949, the Soviets tested an atom bomb of their own. In response, President Truman announced that the United States would build an even more destructive atomic weapon: the hydrogen bomb, or “superbomb.” Stalin followed suit.

As a result, the stakes of the Cold War were perilously high. The first H-bomb test, in the Eniwetok atoll in the Marshall Islands, showed just how fearsome the nuclear age could be. It created a 25-square-mile fireball that vaporized an island, blew a huge hole in the ocean floor and had the power to destroy half of Manhattan. Subsequent American and Soviet tests spewed radioactive waste into the atmosphere.

The ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation had a great impact on American domestic life as well. People built bomb shelters in their backyards. They practiced attack drills in schools and other public places. The 1950s and 1960s saw an epidemic of popular films that horrified moviegoers with depictions of nuclear devastation and mutant creatures. In these and other ways, the Cold War was a constant presence in Americans’ everyday lives.

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The Cold War and the Space Race

Space exploration served as another dramatic arena for Cold War competition. On October 4, 1957, a Soviet R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile launched Sputnik (Russian for “traveling companion”), the world’s first artificial satellite and the first man-made object to be placed into the Earth’s orbit. Sputnik’s launch came as a surprise, and not a pleasant one, to most Americans.

In the United States, space was seen as the next frontier, a logical extension of the grand American tradition of exploration, and it was crucial not to lose too much ground to the Soviets. In addition, this demonstration of the overwhelming power of the R-7 missile–seemingly capable of delivering a nuclear warhead into U.S. air space–made gathering intelligence about Soviet military activities particularly urgent.

In 1958, the U.S. launched its own satellite, Explorer I, designed by the U.S. Army under the direction of rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, and what came to be known as the Space Race was underway. That same year, President Dwight Eisenhower signed a public order creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a federal agency dedicated to space exploration, as well as several programs seeking to exploit the military potential of space. Still, the Soviets were one step ahead, launching the first man into space in April 1961.

That May, after Alan Shepard become the first American man in space, President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) made the bold public claim that the U.S. would land a man on the moon by the end of the decade. His prediction came true on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong of NASA’s Apollo 11 mission , became the first man to set foot on the moon, effectively winning the Space Race for the Americans. 

U.S. astronauts came to be seen as the ultimate American heroes. Soviets, in turn, were pictured as the ultimate villains, with their massive, relentless efforts to surpass America and prove the power of the communist system.

The Cold War and the Red Scare

Meanwhile, beginning in 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee ( HUAC ) brought the Cold War home in another way. The committee began a series of hearings designed to show that communist subversion in the United States was alive and well.

In Hollywood , HUAC forced hundreds of people who worked in the movie industry to renounce left-wing political beliefs and testify against one another. More than 500 people lost their jobs. Many of these “blacklisted” writers, directors, actors and others were unable to work again for more than a decade. HUAC also accused State Department workers of engaging in subversive activities. Soon, other anticommunist politicians, most notably Senator Joseph McCarthy (1908-1957), expanded this probe to include anyone who worked in the federal government. 

Thousands of federal employees were investigated, fired and even prosecuted. As this anticommunist hysteria spread throughout the 1950s, liberal college professors lost their jobs, people were asked to testify against colleagues and “loyalty oaths” became commonplace.

The Cold War Abroad

The fight against subversion at home mirrored a growing concern with the Soviet threat abroad. In June 1950, the first military action of the Cold War began when the Soviet-backed North Korean People’s Army invaded its pro-Western neighbor to the south. Many American officials feared this was the first step in a communist campaign to take over the world and deemed that nonintervention was not an option. Truman sent the American military into Korea, but the Korean War dragged to a stalemate and ended in 1953.

In 1955, the United States and other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) made West Germany a member of NATO and permitted it to remilitarize. The Soviets responded with the Warsaw Pact , a mutual defense organization between the Soviet Union, Albania, Poland, Romania, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria that set up a unified military command under Marshal Ivan S. Konev of the Soviet Union.

Other international disputes followed. In the early 1960s, President Kennedy faced a number of troubling situations in his own hemisphere. The Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and the Cuban missile crisis the following year seemed to prove that the real communist threat now lay in the unstable, postcolonial “Third World.” 

Nowhere was this more apparent than in Vietnam , where the collapse of the French colonial regime had led to a struggle between the American-backed nationalist Ngo Dinh Diem in the south and the communist nationalist Ho Chi Minh in the north. Since the 1950s, the United States had been committed to the survival of an anticommunist government in the region, and by the early 1960s it seemed clear to American leaders that if they were to successfully “contain” communist expansionism there, they would have to intervene more actively on Diem’s behalf. However, what was intended to be a brief military action spiraled into a 10-year conflict .

The End of the Cold War and Effects

Almost as soon as he took office, President Richard Nixon (1913-1994) began to implement a new approach to international relations. Instead of viewing the world as a hostile, “bi-polar” place, he suggested, why not use diplomacy instead of military action to create more poles? To that end, he encouraged the United Nations to recognize the communist Chinese government and, after a trip there in 1972, began to establish diplomatic relations with Beijing.

At the same time, he adopted a policy of “détente”—”relaxation”—toward the Soviet Union. In 1972, he and Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev (1906-1982) signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I), which prohibited the manufacture of nuclear missiles by both sides and took a step toward reducing the decades-old threat of nuclear war.

Despite Nixon’s efforts, the Cold War heated up again under President Ronald Reagan (1911-2004). Like many leaders of his generation, Reagan believed that the spread of communism anywhere threatened freedom everywhere. As a result, he worked to provide financial and military aid to anticommunist governments and insurgencies around the world. This policy, particularly as it was applied in the developing world in places like Grenada and El Salvador, was known as the Reagan Doctrine .

Even as Reagan fought communism in Central America, however, the Soviet Union was disintegrating. In response to severe economic problems and growing political ferment in the USSR, Premier Mikhail Gorbachev (1931-2022) took office in 1985 and introduced two policies that redefined Russia’s relationship to the rest of the world: “glasnost,” or political openness, and “ perestroika ,” or economic reform. 

Soviet influence in Eastern Europe waned. In 1989, every other communist state in the region replaced its government with a noncommunist one. In November of that year, the Berlin Wall –the most visible symbol of the decades-long Cold War–was finally destroyed, just over two years after Reagan had challenged the Soviet premier in a speech at Brandenburg Gate in Berlin: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” By 1991, the Soviet Union itself had fallen apart. The Cold War was over.

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The End of the Cold War – An In-Depth Analysis

Collapse of the cold war: a thorough dissection, introduction.

The Cold War, a term coined in the aftermath of World War II, does not denote a conventional war fought with direct military engagements between the superpowers, but rather a prolonged state of political and military tension. The two primary antagonists, the United States and the Soviet Union, engaged in various forms of psychological warfare, economic clashes, and proxy wars, influencing global politics for nearly half a century. This essay seeks to unravel the complex tapestry of events and undercurrents that led to the end of this ideological standoff, marking a significant transition in world affairs. The termination of the Cold War was not brought about by a singular event, but by a series of economic, political, and ideological factors that precipitated the dissolution of the Soviet Union and mitigated global hostilities.

Historical Context

The post-world war ii geopolitical landscape.

Following the devastation of World War II, two nations emerged as superpowers: the United States and the Soviet Union. The geopolitical landscape of the time was heavily influenced by the ruins of war and the need for reconstruction. The establishment of the United Nations in 1945 was a testament to the world’s collective desire for peace and cooperation, yet the superpowers were already on a path to confrontation. This bipolar world was soon divided into spheres of influence, with the U.S. promoting a capitalist, democratic model and the USSR espousing a communist, authoritarian ideology. The Iron Curtain metaphorically descended across Europe, delineating the Western nations from the Eastern bloc, which were under Soviet influence.

Formation of NATO and the Warsaw Pact

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was created in 1949 by the United States, Canada, and several Western European nations to provide collective security against the Soviet threat. In response, the USSR and its allies formed the Warsaw Pact in 1955, solidifying the divide in Europe and setting the stage for various Cold War confrontations. The respective military alliances were the embodiment of the struggle for power between the East and the West, and they played a pivotal role in maintaining the balance of terror, which prevented direct military engagement between the superpowers.

Key Early Events: Berlin, Korea, and Cuba

The Berlin Blockade of 1948-1949 was one of the first major crises of the Cold War. The Soviet Union’s attempt to push the Allies out of Berlin was countered by the Western nations’ remarkable Berlin Airlift, setting a precedent for Cold War confrontations. The Korean War (1950-1953) further entrenched the divide as forces from the North, backed by China and the USSR, clashed with South Korean and UN forces, primarily composed of U.S. troops. Lastly, the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 brought the world to the brink of nuclear war when the Soviet Union placed nuclear missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles from the U.S. coastline. These early events not only exemplified the potential for global catastrophe inherent in the Cold War but also set the tone for the intense rivalry that would persist until the late 20th century.

Economic Factors

The economic dimension of the Cold War played a critical role in its eventual resolution. The sustainability of the superpower competition relied heavily on economic strength, and ultimately, the economic vulnerabilities of the Soviet Union contributed significantly to its collapse. Understanding these economic factors is vital to comprehending the decline of one of the 20th century’s most formidable powers.

The Burden of the Arms Race

The arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union was a massive economic drain for both powers, but disproportionately so for the USSR. Nuclear proliferation required enormous investment, with a significant portion of the Soviet Union’s GDP allocated to defense spending. This relentless pursuit of military parity with the U.S. placed an unsustainable burden on the Soviet economy, diverting resources away from consumer industries and social programs.

Impact on Soviet Economy

The Soviet Union’s centralized economy struggled under the weight of its military obligations. Unlike the U.S., which had a diverse and robust economy, the USSR’s economic system was less adaptable and more vulnerable to the strains of military expenditure. The inefficiencies of central planning, coupled with the stagnation of economic growth, exacerbated the impact of the arms race, leading to shortages, declining standards of living, and eventual economic crisis.

Western Economic Policies

The economic strategies employed by the West, particularly during the Reagan administration, were designed to exacerbate the Soviet Union’s economic difficulties. Reaganomics, characterized by tax cuts and increased defense spending, was not only a domestic economic policy but also a calculated maneuver to force the Soviet Union into an untenable position in the arms race. The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), although never fully realized, compelled the USSR to invest in countermeasures, further straining its finances.

Trade Embargoes and Sanctions on the USSR

Trade embargoes and sanctions played a subtle yet significant role in undermining the Soviet economy. By limiting access to technology and markets, the West was able to restrict the Soviet Union’s economic growth and access to resources. These economic measures were particularly impactful during a time when global trade was becoming an increasingly important component of economic strength.

Internal Economic Struggles of the USSR

The internal economic structure of the Soviet Union was fraught with problems. Centralized planning failed to respond effectively to the needs of the economy, leading to widespread inefficiencies and corruption. Additionally, the economy suffered from a lack of innovation and the inability to compete in the burgeoning global market. The oil price crash in the 1980s dealt a severe blow to the Soviet economy, which was heavily reliant on oil exports for foreign currency. This reduction in revenue further exacerbated the existing economic instability.

Political and Ideological Factors

The interplay of political maneuvering and ideological contest within and beyond the borders of the Soviet Union were central to the unravelling of the Cold War. While the ideological schism had long provided the bedrock for Cold War tensions, political dynamics within the Soviet Union and its sphere of influence during the 1980s brought these issues to a critical juncture.

Gorbachev’s Policies

When Mikhail Gorbachev assumed leadership of the USSR in 1985, he brought with him a new set of policies and an approach that contrasted sharply with that of his predecessors. Gorbachev’s dual policies of Glasnost (openness) and Perestroika (restructuring) sought to revive the stagnant Soviet economy and to liberalize the oppressive political system. Glasnost allowed for increased transparency and freedom of expression, leading to a flood of pent-up criticism of the government, while Perestroika aimed to decentralize the economy to foster productivity and efficiency.

Eastern European Political Shifts

The political landscape of Eastern Europe, long dominated by Soviet influence, began to shift as the 1980s progressed. In Poland, the Solidarity movement, led by Lech Wałęsa, became a symbol of resistance against Soviet control and an advocate for political reform. Similar movements gained momentum across Eastern Europe, including Hungary, where reforms led to multi-party elections, and Czechoslovakia, which experienced the peaceful “Velvet Revolution.” These shifts indicated a growing weariness with authoritarian rule and a leaning towards democratic governance.

The Role of Ideological Dissent

The increased flow of information and the exposure to Western ideologies, facilitated in part by Gorbachev’s Glasnost, amplified ideological dissent within the Soviet Union and its satellite states. The spread of democratic ideals, coupled with the visible economic success of Western nations, undermined the credibility of the communist model. This ideological erosion was profound, not only in the public’s consciousness but also within the ruling Communist Party, leading to a loss of confidence in the system and contributing to the eventual collapse.

Influence of Western Ideals

Western influence played a subtle, yet significant role in shaping the ideological debate within the Soviet bloc. The allure of Western culture and the appeal of its consumerist lifestyle became more pronounced as the Iron Curtain’s permeability increased. The stark contrast between the stagnation in the Soviet Union and the prosperity in the West challenged the legitimacy of the communist ideology and spurred a desire for change among the Eastern European populace.

The Spread of Democracy

The latter half of the 20th century saw a global trend towards democracy, a wave that eventually reached the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence. The democratic movements within Eastern Europe not only contributed to the political realignment but also reflected a broader ideological shift towards democracy and away from authoritarian regimes. This trend was a clear ideological victory for the West and a blow to the Soviet Union, which had long posited itself as a viable alternative to capitalist democracy.

The Role of International Diplomacy

International diplomacy was a key instrument in navigating the Cold War’s intricate and often perilous tensions. As the ideological rift between the Soviet Union and the United States began to close, diplomatic efforts intensified to manage and, ultimately, resolve the conflict. The artful handling of international relations proved to be as decisive as any military strategy in the Cold War’s denouement.

The Reagan-Gorbachev Dialogues

The series of summits and negotiations between U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev marked a significant thaw in Cold War relations. Their meetings, which spanned from Geneva in 1985 to Moscow in 1988, provided a platform for dialogue and set the groundwork for major arms reduction agreements. The most notable of these, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty of 1987, eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons and symbolized a shift away from the doctrine of mutual assured destruction.

Impact of ‘New Thinking’

Gorbachev’s “New Thinking” was a doctrine that reimagined Soviet foreign policy, emphasizing international cooperation and peaceful coexistence over ideological confrontation. This shift had profound implications for the Soviet Union’s relationships with its Eastern Bloc allies and the non-aligned movement, and it signalled an openness to integrate with the global community. Gorbachev’s willingness to withdraw from Afghanistan in 1988 and to allow greater autonomy for Eastern Bloc nations were indicative of this seismic change in Soviet diplomacy.

Engagement of Smaller States and Non-State Actors

Throughout the Cold War, smaller states and non-state actors played a role in the international diplomatic arena, often as proxies or pawns of the superpowers. However, as the Cold War waned, these actors found new agency in shaping the dialogue. The contributions of smaller nations in brokering peace, and the influence of transnational organizations in promoting disarmament and dialogue, helped create an environment conducive to ending the Cold War.

The United Nations’ Evolving Role

The United Nations emerged as a forum for peaceful resolution and international cooperation. As Cold War hostilities subsided, the U.N. played a more active role in resolving conflicts that had once been Cold War flashpoints. The resolution of long-standing disputes, such as the occupation of Namibia and the Iran-Iraq War, with U.N. mediation, exemplified this renewed capacity to foster peace.

Normalization of Relations

The gradual normalization of relations between the Eastern and Western blocs was a testament to the effective use of diplomacy. Beyond the U.S.-Soviet summits, a series of bilateral and multilateral engagements facilitated the easing of travel restrictions, cultural exchanges, and economic cooperation. This normalization was not an end in itself but a means to build trust and to dismantle the structures of hostility that had long perpetuated the Cold War.

Decisive Events Leading to the End of the Cold War

The culmination of the Cold War was not precipitated by a singular event, but rather a series of critical junctures that signaled a shift away from the half-century-long geopolitical and ideological standoff. These events, occurring in rapid succession, underscored the transformation of the international order and the changing ethos of global politics.

The Fall of the Berlin Wall

Perhaps no other event symbolized the end of the Cold War more powerfully than the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. The collapse of this concrete barrier, which had stood as the most tangible manifestation of the Iron Curtain, not only reunited Germany but also marked the beginning of the end for Soviet influence in Eastern Europe. This pivotal moment was as much a consequence of the erosion of Soviet authority as it was a catalyst for further change.

The Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia

The peaceful Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia, which saw the overthrow of the communist regime in late 1989, was a testament to the power of nonviolent resistance and the waning Soviet grip on Eastern Europe. The success of this revolution and the subsequent election of dissident playwright Václav Havel as president represented the triumph of democratic principles over authoritarian rule.

The Romanian Revolution

In stark contrast to the peaceful transitions in other parts of Eastern Europe, Romania experienced a violent revolution in December 1989 that led to the fall of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s dictatorial regime. The bloody nature of the Romanian Revolution highlighted the varying degrees of resistance to change within the Eastern Bloc and underscored the lengths to which people were willing to go to secure their freedom.

The Baltic States’ Push for Independence

The Baltic republics of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia declared their independence from the Soviet Union in 1990. These declarations were significant, as they represented a direct challenge to Soviet territorial integrity. The peaceful mass protests, such as the Baltic Way, in which approximately two million people formed a human chain spanning the three countries, demonstrated the popular support for independence and the limitations of Soviet power to quell the tide of nationalism.

The Coup Attempt Against Gorbachev

In August 1991, hardline members of the Soviet government and military attempted a coup d’état against Gorbachev, hoping to reverse the disintegration of Soviet power. The coup failed, largely due to the resistance led by Boris Yeltsin, president of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. The coup’s failure accelerated the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of communist authority.

The Dissolution of the Soviet Union

The final act in the Cold War drama was the dissolution of the Soviet Union itself. On December 25, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as President of the USSR, and the Soviet flag was lowered for the last time over the Kremlin. The formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) by Russia and other former Soviet republics effectively signified the end of the Soviet Union as a political entity and the definitive end of the Cold War.

Consequences and Aftermath

The end of the Cold War marked a transformative moment in global history, with profound consequences that reshaped international relations, domestic politics, and economic paradigms across the world. The aftermath of this ideological and geopolitical conflict’s resolution set the stage for the new world order of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

The New World Order

With the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the United States emerged as the world’s sole superpower, a status that led to the proclamation of a “new world order.” This term, popularized by U.S. President George H.W. Bush, reflected a vision for a post-Cold War era characterized by U.S. leadership in creating a world where democracy and free market economies were the norm, and where international disputes would be settled by peaceful means through international institutions like the United Nations.

Shifts in NATO and European Security

The end of the Cold War necessitated a reevaluation of NATO’s role in a world no longer defined by the U.S.-Soviet rivalry. The organization shifted its focus from collective defense against the Warsaw Pact to crisis management and peacekeeping. Additionally, the Warsaw Pact was dissolved, and many of its former members sought closer ties with the West, with several joining NATO and the European Union, signaling a significant realignment in European security structures.

Economic Transformations

The transition from command economies to market-based systems in the former Eastern Bloc was a rocky process, marked by significant hardship for many. The “shock therapy” approach to economic reform had varying levels of success, leading to the rapid emergence of a capitalist class but also contributing to widespread poverty, unemployment, and social dislocation. Despite these challenges, many Eastern European countries eventually found paths to economic growth and integration into the global economy.

The Rise of Ethnic and Regional Conflicts

The power vacuum left by the Soviet Union’s collapse led to the re-emergence of long-suppressed ethnic and regional conflicts, particularly in the Balkans and the Caucasus. The wars in the former Yugoslavia and the violent struggles in Chechnya were among the most devastating, highlighting the complexities of nation-building and the challenges of maintaining peace and security in a post-Cold War context.

Democratic Expansion and Authoritarian Resistance

The post-Cold War era saw a significant expansion of democracy, particularly in Eastern Europe and Latin America. However, this “third wave of democratization” was met with resistance in some quarters, where authoritarian regimes persisted and, in some cases, reasserted themselves. The struggle between democratic forces and authoritarianism remained a central theme in global politics, demonstrating that the ideological contestations of the Cold War continued in different forms.

Legacy of the Cold War

The legacies of the Cold War are manifold and enduring. It left behind a world deeply scarred by proxy wars, nuclear proliferation, and ideological divisions. At the same time, the end of the Cold War provided opportunities for reconciliation and the forging of new partnerships. The lessons learned from this period continue to influence how current generations approach international conflict, cooperation, and the pursuit of global peace.

Alternative Perspectives on the End of the Cold War

While the mainstream historical narrative attributes the end of the Cold War to a combination of economic, political, and diplomatic factors, alternative perspectives offer different interpretations. These viewpoints challenge conventional wisdom and provide a more nuanced understanding of this complex period.

Revisionist Views

Revisionist historians argue that internal economic challenges within the USSR, rather than Western pressure, were the primary drivers of the Soviet collapse. They suggest that the arms race, while a burden, was not as decisive as the inherent inefficiencies and the eventual failure of the Soviet economic model.

Role of Middle Powers

Some scholars emphasize the role of middle powers and their diplomatic efforts during the final years of the Cold War. Countries such as Canada, Australia, and the Nordic nations are cited for their ‘soft power’ approaches that promoted human rights and disarmament, influencing both superpowers indirectly and contributing to a climate ripe for the Cold War’s resolution.

People’s Movements

Another perspective highlights the influence of grassroots movements and the collective action of citizens. The pivotal role played by solidarity movements in Poland, human rights activists in the USSR, and the pan-European peace movement are seen as critical forces that undermined the legitimacy of communist governments and compelled leadership to seek reform.

Globalization and Cultural Exchange

Others argue that the cultural exchanges and the onset of globalization played a more significant role in ending the Cold War than has been acknowledged. The penetration of Western culture and ideas into the Eastern Bloc via media and personal contacts is seen as a catalyst for change, as it exposed the shortcomings of the Soviet system and inspired a desire for a different way of life.

The Cold War’s conclusion was a pivotal event in world history, marking the end of a period of intense ideological rivalry and nuclear brinkmanship. The dissolution of the Soviet Union and the subsequent geopolitical shifts have had lasting implications for international politics, economics, and social dynamics. This essay has traced the complex web of factors that contributed to the end of the Cold War, acknowledging that no single factor can fully explain this transformative period. Understanding these various elements provides not only a clearer picture of the past but also insights into current global tensions and the potential pathways to their resolution.

As we reflect on this history, it becomes evident that the end of the Cold War was not the “end of history” as some had proclaimed, but rather the beginning of a new era of challenges and opportunities. The legacy of the Cold War continues to shape our world, reminding us of the importance of dialogue, cooperation, and the relentless pursuit of peace.

Class Notes and Outline – End of the Cold War

As the tension between the United States and the Soviet Union grew it was clear that the US had a decided advantage. The US was the worlds only atomic power and United States policy became of containment had proven to be successful. Stalin felt forced to respond. Stalin acted quickly and decisively to attempt to limit US influence in Eastern Europe and balance the emerging power of the United States. As the Cold War pressed on the US tried to enforce its policy of containment. Sometimes it was successful, other times it was not. The policy of containment brought US troops to the far edges of the world. Perhaps to the young it seemed inevitable but on that day in 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down (brick by brick sold off in a capitalist venture it should be noted!) It seemed almost surreal. The giant monolith of the Soviet Union had been defeated. The foundation of the Soviet Union had been crumbling for a decade… some might say it had never actually been solid yet nonetheless for those of us that lived through the Cold War the sight was still shocking. It all seemed so sudden. The days of air raid drills and realistic fears of

a nuclear war would never leave us. What had vanquished the giant of the Soviet Union? What would be the future of world politics? What would happen to all of those nuclear weapons? So many questions… a very uncertain period of time.

• When it was proven that LBJ had lied, this power was withdrawn during the Nixon administration with the passage of the War Powers Act that only allows the President to commit troops for 90 days without Presidential approval. (NY Times v United States)

In 1959 Fidel Castro, a Marxist, took control of Cuba. What did we do about it?

The Cold War Didn’t Have to End. Gorbachev Made It Happen

I f there was one belief shared in 1985 by Western politicians, the leaders and peoples of Eastern Europe, and the Soviet political elite, it was that maintenance of Soviet-type Communist systems in the Warsaw Pact countries was for Moscow non-negotiable. However much Washington politicians talked, especially in the 1950s about rollback of Communism, Communist systems carried on. Western leaders condemned the Soviet invasions of Hungary in 1956 and of Czechoslovakia in 1968, but no American president contemplated a military response. As Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev , who died on August 30 at 91, later agreed, nuclear war could not be won and must never be fought.

What changed? The decommunization of Eastern Europe and the end of the Cold War was not a consequence of Reagan’s military build-up and his starry-eyed Strategic Defense Initiative. Even Robert Gates joked that “there appeared to be only two people on the planet who actually thought SDI would work—Reagan and Gorbachev”. Gorbachev’s concern was not because he believed this would work in the manner Reagan hoped, but because to nullify a missile defense system meant overwhelming it with the sheer number of incoming missiles, some with nuclear warheads and some without. In other words, an acceleration of the arms race. The Soviet Ministry of Defense were perfectly content with that prospect, but Gorbachev was not.

Reagan’s presidency coincided with the last two years of Leonid Brezhnev’s Soviet leadership, the whole of the short Kremlin tenures of Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko, and the first four years of Gorbachev as general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. Nothing changed fundamentally in Eastern Europe, or for the better in East-West relations, until the last of these four leaders came to power.

In the late 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, the U.S. had military superiority over the Soviet Union. Yet, Communism was not only sustained in Eastern Europe, it spread further afield. That makes it all the odder to argue, as some do, that in the mid-1980s when there was a rough military parity between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., a Soviet leadership had no alternative but to seek to end the Cold War.

So long as it remained cold and not hot, this standoff had big advantages for the Soviet party-state bosses. Political isolation made it easier to avoid ideological contamination and to preserve the status quo. Constant warnings of the imperialist threat helped justify strict party control and the vigilance of the KGB against enemies at home or abroad.

Maintaining the military capacity for Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) took a larger share of the Soviet economy than a comparable policy did in the larger American economy, but it was a price Soviet leaders were willing to pay, egged on by the most powerful of institutional interests. For Gorbachev to out manoeuvre the military-industrial complex required boldness and political finesse. The way he used the unscheduled and unchallenged flight to the edge of Red Square of a young West German, Matthias Rust, in May 1987 was an example. Gorbachev seized the opportunity to dismiss not only the conservative Minister of Defense but about a hundred other military leaders who were opposed to the concessions he was prepared to make to secure large-scale arms reductions.

Gorbachev made three contributions that were fundamental to ending the Cold War. The first was to remove its ideological foundations. In a break with Soviet Marxism-Leninism, Gorbachev called in 1988 for a “deideologization of interstate relations” and argued for priority to be given to values and interests that united the whole of humanity rather than those of any one class, nation or group. These included “the worldwide ecological threats” which, ahead of most Western leaders, he declared in his 1988 speech at the United Nations to be “simply frightening.”

The second crucial contribution to ending the Cold War was his embrace of fundamental change of the Soviet political system and Soviet society. The new tolerance within the Soviet Union itself—from an end to persecution of religion to a burgeoning freedom of speech and, before long, of publication reduced the sense of Soviet threat. When Gorbachev announced in 1988 that the following year there would be contested elections for a new legislature, this was a decisive step toward making the political system different in kind.

Gorbachev’s third fundamental contribution to ending the Cold War was his recognition that means in politics are as important as ends, and that included his commitment to change by peaceful means. The former head of Soviet Space Research, Roald Sagdeev, who emigrated to the U.S. in 1989, remarked on Gorbachev’s faith in persuasion, and how this, too, differentiated him from previous Soviet political bosses who would just issue an order and expect to have it obeyed.

At the international level, nothing was more important than Gorbachev’s eschewal of the use of force. What had appeared in 1985 too remote for serious consideration—the end of Communist rule in Eastern Europe—was calmly accepted by Gorbachev. Not for a moment did he consider the use of force to prevent this. Indeed, he was in the process of dismantling the Communist system in his own country. Responding to later Russian criticism that he had given up the countries of the Soviet bloc without a fight, his response was, “To whom did we surrender them? To their own people.”

Anyone who thinks that Soviet leaders had no option but to accept the end of their hegemony in East-Central Europe and then the interconnected dissolution of the Soviet Union (East European countries gaining their independence raised the expectations of the most disaffected nations within the Soviet Union itself) need look no further than Ukraine in 2022. The brutal war being waged there is a reminder that the militarily stronger Soviet Union did have the option of preserving their statehood by force. It is confirmation that the values of political leaders—a Gorbachev or a Putin—still matter.

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End of the Cold War

The late Cold War is characterized by a thaw in relations between the US and Soviet Union in the late 1980s, and mostly associated with the figure of Mikhail Gorbachev and his perestroika reforms in the Soviet Union. In the 1980’s, Gorbachev and Reagan conducted a number of summits that led to the reduction of the two superpowers’ nuclear arsenals. In 1989, Soviet forces withdrew from Afghanistan, and the revolutionary wave in East Europe replaced communist-backed governments and Soviet allies. At the Malta summit in December 1989, Gorbachev and US President George H.W. Bush declared the end of the Cold War. The next year, the Soviet Union consented to the reunification of Germany. In 1991, the Soviet Union broke up into 15 independent states.  

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Gorbachev and the End of the Cold War

Joseph S. Nye contends that the Soviet Union's collapse was inevitable due to the decline of communist ideology and economic failure, independent of Gorbachev's influence. Although Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika accelerated the collapse by provoking public discontent and transforming communism, the fundamental causes were the Soviet economic system's inefficiencies and the erosion of its soft power.

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Author Joseph S. Nye

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This op-ed was reprinted in Beirut, Lebanon's The Daily Star on April 25, 2006, as "The Man Who Preferred a Soviet Whimper to a Dying Bang".

The Soviet collapse was due to the decline of communist ideology and economic failure. This would have happened even without Gorbachev, writes JOSEPH S. NYE.

EARLIER this month, Mikhail Gorbachev celebrated his 75th birthday with a concert and conference at his foundation in Moscow. Unfortunately, he is not popular with the Russian people who blame him for the loss of Soviet power. But, as Gorbachev has replied to those who shout abuse at him: "Remember, I am the one who gave you the right to shout." When he came to power in 1985, Gorbachev tried to discipline the Soviet people as a way to overcome economic stagnation. When discipline failed to solve the problem, he launched perestroika ("restructuring"). And when bureaucrats continually thwarted his orders, he used glasnost, or open discussion and democratisation. But once glasnost let people say what they thought, many people said: "We want out." By December 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Gorbachev's foreign policy, which he called "new thinking", also contributed to the Cold War's end. Gorbachev said that security was a game from which all could benefit through co-operation. Rather than try to build as many nuclear weapons as possible, he proclaimed a doctrine of "sufficiency", holding only a minimal number for protection. He also believed that Soviet control over an empire in Eastern Europe was costing too much and providing too little benefit and that the invasion of Afghanistan had been a costly disaster. By the summer of 1989, East Europeans were given more freedom. Gorbachev refused to sanction the use of force to put down demonstrations. By November, the Berlin Wall had fallen. Some of these events stemmed from Gorbachev's miscalculations. After all, he wanted to reform communism, not replace it. But his reforms snowballed into a revolution driven from below rather than controlled from above. In trying to repair communism, he punched a hole in it. Like a hole in a dam, once pent-up pressure began to escape, it widened the opening and tore apart the system. By contrast, if the Communist Party's Politburo had chosen one of Gorbachev’s hard-line competitors in 1985, it is plausible that the declining Soviet Union could have held on for another decade or so. It did not have to collapse so quickly. Gorbachev's humanitarian tinkering contributed greatly to the timing. But there were also deeper causes for the Soviet demise. One was the "soft" power of liberal ideas, whose spread was aided by the growth of transnational communications and contacts, while the demonstration effect of Western economic success gave them additional appeal. In addition, the huge Soviet defence budget began to undermine other aspects of Soviet society. Healthcare deteriorated and the mortality rate increased (the only developed country where that occurred). Eventually, even the military became aware of the tremendous burden caused by imperial overstretch. Ultimately, the deepest causes of the Soviet collapse were the decline of communist ideology and economic failure. This would have happened even without Gorbachev. In the early Cold War, communism and the Soviet Union had considerable soft power. Many communists led the resistance against fascism in Europe and many people believed that communism was the wave of the future. But Soviet soft power was undercut by the exposure of Stalin's crimes in 1956 and by the repression in Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, and Poland in 1981. Although in theory communism aimed to establish a system of class justice, Lenin's heirs maintained domestic power through a brutal security apparatus involving lethal purges, gulags, broad censorship and ubiquitous informants. The net effect of these brutal measures was a general loss of faith in the system. The Soviet economy's decline, meanwhile, reflected the diminished ability of central planning to respond to global economic change. Stalin had created a command economy that emphasised heavy manufacturing and smokestack industries, making it highly inflexible—all thumbs and no fingers. As the economist Joseph Schumpeter pointed out, capitalism is "creative destruction", a way of responding flexibly to major waves of technological change. At the end of the 20th century, the major technological change of the third industrial revolution was the growing role of information as the scarcest resource in an economy. The Soviet system was particularly inept at handling information. The deep secrecy of its political system meant that the flow of information was slow and cumbersome. Economic globalisation created turmoil throughout the world at the end of the 20th century, but the Western market economies were able to reallocate labour to services, restructure their heavy industries and switch to computers. The Soviet Union could not keep up. Indeed, when Gorbachev came to power in 1985, there were 50,000 personal computers in the Soviet Union; in the United States, there were 30 million. Four years later, there were about 400,000 personal computers in the Soviet Union, and 40 million in the US. According to one Soviet economist, by the late 1980s, only eight per cent of Soviet industry was globally competitive. It is difficult for a country to remain a superpower when the world doesn’t want 92 per cent of what it produces. The lessons for today are clear. While military power remains important, it is a mistake for any country to discount the role of economic power and soft power. But it is also a mistake to discount the importance of leaders with humanitarian values. The Soviet Union may have been doomed, but the world has Gorbachev to thank for the fact that the empire he oversaw ended without a bloody conflagration.

The writer is Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

Joseph S. Nye. “Gorbachev and the End of the Cold War.” New Straits Times , April 5, 2006

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“Tear Down This Wall”: Ronald Reagan and the End of the Cold War

Written by: bill of rights institute, by the end of this section, you will:.

• Explain the causes and effects of the end of the Cold War and its legacy

Suggested Sequencing:

Use this decision point after students have read the introductory essay to introduce foreign policy milestones during Reagan’s presidency. This decision point can be used with  The Iran-Contra Affair  Narrative; the  Ronald Reagan, “Tear Down this Wall” Speech, June 12, 1987  Primary Source; and the  Cold War DBQ (1947–1989)  Lesson.

In the wake of World War II, a Cold War erupted between the world’s two superpowers—the United States and the Soviet Union. During the postwar era, the contest between their respective capitalist and communist systems manifested itself in a nuclear arms race, a space race, and several proxy wars. In the 1960s and 1970s, as the United States fought the Vietnam War and struggled internally with its aftermath and a faltering economy, the Russians seemed ascendant. Increasing oil prices globally led to a revenue windfall for oil-rich Russia, which paid for a massive arms buildup and supported communist insurrections that Russia backed in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Eventually, the policy of détente decreased tensions between the two countries and led to their signing the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) in 1972. SALT I, the first of two SALT agreements, limited the number of nuclear missiles either country could possess and banned the building of antiballistic missile (ABM) systems used to defend against nuclear strikes. The use of ABMs would have upset the stalemate represented by the possibility of mutual assured destruction (MAD)—the obliteration of both parties in a nuclear war—because it would allow one side to strike first and then defend itself against retaliation.

The December 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to prop up a puppet communist regime led President Jimmy Carter to seek increased military budgets and to withdraw from Senate consideration the recently signed SALT II treaty, which would have reduced both countries’ nuclear missiles, bombers, and other delivery vehicles. When Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980, he rejected détente and instituted a tough stance with Soviets designed to reverse their advances, topple communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, and win the Cold War. His administration supported freedom in Eastern Europe and the Polish resistance movement known as Solidarity; armed fighters resisting communism around the world, including the  mujahideen  in Afghanistan; and increased military spending to support peace through strength and to bankrupt the Soviet economy if it tried to match the increases. Reagan also launched an ideological crusade against the Soviet regime for violating inalienable rights and liberties.

For decades before coming into office, Reagan had criticized the spread of Soviet communism and the danger it posed. He compared communism to Nazism and totalitarianism, characterized by a powerful state that limited individual freedoms. In a 1964 televised speech, Reagan told the American people he believed there could be no accommodation with the Soviets.

We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human beings now in slavery behind the Iron Curtain, “Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skins, we are willing to make a deal with your slave-masters.”

Shortly before he became president, Reagan told an aide: “My idea of American policy toward the Soviet Union is simple, and some would say simplistic. It is this: We win and they lose.”

Reagan also specifically targeted the Berlin Wall, erected by communist East Germany in 1961 to separate East and West Berlin. In a 1967 televised town hall debate with Robert Kennedy, Reagan argued, “I think it would be very admirable if the Berlin Wall should . . . disappear.” He continued, “We just think that a wall that is put up to confine people, and keep them within their own country . . . has to be somehow wrong.” In 1978, he visited the wall and was disgusted to learn the story of Peter Fechter, one of the first among hundreds who were gunned down by East German police while trying to escape to freedom.

Americans knew Ronald Reagan was an uncompromising Cold War warrior when they elected him president in 1980. Over the heads of many in the State Department and the National Security Council, he instituted controversial policies that reversed détente because he thought it had strengthened and emboldened the Soviets during the 1970s. He joked that détente was “what a farmer has with his turkey—until Thanksgiving Day.”

Reagan also pressed an unrelenting ideological attack on communism in stark moral terms that pitted it against a free society. In 1981, he asserted at the University of Notre Dame that “The West won’t contain communism, it will transcend communism . . . it will dismiss it as some bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being written.” In a 1982 speech to the British Parliament, he said communism ran “against the tides of history by denying human freedom and human dignity” and predicted that the Soviet regime would end up “on the ash heap of history.” The Berlin Wall was “the signature of the regime that built it.” During that trip, Reagan visited the wall and said, “It’s as ugly as the idea behind it.” In a 1983 speech that made the supporters of a softer line toward the Soviets cringe, he called the Soviet Union an “evil empire.”

In June 1987, Reagan was in West Berlin to speak during a ceremony commemorating the 750th anniversary of the city and faced an important choice. The Berlin Wall was one of the most important symbols of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, and a symbol of communist oppression. He could confront the Soviets about the injustice of the wall, or he could deliver bland remarks that would satisfy the members of the American foreign policy establishment who wanted to avoid conflict. He decided to deliver a provocative speech demanding an end to the oppression of the wall and of communism.

Many officials in Reagan’s administration and in the allied West German government were strongly opposed to his delivering any provocative words or actions during the speech. The West Germans did not want the speech to be given anywhere near the wall and sought to avoid what might be perceived as an aggressive signal. The German Foreign Ministry appealed to the White House, but to no avail. Some members of the administration were even more concerned. At the time, the United States was in the midst of Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) negotiations with the U.S.S.R., and officials did not want to jeopardize the progress they had made by undermining the Soviet leader so close to home. As a result, Secretary of State George Shultz, Chief of Staff Howard Baker, and the U.S. Embassy in Bonn (the West German capital) read the drafts of Reagan’s speech and repeatedly implored the president and his speechwriters to tone down the language. Deputy National Security Advisor Colin Powell and other members of the National Security Council were particularly adamant and offered several revisions of the speech. Reagan listened to all the objections and unalterably decided, “I think we’ll leave it in.” He would not be deterred from challenging the Soviets and communism.

The stark moral difference between the systems on either side of the Berlin Wall was evident on June 12. Reagan and his team arrived in West Berlin and encountered some protesters who freely voiced their dissent at his appearance. He also spoke to reporters and nervous German officials who feared the fallout over an antagonistic speech. As he told them, “This is the only wall that has ever been built to keep people in, not keep people out.” In East Berlin, in contrast, the German secret police and Russian KGB agents cordoned off an area a thousand yards wide on the other side of the wall from where Reagan was to speak. They wanted to ensure that no one could hear his message of freedom.

Reagan stepped up to the podium to speak, with the Brandenburg Gate and the imposing wall in the background. He told the audience, “As long as this gate is closed, as long as this scar of a wall is permitted to stand, it is not the German question alone that remains open, but the question of freedom for all mankind.” In the middle of the speech, Reagan directly challenged Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, who wanted to reform communism in an attempt to save it. He delivered the line that had caused so much consternation among American and German officials: “If you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Reagan finished the speech by predicting the wall would not endure. “This wall will fall. For it cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.” Reagan took responsibility for causing a diplomatic furor because he believed in universal ideals of freedom and self-government. And he understood the power of using a dramatic moment to promote American ideals.

A year later, Reagan addressed the students at Moscow State University. “The key is freedom,” he told them. It was an ideal that had been at the core of his political philosophy and public statements for 50 years, since the dawn of the Cold War. In a statement that reflected his own sense of responsibility for defeating communism and defending freedom, he told them: “It is the right to put forth an idea, scoffed at by the experts, and watch it catch fire among the people. It is the right to dream—to follow your dream or stick to your conscience, even if you’re the only one in a sea of doubters.”

In applying military, economic, moral, and ideological pressure against the system to facilitate its collapse, Reagan was joined by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, and others who fought for democracy and freedom. No one imagined the Berlin Wall would fall only two years later on November 9, 1989, as communism collapsed across Eastern Europe, or that the Soviet Union would formerly dissolve by the end of 1991.

Review Questions

1. The Cold War manifested itself through all the following except

• a nuclear arms race
• the space race
• direct military conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union

2. The massive Soviet arms buildup during the 1960s and 1970s was financed by

• increased oil prices globally
• mineral wealth gained from Afghanistan
• increased Soviet industrial productivity
• surplus tariffs from the trade war with the United States

3. Tensions between the United States and the U.S.S.R. increased in the 1970s with the

• signing of the SALT Treaty in 1972
• banning of the antiballistic missile system
• Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
• policy of détente

4. The president most often credited with advocating policies leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union was

• Richard Nixon
• Jimmy Carter
• Ronald Reagan
• George H. W. Bush

5. The Reagan administration challenged Soviet influence by

• supporting the Solidarity movement in Poland
• refusing to get involved in the Afghanistan conflict
• embracing unilateral nuclear disarmament
• continuing the policy of détente

6. For President Ronald Reagan, the “evil empire” confronting the world was

• Afghanistan
• Communist China
• the Soviet Union

7. Events marking the end of the Cold War included all the following except

• Eastern European uprisings against communism
• the tearing down of the Berlin War
• the disintegration of the U.S.S.R.
• the end of communist rule in China

Free Response Questions

• Explain how détente led to a lessening of nuclear tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1970s.
• Compare President Reagan’s attitudes and policies toward the Soviet Union with those of his predecessors.

AP Practice Questions

“But in the West today, we see a free world that has achieved a level of prosperity and well-being unprecedented in all human history. In the Communist world, we see failure, technological backwardness, declining standards of health, even want of the most basic kind —too little food. Even today, the Soviet Union still cannot feed itself. After these four decades, then, there stands before the entire world one great and inescapable conclusion: Freedom leads to prosperity. Freedom replaces the ancient hatreds among nations with comity and peace. Freedom is the victor. And now—now the Soviets themselves may, in a limited way, be coming to understand the importance of freedom. We hear much from Moscow about a new policy of reform and openness. . . . There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev—Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Ronald Reagan, Remarks at the Brandenburg Gate, June 12, 1987

Refer to the excerpt provided.

1. The sentiments expressed in the excerpt contributed to which of the following?

• An end to the war on terrorism
• Conflicts in the Middle East
• The fall of the Soviet Union
• The attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001

2. The Soviet conditions referred to in this excerpt most directly resulted from

• the end of World War II
• collective security agreements
• the creation of the United Nations

3. This excerpt was written in response to

• Cold War competition extending into Latin America
• postwar decolonization
• efforts to seek allies among nonaligned nations
• political changes and economic problems in Eastern Europe

Primary Sources

Reagan, Ronald. “Remarks on East-West Relations at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin.” June 12, 1987.  https://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/speech-at-brandenburg-gate/

Reagan, Ronald. “Remarks on East-West Relations at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin.” June 12, 1987. Reagan Foundation Video.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MDFX-dNtsM

Suggested Resources

Brands, H. W.  Reagan: The Life . New York: Doubleday, 2015.

Busch, Andrew E.  Ronald Reagan and the Politics of Freedom . Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001.

Gaddis, John Lewis.  The Cold War: A New History . New York: Penguin, 2005.

Hayward, Steven F.  The Age of Reagan: The Conservative Counterrevolution, 1980–1989 . New York: Three Rivers Press, 2009.

Lettow, Paul.  Ronald Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons . New York: Random House, 2005.

Ratnesar, Romesh.  Tear Down This Wall: A City, A President, and the Speech that Ended the Cold War . New York: Simon and Schuster, 2009.

Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum website.  https://www.reaganfoundation.org/library-museum/

Schweizer, Peter.  Reagan’s War: The Epic Story of His Forty-Year Struggle and Final Triumph Over Communism . New York: Doubleday, 2002.

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Grade 12 - Topic 4 - The end of the Cold War and a new global world order 1989 to present

There were many reasons why apartheid collapsed. You can read about the crisis of Apartheid in the 1980s in section 5 of the grade 12 material. The collapse of communism in the Soviet Union was another major cause of the end of apartheid.

Under apartheid, South Africa was a fascist state with a capitalist economy. The National Party was strongly anti-communist and said they were faced with a ' Rooi Gevaar' or a 'Red Threat'. The apartheid state used the label 'communist' to justify its repressive actions against anyone who disagreed with their policies.

During the Cold War, there was a contest for influence in Africa, between the US and Western powers on the one hand, and the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc countries on the other. Most of newly independent ex-colonies in Africa received military and economic support from one of the Superpowers.

Despite its racist policies, the South African government was supported by many governments in the West, particularly Britain and the USA. This was because the South African government was anti-communist. The British and American governments used political rhetoric and economic sanctions against apartheid, but continued to supply the South African regime with military expertise and hardware.

The collapse of the USSR in 1989 meant that the National Party could no longer use communism as a justification for their oppression. The ANC could also no longer rely on the Soviet Union for economic and military support. By the end of the 1980s, the Soviet Union was in political and economic crisis, and it was increasingly difficult for the Soviet Government to justify spending money in Africa.

In 1989, President F.W de Klerk , the last apartheid Head of State, unbanned the African National Congress , the South African Communist Party and the Pan Africanist Congress . He states that the collapse of the Soviet Union was decisive in persuading him to take this step:

"The collapse of the Soviet Union helped to remove our long-standing concern regarding the influence of the South African Communist Party within the ANC Alliance. By 1990 classic socialism had been thoroughly discredited throughout the world and was no longer a serious option, even for revolutionary parties like the ANC.

At about the same time, the ANC was reaching a similar conclusion that it could not achieve a revolutionary victory within the foreseeable future. The State of Emergency, declared by the South African Government in 1986, and the collapse of the Soviet Union - which had traditionally been one the ANC's main allies and suppliers - led the organisation to adopt a more realistic view of the balance of forces. It concluded that its interests could be best secured by accepting negotiations rather than by committing itself to a long and ruinous civil war." - Quote source: www.fwdklerk.org.za

Suggested activities and links:

• " End of the Cold War " at www.schoolhistory.co.uk (provides additional information from an international perspective. Includes activities)
• " The Cold War Museum " at www.coldwar.org (This link gives a decade by decade breakdown of all major developments in the Cold War from an American perspective. This is helpful for general understanding. Also includes a trivia game and timeline) *needs Windows IE browser for quiz
• " Learning Curve " at www.learningcurve.gov.uk (This resource has some interesting clips and worksheets from a British perspective)
• " Cartoon Stock " at www.cartoonstock.com (This site has a range of Cold War cartoons that could be used to practise cartoon analysis.)

To reflect on the impact of the collapse of the USSR in 1989 on the re-imagining of African nations in the 1990s the curriculum requires that certain countries are examined in detail.

The case studies for the examination are as follows:

Central Africa: Congo and Angola to be examined in 2009 (below)

West Africa: Benin and Guinea: to be examined in 2010

North Africa: Egypt: to be examined in 2011

Colonialism in the Congo

The present day Democratic Republic of Congo was formerly the Belgian Congo. The capital under colonial rule was Leopoldville (now Kinshasa).

The area was colonised in 1885 as a personal possession of the Belgian King Leopold II as the Congo Free State. It is one of the largest countries in Africa and one of the richest.

Leopold ideas reflected the racist ideas of most of his European counterparts at the time. He thought that Africa was "stagnant, primitive and dark", and that his rule would bring "progress, civilisation and light."

Belgium's brutal exploitation of the Congo is infamous. Leopold accumulated a vast personal fortune from ivory and rubber using Congolese forced labour. In 1891, the price of rubber began to increase following the invention of the inflatable rubber tyre, which increased his profits even further.

He was known locally as 'Bula Matadi' (He Who Breaks Rocks) to indicate the brutality of his regime. During Leopold's rule the population of the Congo declined from an estimated 20-30 million to less than nine million.

In 1907, administration of the colony shifted from the king to the Belgian Government, which renamed the country the Belgian Congo.

Independence in the Congo

Independence was granted in 1960, and the country was named the Republic of the Congo. The African elite in the colony was very small, and this suited the financial interests of Belgium, which planned to maintain its economic grip on the Congo's mineral resources and raw materials.

Elections were held, and Patrice Lumumba became Prime Minister. Joseph Kasavubu became Head of State.

During the Cold War, there was a contest for influence in Africa, between the US and Western powers on the one hand, and the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc countries on the other. The Cold War spread outside Europe to every region of the world. Most of newly independent ex-colonies in Africa got military and economic support from one of the Superpowers. The Congo was important because of its wealth and its size.

Lumumba followed a policy of "positive neutralism," - a return to African values and the rejection of foreign non-African ideologies, including that of the Soviet Union.

The West feared the consequences of a Lumumba's Congo government for its position in Africa. The USA had recently witnessed Fidel Castro's victorious revolution in Cuba, and Castro's friendship with Moscow.

The CIA quickly became involved in destabilising Lumumba's government. US President Eisenhower's government said Lumumba was a "very difficult if not impossible person to deal with, and was dangerous to the peace and safety of the world."

Within weeks of independence, the Katanga Province, which was rich in copper, led by Moise Tshombe, broke away from the new republic. Belgium sent in troops. It said the troops were to protect Belgian nationals. However, the Belgian troops mainly landed in Katanga, where they helped keep the regime of Moise Tshombe in power with the help of the USA.

Lumumba appealed to the United Nations to expel the Belgians and help restore internal order. The United Nations forces refused to help suppress the Katangese revolt.

Having been rejected by the West, Lumumba appealed to the Soviet Union for planes to assist in transporting his troops to Katanga. The Western powers were alarmed. Moreover, in the context of the Cold War, the Soviet Union's support for Lumumba appeared at the time as a threat to the West.

On 5 September 1960, President Kasavubu dismissed Lumumba, and Lumumba contested the move. There were therefore two groups now claiming to be the legal central government. On 14 September 1960, power was seized by the Congolese army leader Colonel Joseph Mobutu (president of Zaire as Mobutu Sese Seko), who later reached a working agreement with Kasavubu.

The assassination of Lumumba

In November 1960, Lumumba wanted to travel from Leopoldville, where the United Nations had provided him with protection, to Stanleyville where his supporters had control. With the secret help of the CIA, Joseph Mobutu sent his soldiers after Lumumba. Lumumba was caught, and spent three months in prison, while his enemies tried in vain to consolidate their power.

In January 1961, Lumumba was handed over to the Katanga secessionist regime, where he was executed. Documents from the USA which were released in 2000 revealed that President Eisenhower gave direct orders for the CIA to assassinate Lumumba. You can read an interesting article about Lumumba's assassination on this external link: www.wsws.org

Mobutu seizes power

In 1965, army leader Joseph Mobutu seized control as the dictator of the Congo. Mobutu renamed the country, and called it the Republic of Zaire. All citizens had to adopt African names. He called himself Mobutu Sese Seko. He had the backing of the USA government, as he was willing to turn Zaire into a springboard for operations against Soviet-backed Angola. You can read about Angola in another section.

The USA considered Mobutu Sese Seko as a safeguard against Soviet-sponsored Communism in Africa. Mobutu received American support, including military aid, throughout his ruthless dictatorship. He was even received by American presidents at the White House. The Cold War support of Mobutu by the USA put Mobutu in a position to loot his country's riches and he became one of history's most corrupt dictators. He funnelled the wealth of the Congo into his own pockets. 

Lumumba had wanted to reform the Congo and use its riches to lift the Congolese out of poverty. In contrast, Mobutu chose King Leopold II as his role model. Leopold ran the Congo as his private rubber plantation. Mobutu outdid even Leopold, as he sold off the Congo's resources and stashed billions of dollars in Swiss bank accounts. Mobutu built himself a refuge on the French Riviera.

The Congolese continued to live in poverty.

Zaire and the Cold War

President Ford's American administration opposed the Soviet-backed Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). Mobutu helped the USA against the MPLA. He supported his brother-in-law, Jonas Savimbi, who led UNITA.

In the 1980s, the Reagan administration called Savimbi a "freedom fighter" worthy of CIA support. Thankful for the use of Zaire as a supply route to Savimbi's forces, Reagan praised Mobutu as "a voice of good sense and good will."

Between 1962 and 1991, the U.S. directly supported Mobutu and his government with more than $1.03 billion in development aid and $227.4 million in military assistance.

Reviewing America's support for Mobutu, the former US Assistant Secretary of State, Chester Crocker said: "I think we have no apologies to make. We were in a state of global rivalry with a global adversary."

The end of the Cold War

Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced reform policies in the USSR - called perestroika (restructuring of the Soviet economy) and glasnost (openness and transparency). After more than four decades, in December 1989, Gorbachev and President George H.W. Bush Sr. declared the Cold War officially over.

With the Cold War ended, Zaire ceased to be of interest to the US, and US aid to Mobutu began to dry up.

There had been simmering anger and discontent with Mobutu's rule in Zaire for a long time. Mobutu could not stay in power without US help. The Zairian liberation movement led by Laurent Kabila overthrew Mobutu's dictatorship in 1997. It quickly reinstated the country's name, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (D.R.C.) and appointed a new government. Laurent Kabila declared himself President.

Mobutu went into exile in Togo and then in Morocco, and died of cancer in 1997. He had seventeen children. The accounts held by Swiss institutions containing the assets of the late Mobutu Sese Seko were frozen in 1997. Swiss authorities have repeatedly denied Mobutu's heirs access to the money, and in May 2009 the funds remained frozen.

Laurent Kabila banned all political parties except his own, and elections were never held. Kabila's policies differed little from his Mobutu's as he ran a dictatorship that was corrupt and rampant with human rights abuses. He was assassinated in 2001, and succeeded by his son, Joseph Kabila.

Case Study: Congo

The sources that appear in the Grade 12 examination are often quite long and difficult. The sources in this task on the Congo are taken from the Supplementary History Paper Two that was written in March 2009. It is good practice for you to try to answer all the questions, and then check your answers.

There are four sources A, B, C and D. Each source has a separate set of questions and answers.

Examine the sources and then answer the questions that follow.

The following extract is adapted from In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in the Congo :

The US played a major role in converting the newly independent Congo into a Cold War battleground. The US administration in the 1960s authorised the murder of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, who had been voted into office just months earlier in the territory's first-ever democratic election. Washington, who was instrumental in helping Mobutu Seso Seko to power and kept him there for more than 30 years, bears heavy responsibility for the disastrous economic conditions, massive corruption, and suppression of human rights in the Congo.

Mobutu was regarded as a particularly valuable asset by the United States of America and they were determined to keep him in power at all costs so that the Congo remained a pro-Western defence against Soviet ambitions in Africa. When Mobutu visited Washington for the first time in May 1963, President Kennedy stated: 'General if it hadn't been for you, the whole thing would have collapsed and the Communists would have taken over...'

Subsequent US presidents believed that Mobutu was the only alternative to communism and continued to support him financially and militarily. The US, using Congo's bases as the conduit (pipeline) for arms destined for Angola's rebels, was determined to keep Mobutu on board. This despite having substantial knowledge that he was highly corrupt and an inefficient leader.

According to Roger Morris, US representative responsible for African affairs in the 1970s, keeping Mobutu on the US side was not cheap. It is argued that the CIA prolonged Mobutu's rule by providing more than $300 million in weapons and $100 million in military training ...

Look at Source A and answer the following questions:

1. Why do you think the US administration 'authorised the murder' of Lumumba?

2. Explain to what extent the USA was responsible for the installation of Mobutu as leader of the Congo.

3. How did the various US presidents continue to keep Mobutu's regime in power?

4. Why was the Congo important to the USA in the Cold War context?

The following has been taken from World History, A New Perspective . It focuses on Mikhail Gorbachev's reform measures.

Gorbachev, a reformist communist, became general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party in March 1985. He introduced reforms called Perestroika and Glasnost which allowed greater openness and freedom of speech.

When Gorbachev addressed the United Nations in 1988, he committed himself to ending the Cold War with the United States. He decided to abandon the Brezhnev Doctrine, renounced the Communist Party's emphasis on a world revolution dating back to 1917 and was intent on cutting back on nuclear weapons. With Russia's conservative and ailing economy, Gorbachev was no longer prepared to support Soviet dominated governments in Europe and Africa. By doing this Gorbachev effectively withdrew his support from hard-line communist regimes of Europe and Africa and he encouraged the leaders of these regimes to seek new ways of gaining support. By doing so, Gorbachev opened the way for political and economic reforms in Europe and Africa.

Look at Source B and answer the following questions:

1. Using the information in the source and your own knowledge, define the following concepts: (a) Perestroika (b) Glasnost. Explain how the concepts differ from each other.

2. Explain why Gorbachev wanted to end Russia's participation in the Cold War.

3. List some of the criticism of Gorbachev's reforms.

4. Using the information in the source and your own knowledge, explain how African countries (such as the Congo) responded to Gorbachev's decision?

The following extract focuses on the impact of Gorbachev's reforms on Mobutu's regime. Taken from A History of Fifty Years of Independence .

With Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika transforming the Soviet Union, the Cold War priorities were fading. Democracy was sweeping across Africa and Mobutu was moving from useful US ally to an embarrassment. In the 1990s the World Bank noted that Congo's economy had shrunk to the level of 1958, while the population had tripled. Average life expectancy was fifty-two years, illiteracy was growing, Aids was rife and diseases such as bubonic plague and sleeping sickness were enjoying a vibrant comeback. It further noted that by the end of the century one of Africa's richest states was dipping below the daily takings of the US super store Wal-Mart.

Western self-interest made indulging Mobutu worthwhile, in fact Chester Crocker, the former US assistant secretary of state for Africa, stated that 'If we tried to attach 1990's governance conditionalities to Mobutu, we would have been calling for his overthrow and if we asked him to turn off the taps, his own people would have toppled him. We would, in effect, have been calling for a coup. I'm sure of that'.

However, when the Cold War ended, the US gradually stopped supporting Mobutu. On 29 April 1997 American negotiators met Mobutu, bearing a letter from President Clinton, trying to persuade him to leave 'with honour and dignity' and spare the capital from looting and destruction that seemed likely to accompany his downfall.

He was overthrown in 1997 and went into exile. A new government, under Laurent Kabila, took over and changed Zaire's name to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Look at Source C and answer the following questions:

1. Why, according to the source, did Mobutu prove to be an embarrassment to the USA?

2. Explain how Chester Crocker justified the US's support of Mobutu.

3. What factors contributed to Mobutu being overthrown as the leader of the Congo?

The following is a Cuban cartoon showing American arms pushing Mobutu over the cliff with the words 'the time for change has arrived' and putting Laurent Kabila in his place. Kabila and Mobutu both hold skulls as sceptres (symbol of a ruler).

Look at Source D and answer the following questions:

1. Identify the man on the left and the right and explain what is happening to both of them.

2. Who is 'the boss' being referred to by the man on the right?

3. What does the cartoonist suggest about the nature of the change of leadership?

4. Why do you think the USSR is not involved?

5. The cartoonist is Cuban. What is the cartoonist opinion of the USA?

Case Study: Angola

The following extract is from The Post Cold War Diplomacy in Angola: The Emergence of New Foci of Power by Dr. Skyne Uku-Wertimer.

Angola is potentially one of the richest countries in sub-Saharan Africa with extensive petroleum reserves, rich agricultural land and valuable mineral resources. Few countries in the world have experienced as well as sustained the degree of violent conflict seen in Angola.

Intervention has diminished but has not disappeared. Angola's abundant natural resources continue to attract outside interests from industrialized nations globally. In the competition for oil, diamonds and other precious resources in Angola, interests external to Angola continue to play a large and decisive role, both in suppressing conflict and in sustaining it.

The end of the Cold War changed the political landscape of Africa since the 1990s and opened new vistas for the continent, it helped in reshaping international relations as well as the emergence of new concepts of security and self interest. It eliminated the division of Africa into two ideological camps and eliminated a source of external support that was taken for granted.

1. What were the Cold War ideological camps referred to in the source? Lists some of the countries that belonged in both ideological camps.

2. What other reason does the source suggest is a reason for the violent conflict in Angola?

The Civil War has ended in Angola, but most of the country is still in chaos. Almost half of the land in Angola is considered too dangerous to walk on. Nobody knows how many landmines lie beneath the soil of Angola. Some say it may be somewhere between 500,000 and one million, others say there may be as many as six million landmines.

A child bearing the effects of conflict and landmines in civil war torn Angola. Source: www.emine.org

1. What does Source B suggest about one of the legacies of the Civil War?

2. What impact would the image in Source B have on Angola's economy?

1. What four images in the cartoon tell you about the state of Angola?

2. Explain the play on words the cartoon is using.

This cartoon shows the USSR releasing its control of Africa. (Source unknown)

1. What message does the source convey?

2. Using the information from the source and your own knowledge, explain the accuracy of the cartoonist's portrayal of events in Africa.

3. Why is this cartoon a reflection of the history of Africa that goes beyond its presence in the Cold War?

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Gr. 12 HISTORY T3 W1:The end of the Cold War and a new world order 1989 to the present

This essay focus on Gorbachev's reforms in the Soviet Union in 1989 and its impact on South Africa

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• Cold War and Global Hegemony, 1945-1991

We are accustomed to viewing the cold war as a determined and heroic response of the U.S. to communist aggression spearheaded and orchestrated by the Soviet Union. This image was carefully constructed by presidents and their advisers in their memoirs (1). This view also was incorporated in some of the first scholarly works on the cold war, but was then rebutted by a wide variety of revisionist historians who blamed officials in Washington as well as those in Moscow for the origins of the Soviet-American conflict (2).

Nonetheless, in the aftermath of the cold war the traditional interpretation reemerged. John Gaddis, arguably the most eminent historian of the cold war, wrote in the mid-1990s that the cold war was a struggle of good versus evil, of wise and democratic leaders in the West reacting to the crimes and inhumanity of Joseph Stalin, the brutal dictator in the Kremlin (3).

This interpretation places the cold war in a traditional framework. It is one way to understand American foreign policy between the end of World War II and the breakup of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) in 1991. But for quite some time now, historians, political scientists, and economists have been studying the cold war in a much larger global context. They do so because the new documents from the Soviet Union and its former empire as well as older documents from the U.S. and its allies suggest that Stalin conducted a more complex and inconsistent foreign policy than previously imagined and that U.S. officials initially did not regard Stalin, notwithstanding his crimes and brutality, as an unacceptable partner with whom to collaborate in stabilizing and remaking the postwar world.

Most scholars looking at Soviet documents now agree that Stalin had no master plan to spread revolution or conquer the world. He was determined to establish a sphere of influence in eastern Europe where his communist minions would rule. But at the same time, Stalin wanted to get along with his wartime allies in order to control the rebirth of German and Japanese power, which he assumed was inevitable. Consequently, he frequently cautioned communist followers in France, Italy, Greece, and elsewhere to avoid provocative actions that might frighten or antagonize his wartime allies. Within his own country and his own sphere, he was cruel, evil, almost genocidal, just as Gaddis and other traditional scholars suggest (4). Yet U.S. and British officials were initially eager to work with him. They rarely dwelled upon his domestic barbarism. Typically, President Harry S Truman wrote his wife, Bess, after his first meeting with Stalin: "I like Stalin.... He is straightforward. Knows what he wants and will compromise when he can't get it." Typically, W. Averell Harriman, the U.S. ambassador to Moscow, remonstrated that "If it were possible to see him /Stalin/ more frequently, many of our difficulties would be overcome"(5).

Yet the difficulties were not overcome. American fears grew. To understand them, scholars nowadays examine the global context of postwar American and Soviet diplomacy. They see the contest between American freedom and Soviet totalitarianism as part of an evolving fabric of international economic and political conditions in the twentieth century. After World War II, they say, U.S. leaders assumed the role of hegemon, or leader, of the international economy and container of Soviet power. To explain why, scholars examine the operation of the world economy and the distribution of power in the international system. They look at transnational ideological conflict, the disruption of colonial empires, and the rise of revolutionary nationalism in Asia and Africa. They explain the spread of the cold war from Europe to Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America by focusing on decolonization, the rise of newly independent states, and the yearnings of peoples everywhere to modernize their countries and enjoy higher standards of living. Yet the capacity of the U.S. to assume the roles of hegemon, balancer, and container depended on more than its wealth and strength; the success of the U.S. also depended on the appeal of its ideology, the vitality of its institutions, and the attractiveness of its culture of mass consumption—what many scholars nowadays call "soft power" (6).

At the end of World War II, the U.S. and the Soviet Union emerged as the two strongest nations in the world and as exemplars of competing models of political economy. But it was a peculiar bipolarity. The U.S. was incontestably the most powerful nation on the earth. It alone possessed the atomic bomb. It alone possessed a navy that could project power across the oceans and an air force that could reach across the continents. The U.S. was also the richest nation in the world. It possessed two-thirds of the world's gold reserves and three-fourths of its invested capital. Its gross national product was three times that of the Soviet Union and five times that of the United Kingdom. Its wealth had grown enormously during the war while the Soviet Union had been devastated by the occupation by Nazi Germany. Around 27 million inhabitants of the U.S.S.R. died during World War II compared to about 400,000 Americans. The Germans ravished the agricultural economy of Soviet Russia and devastated its mining and transportation infrastructure (7).

Compared to the U.S. in 1945, the Soviet Union was weak. Yet it loomed very large not only in the imagination of U.S. officials, but also in the minds of political leaders throughout the world. It did not loom large because of fears of Soviet military aggression. Contemporary policymakers knew that Stalin did not want war. They did not expect Soviet troops to march across Europe. Yet they feared that Stalin would capitalize on the manifold opportunities of the postwar world: the vacuums of power stemming from the defeat of Germany and Japan; the breakup of colonial empires; popular yearnings for postwar social and economic reform; and widespread disillusionment with the functioning of democratic capitalist economies (8).

During World War II, the American economy had demonstrated enormous vitality, but many contemporaries wondered whether the world capitalist system could be made to function effectively in peacetime. Its performance during their lifetimes had bred worldwide economic depression, social malaise, political instability, and personal disillusionment. Throughout Europe and Asia, people blamed capitalism for the repetitive cycles of boom and bust and for military conflagrations that brought ruin and despair. Describing conditions at the end of the war, the historian Igor Lukes has written: "Many in Czechoslovakia had come to believe that capitalism... had become obsolete. Influential intellectuals saw the world emerging from the ashes of the war in black and white terms: here was Auschwitz and there was Stalingrad. The former was a byproduct of a crisis in capitalist Europe of the 1930s; the latter stood for the superiority of socialism" (9).

Transnational ideological conflict shaped the cold war. Peoples everywhere yearned for a more secure and better life; they pondered alternative ways of organizing their political and economic affairs. Everywhere, communist parties sought to present themselves as leaders of the resistance against fascism, proponents of socioeconomic reform, and advocates of national self-interest. Their political clout grew quickly as their membership soared, for example, in Greece, from 17,000 in 1935 to 70,000 in 1945; in Czechoslovakia, from 28,000 in May 1945 to 750,000 in September 1945; in Italy, from 5,000 in 1943 to 1,700,000 at the end of 1945 (10). For Stalin and his comrades in Moscow, these grassroots developments provided unsurpassed opportunities; for Truman and his advisers in Washington, they inspired fear and gloom. "There is complete economic, social and political collapse going on in Central Europe, the extent of which is unparalleled in history," wrote Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy in April 1945 (11). The Soviet Union, of course, was not responsible for these conditions. Danger nonetheless inhered in the capacity of the Kremlin to capitalize on them. "The greatest danger to the security of the United States," the CIA concluded in one of its first reports, "is the possibility of economic collapse in Western Europe and the consequent accession to power of Communist elements" (12).

Transnational ideological conflict impelled U.S. officials to take action. They knew they had to restore hope that private markets could function effectively to serve the needs of humankind. People had suffered terribly, Assistant Secretary of State Dean G. Acheson told a congressional committee in 1945. They demanded land reform, nationalization, and social welfare. They believed that governments should take action to alleviate their misery. They felt it "so deeply," said Acheson, "that they will demand that the whole business of state control and state interference shall be pushed further and further" (13).

Policymakers like Acheson and McCloy, the officials who became known as the "Wise Men" of the cold war, understood the causes for the malfunctioning of the capitalist world economy in the interwar years. They were intent on correcting the fundamental weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Long before they envisioned a cold war with the Soviet Union, they labored diligently during 1943 and 1944 to design the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. They urged Congress to reduce U.S. tariffs. They wanted the American people to buy more foreign goods. They knew that foreign nations without sufficient dollars to purchase raw materials and fuel would not be able to recover easily. They realized that governments short of gold and short of dollars would seek to hoard their resources, establish quotas, and regulate the free flow of capital. And they knew that these actions in the years between World War I and World War II had brought about the Great Depression and created the conditions for Nazism, fascism, and totalitarianism to flourish (14).

"Now, as in the year 1920," President Truman declared in early March 1947, "we have reached a turning point in history. National economies have been disrupted by the war. The future is uncertain everywhere. Economic policies are in a state of flux." Governments abroad, the president explained, wanted to regulate trade, save dollars, and promote reconstruction. This was understandable; it was also perilous. Freedom flourished where power was dispersed. But regimentation, Truman warned, was on the march, everywhere. If not stopped abroad, it would force the U.S. to curtail freedom at home. "In this atmosphere of doubt and hesitation," Truman declared, "the decisive factor will be the type of leadership that the United States gives the world." If it did not act decisively, the world capitalist system would flounder, providing yet greater opportunities for Communism to grow and for Soviet strength to accrue. If the U.S. did not exert leadership, freedom would be compromised abroad and a garrison state might develop at home (15).

Open markets and free peoples were inextricably interrelated. To win the transnational ideological conflict, U.S. officials had to make the world capitalist system function effectively. By 1947, they realized the IMF and the World Bank were too new, too inexperienced, and too poorly funded to accomplish the intended results. The U.S. had to assume the responsibility to provide dollars so that other nations had the means to purchase food and fuel and, eventually, to reduce quotas and curtail exchange restrictions. In June 1947, Secretary of State George C. Marshall outlined a new approach, saying the U.S. would provide the funds necessary to promote the reconstruction of Europe. The intent of the Marshall Plan was to provide dollars to likeminded governments in Western Europe so they could continue to grow their economies, employ workers, insure political stability, undercut the appeal of communist parties, and avoid being sucked into an economic orbit dominated by the Soviet Union. U.S. officials wanted European governments to cooperate and pool their resources for the benefit of their collective well-being and for the establishment of a large, integrated market where goods and capital could move freely. In order to do this, the U.S. would incur the responsibility to make the capitalist system operate effectively, at least in those parts of the globe not dominated by the Soviet Union. The U.S. would become the hegemon, or overseer, of the global economy: it would make loans, provide credits, reduce tariffs, and insure currency stability (16).

The success of the Marshall Plan depended on the resuscitation of the coal mines and industries of western Germany (17). Most Europeans feared Germany's revival. Nonetheless, U.S. officials hoped that Stalin would not interfere with efforts to merge the three western zones of Germany, institute currency reform, and create the Federal Republic of Germany. Marshall Plan aid, in fact, initially was offered to Soviet Russia and its allies in eastern Europe. But Stalin would not tolerate the rebuilding of Germany and its prospective integration into a western bloc. Nor would he allow eastern European governments to be drawn into an evolving economic federation based on the free flow of information, capital, and trade. Soviet security would be endangered. Stalin's sphere of influence in eastern Europe would be eroded and his capacity to control the future of German power would be impaired. In late 1947, Stalin cracked down on eastern Europe, encouraged the communist coup in Czechoslovakia, and instigated a new round of purges (18).

Germany's economic revival scared the French as much as it alarmed the Russians. The French feared that Germany would regain power to act autonomously. The French also were afraid that initiatives to revive Germany might provoke a Soviet attack and culminate in another occupation of France. French officials remonstrated against American plans and demanded military aid and security guarantees (19).

The French and other wary Europeans had the capacity to shape their future. They exacted strategic commitments from the U.S. The North Atlantic Treaty was signed in 1949 as a result of their fears about Germany as well as their anxieties about Soviet Russia. U.S. strategic commitments and U.S. troops were part of a double containment strategy, containing the uncertain trajectory of the Federal Republic of Germany as well as the anticipated hostility of the Soviet Union. Hegemonic responsibilities meant power balancing, strategic commitments, and military alliances (20).

Just as western Germany needed to be integrated into a western sphere lest it be sucked into a Soviet orbit, so did Japan. U.S. officials worried that their occupation of Japan might fail and that the Japanese might seek to enhance their own interests by looking to the Soviets or the communist Chinese as future economic partners. In 1948, U.S. policymakers turned their attention from reforming Japanese social and political institutions to promoting economic reconstruction. Japan's past economic growth, they knew, depended on links to Manchuria, China, and Korea, areas increasingly slipping into communist hands. Japan needed alternative sources of raw materials and outlets for her manufactured goods. Studying the functioning of the global capitalist economy, America's cold warriors concluded that the industrial core of northeast Asia, Japan, needed to be integrated with its underdeveloped periphery in southeast Asia, much like Western Europe needed to have access to petroleum in the Middle East (21). It was the obligation of the hegemon of the world capitalist economy to make sure component units of the system could benefit from the operation of the whole.

But, as hegemon, the U.S. also had to be sensitive to the worries and responsive to the needs of other countries. In Asia, as in Europe, many peoples feared the revival of the power of former Axis nations. Truman promised them that U.S. troops would remain in Japan, even as Japan regained its autonomy, and that the U.S. would insure peace in the Pacific, even if it meant a new round of security guarantees, as it did with the Philippines and with Australia and New Zealand (22).

Yet, much as American officials hoped to integrate Japan with Southeast Asia, revolutionary nationalist movements in the region made that prospect uncertain. During World War II, popular independence movements arose in French Indochina and the Netherlands East Indies. Nationalist leaders like Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam and Sukarno in Indonesia wanted to gain control over their countries' future (23). Decolonization was an embedded feature of the postwar international system, propelled by the defeat of Japan and the weakening of traditional European powers. Decolonization fueled the cold war as it provided opportunities for the expansion of communist influence. Third World nationalists wanted to develop, industrialize, and modernize their countries. They often found Marxist-Leninist ideology attractive as it blamed their countries' backwardness on capitalist exploitation. At the same time, the Soviet command economy seemed to provide a model for rapid modernization. Stalin's successors, therefore, saw endless opportunities for expanding their influence in the Third World; leaders in Washington perceived dangers (24).

As hegemon of the free world economy, U.S. officials felt a responsibility to contain revolutionary nationalism and to integrate core and periphery. The Truman administration prodded the Dutch and the French to make concessions to revolutionary nationalists, but often could not shape the outcomes of colonial struggles. When the French, for example, refused to acknowledge Ho Chi Minh's republic of Vietnam and established a puppet government under Bao Dai in 1949, the U.S. chose to support the French. Otherwise, Truman and his advisers feared they would alienate their allies in France and permit a key area to gravitate into a communist orbit where it would be amenable to Chinese or Soviet influence. Falling dominos in Southeast Asia would sever the future economic links between this region and Japan, making rehabilitation in the industrial core of northeast Asia all the more difficult (25).

In the late 1950s and 1960s Japan's extraordinary economic recovery, sparked by the Korean War and fueled by subsequent exports to North America, defied American assumptions. Yet, by then, American officials had locked the U.S. into a position opposing nationalist movements led by communists, like Ho Chi Minh. U.S. officials feared that if they allowed a communist triumph in Indochina, America's credibility with other allies and clients would be shattered. Hegemons needed to retain their credibility. Otherwise, key allies, like Western Germany and Japan, might doubt America's will and reorient themselves in the cold war (26).

Hegemony and credibility required superior military capabilities. Leaders in Washington and Moscow alike believed that perceptions of their relative power position supported risk-taking on behalf of allies and clients in Asia and Africa. In the most important U.S. strategy document of the cold war, NSC 68, Paul Nitze wrote that military power was an "indispensable backdrop" to containment, which he called a "policy of calculated and gradual coercion." To pursue containment in the Third World and erode support for the adversary, the U.S. needed to have superior military force (27). Prior to 1949, the U.S. had a monopoly of atomic weapons. But after the Soviets tested and developed nuclear weapons of their own, U.S. officials believed they needed to augment their arsenal of strategic weapons. Their aim was not only to deter Soviet aggression in the center of Europe, but also to support the ability of the U.S. to intervene in Third World countries without fear of Soviet countermoves.

Nuclear weapons, therefore, produced paradoxical results. Their enormous power kept the cold war from turning into a hot war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Leaders on both sides recognized that such a war would be suicidal. But at the same time nuclear weapons encouraged officials in both Washington and Moscow to engage in risk-taking on the "periphery," that is, in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and the Caribbean because each side thought (and hoped) that the adversary would not dare to escalate the competition into a nuclear exchange (28). When Ronald Reagan revived the determination of the U.S. to regain military superiority in the 1980s, he sought to use those military capabilities, not for a preemptive attack against the Soviet Union, but as a backdrop to support U.S. interventions on behalf of anti-communist insurgents from Nicaragua and El Salvador to Afghanistan and Angola. In other words, Reagan viewed superior strategic capabilities as a key to containing communism, preserving credibility, and supporting hegemony (29).

For U.S. officials, waging the cold war required the U.S. to win the transnational ideological struggle and to contain Soviet power. To achieve these goals, the U.S. had to be an effective hegemon. This meant that the U.S. had to nurture and lubricate the world economy, build and coopt western Germany and Japan, establish military alliances and preserve allied cohesion, contain revolutionary nationalism, and bind the industrial core of Europe and Asia with the underdeveloped periphery in the Third World. To be effective, Cold Warriors believed that superior military capabilities were an incalculable asset. They focused much less attention and allocated infinitely fewer resources to disseminating their values and promoting their culture. Yet scholars of the cold war increasingly believe that America's success as a hegemon, its capacity to evoke support for its leadership, also depended on the habits and institutions of constitutional governance, the resonance of its liberal and humane values, and the appeal of its free market and mass consumption economy (30).

• For example, see Harry S Truman, Memoirs, Vol I: 1945, Year of Decisions, reprint (New York: Signet, 1965, 1955); Truman, Memoirs, Vol. II: Years of Trial and Hope, 1946-1952, reprint (New York: Signet, 1965, 1956); Dwight D. Eisenhower, Mandate for Change: The White House Years, 1953-1956 (Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, 1963); Dean G. Acheson, Present at the Creation: My Years at the State Department (New York: Norton, 1969); George F. Kennan, Memoirs, 2 vol. paperback ed. (New York: Bantam, 1967-1972).
• See, for example, Joyce and Gabriel Kolko, The Limits of Power: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1945-1954 (New York: Harper & Row, 1972); for a discussion of the different historiographical approaches, see my essay, "The Cold War Over the Cold War," in Gordon Martel, ed., American Foreign Policy Reconsidered, 1890-1993 (London: Routledge, 1994).
• John Lewis Gaddis, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).
• For some of the best new scholarship on Stalin, see Simon Sebag Montefiore, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, reprint (New York: Knopf, 2004, 2003); Norman M. Naimark, The Russians in Germany: A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945-1949 (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1995); Vojtech Mastny, The Cold War and Soviet Insecurity: The Stalin Years (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996); Eduard Maximilian Mark, "Revolution by Degrees: Stalin's National Front Strategy for Europe, 1941-1947," Cold War International History Project Working Paper No. 31 (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2001); Geoffrey Roberts, "Stalin and the Grand Alliance: Public Discourse, Private Dialogues, and the Direction of Soviet Foreign Policy, 1941-1947," Slovo 13 (2001): 1-15.
• Robert H. Ferrell, ed., Dear Bess: The Letters from Harry to Bess Truman, 1910-1959 (New York: Norton, 1983), 522; Harriman to Truman, June 8, 1945, Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States: The Conference of Berlin: The Potsdam Conference, 1945 (2 vols., Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1960), 1: 61.
• For soft power, see Joseph S. Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York: Public Affairs, 2004); Nye, The Paradox of American Power: Why the World's Only Superpower Can't Go It Alone (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).
• Paul M. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict From 1500 to 2000 (New York: Random House, 1987), 347-72; R. J. Overy, Russia's War (London: Penguin Books, 1997); Allan M. Winkler, Home Front U.S.A.: America During World War II, 2nd ed. (Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson, 2000).
• Melvyn P. Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992), 1-141.
• Igor Lukes, "The Czech Road to Communism," in Norman M. Naimark and L. IA. Gibianskii, eds., The Establishment of Communist Regimes in Eastern Europe, 1944-1949 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997), 29; William I. Hitchcock, The Struggle for Europe: The Turbulent History of a Divided Continent, 1945 to the Present (New York: Anchor Books, 2004), 1-125.
• Adam Westoby, Communism Since World War II (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1981), 14-5.
• Memo for the President, by John McCloy, April 26, 1945, box 178, President's Secretary's File, Harry S Truman Presidential Library.
• Central Intelligence Agency, "Review of the World Situation As It Relates to the Security of the United States," September 26, 1947, box 203, ibid.
• Testimony by Dean G. Acheson, March 8, 1945, U.S. Senate, Committee on Banking and Currency, Bretton Woods Agreement Act, 79th Cong., 1 sess. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1945), 1: 35.
• U.S. Department of Commerce, The United States in the World Economy (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1943); Harley A. Notter, Postwar Foreign Policy Preparation, 1939-1945 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1950), 128; Georg Schild, Bretton Woods and Dumbarton Oaks: American Economic and Political Postwar Planning in the Summer of 1944 (New York: St. Martin's, 1995).
• Harry S Truman, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, 1947 (Washington, D.C.: U.S.G.P.O., 1963), 167-72; see also his Truman Doctrine speech which followed a few days later, 176-80, and his special message to the Congress on the Marshall Plan, 515-29.
• Michael J. Hogan, The Marshall Plan: America, Britain, and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1947-1952 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987); David W. Ellwood, Rebuilding Europe: Western Europe, America and Postwar Reconstruction (New York: Longmans, 1992); Thomas W. Zeiler, Free Trade, Free World; The Advent of GATT (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999).
• John Gimbel, The Origins of the Marshall Plan (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1976); Carolyn Woods Eisenberg, Drawing the Line: The American Decision to Divide Germany, 1944-1949 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
• Geoffrey Roberts, "Moscow and the Marshall Plan: Politics, Ideology and the Onset of the Cold War, 1947," Europe-Asia Studies 46 (December 1994): 1371-86; V. M. Zubok and Konstantin Pleshakov, Inside the Kremlin's Cold War: From Stalin to Khrushchev (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), 46-53.
• William I. Hitchcock, France Restored: Cold War Diplomacy and the Quest for Leadership in Europe, 1944-1954 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998).
• Timothy P. Ireland, Creating the Entangling Alliance: The Origins of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981).
• Michael Schaller, The American Occupation of Japan: The Origins of the Cold War in Asia (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985); Howard B. Schonberger, Aftermath of War: Americans and the Remaking of Japan, 1945-1952 (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1989); John W. Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (New York: W.W. Norton, 1999), 271-3, 525-46.
• Leffler, Preponderance of Power, 346-7, 393-4, 428-32, 464-5; Roger Dingman, "The Diplomacy of Dependency: The Philippines and Peacemaking with Japan," Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 27 (September 1986): 307-21; Henry W. Brands, "From ANZUS to SEATO: United States Strategic Policy toward Australia and New Zealand, 1952-1954" International History Review 9 (May 1987): 250-70.
• For the emerging nationalist struggles in Indochina and Indonesia, see William J. Duiker, Sacred War: Nationalism and Revolution in a Divided Vietnam (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995); George McTurnan Kahin, Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1952).
• Odd Arne Westad, "The New International History of the Cold War: Three (Possible) Paradigms," Diplomatic History 24 (Fall 2000): 551-65; David C. Engerman, Nils Gilman, Mark H. Haefele, and Michael E. Latham, eds., Staging Growth: Modernization, Development, and the Global Cold War (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003).
• Mark Atwood Lawrence, "Transnational Coalition-Building and the Making of the Cold War in Indochina, 1947-1949," Diplomatic History 26 (Summer 2002): 453-80; Andrew Jon Rotter, The Path to Vietnam: Origins of the American Commitment to Southeast Asia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987).
• For the importance of credibility, see the pathbreaking article by Robert J. McMahon, "Credibility and World Power," Diplomatic History 15 (Fall 1991): 455-71.
• NSC 68, "United States Objectives and Programs for National Security," April 14, 1950, in Thomas H. Etzold and John Lewis Gaddis, eds., Containment: Documents on American Policy and Strategy, 1945-1950 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978), 401-2; NSC 114/2, "Programs for National Security," October 12, 1951, Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1951: National Security Affairs; Foreign Economic Policy (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1979), 1: 187-89.
• For Soviet policy, see A. A. Fursenko and Timothy J. Naftali, "One Hell of a Gamble": Khrushchev, Castro, and Kennedy, 1958-1964 (New York: Norton, 1997); Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, Khrushchev's Cold War (New York: Norton, 2005).
• Peter Schweizer, Reagan's War: The Epic Story of his Forty Year Struggle and Final Triumph Over Communism (New York: Doubleday, 2002).
• G. John Ikenberry, After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order After Major Wars (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), 163-214; Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), especially 135-81; Michael Mandelbaum, The Ideas that Conquered the World: Peace, Democracy and Free Markets in the Twenty-First Century (New York: Public Affairs Press, 2002); Geir Lundestad, "Empire" by Integration: The United States and European Integration, 1945-1997 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998); Gaddis, We Now Know.

Bibliographical Note

Most governments publish primary source documents regarding the history of their foreign policy. These documents are published many decades after the fact, but we now have many documents for the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. For the evolution of the role of the U.S. in the cold war, see U.S. Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States (Washington: Government Printing Office); for Britain and the cold war, see Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Documents on British Policy Overseas. Since the end of the cold war, the Cold War International History Project has been publishing (and distributing free of charge) primary source documents from the Soviet Union and other formerly communist nations, including the People's Republic of China. They are indispensable for understanding the global context of the cold war. See the Cold War International History Project, Bulletin (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson International Center, 1992-2004). The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has published several volumes of documents. See, for example, Woodrow J. Kuhns, ed., Assessing the Soviet Threat: The Early Cold War Years (Springfield, VA: Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 1997); Scott A. Koch, ed., Selected Estimates on the Soviet Union, 1950-1959 (Washington, D.C.: History Staff, Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 1993); Ben B. Fischer, At Cold War's End: U.S. Intelligence on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 1989-1991 (Reston, VA: Central Intelligence Agency, 1999).

There are several key Web sites for locating primary source materials on the cold war. The most important are the Cold War International History Project, the National Security Archive, the Parallel History Project for information on NATO and the Warsaw Pact, and the Primary Source Microfilm. The Federation of American Scientists also has a Web site with valuable documents on many issues, like the nuclear arms race.

• Cold War International History Project
• The National Security Archive
• The Parallel History Project on NATO and the Warsaw Pact
• Primary Source Microfilm
• Federation of American Scientists

Many U.S. government agencies also have Web sites containing documents on current and past foreign policy.

• U.S. Department of State - Department of Educational and Cultural Affairs
• U.S. Department of Defense
• Central Intelligence Agency

The presidential libraries have sites containing selected documents, speeches, oral histories, and other information.

NARA Presidential Libraries

For short books locating the cold war in a global context, see Robert J. McMahon, The Cold War: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003); David S. Painter, The Cold War: An International History (New York: Routledge, 2002); Geoffrey Roberts, The Soviet Union in World Politics: Coexistence, Revolution and Cold War, 1945-1991; (New York: Routledge, 1999); Geir Lundestad, East, West, North, South: Major Developments in International Relations since 1945, 4th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).

Many scholars are now using primary documents from the former Soviet Union and other communist countries to study the cold war. In addition to the books and articles listed in note 3, see David Holloway, Stalin and the Bomb: the Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994); William Taubman, Khrushchev: The Man and His Era (New York: Norton, 2003); Hope M. Harrison, Driving the Soviets Up the Wall: Soviet-East German Relations, 1953-1961 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003). Some of the most fascinating books deal with Chinese foreign policy and the relations between Mao Tse-tung and Stalin. See, for example, S. N. Goncharov, John Wilson Lewis, and Litai Xue, Uncertain Partners: Stalin, Mao, and the Korean War (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993); Jian Chen, Mao's China and the Cold War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001).

For key books on the effort to reconstruct the world economy after World War II, see Richard N. Gardner, Sterling-Dollar Diplomacy in Current Perspective: The Origins and the Prospects of Our International Economic Order (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980); Herman Van der Wee, Prosperity and Upheaval: The World Economy, 1945-1980 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986); Alfred E. Eckes and Thomas W. Zeiler, Globalization and the American Century (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

For transnational ideological conflict and the cold war, see Joyce and Gabriel Kolko, The Limits of Power: The World and United States Foreign Policy, 1945-1954 (New York: Harper & Row, 1972); Walt W. Rostow, The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto, 3rd. ed. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990); François Furet, The Passing of an Illusion: The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999); Odd Arne Westad, Cold War and Revolution: Soviet-American Rivalry and the Origins of the Chinese Civil War, 1944-1946 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993); Michael E. Latham, Modernization as Ideology: American Social Science and "Nation-Building" in the Kennedy Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000); David C. Engerman, Modernization from the Other Shore: American Intellectuals and the Romance of Russian Development (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003); John Lewis Gaddis, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).

There are some wonderful studies on decolonization, revolutionary nationalism, and the cold war. See, for example, Robert J. McMahon, Colonialism and Cold War: The United States and the Struggle for Indonesian Independence, 1945-49 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981); Frances Gouda and Thijs Brocades Zaalberg, American Visions of the Netherlands East Indies/Indonesia: US Foreign Policy and Indonesian Nationalism, 1920-1949 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2002); Matthew James Connelly, A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria's Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002); Piero Gleijeses, Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002). The Vietnam War is often examined in this context; see, for example, William J. Duiker, U.S. Containment Policy and the Conflict in Indochina (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994); George C. Herring, America's Longest War: The United States and Vietnam, 1950-1975, 4th ed. (Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2002).

For power and the cold war, see Mark Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945-1963 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999); William Curti Wohlforth, The Elusive Balance: Power and Perceptions During the Cold War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993); Melvyn P. Leffler, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992). Raymond L. Garthoff has written two lengthy and illuminating books that link power and ideology. See Garthoff, Détente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations From Nixon to Reagan (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1985) and The Great Transition: American-Soviet Relations and the End of the Cold War (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1994).

For discussions of the end of the cold war that focus on ideas and transnational movements, see Matthew Evangelista, Unarmed Forces: The Transnational Movement to End the Cold War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999); Robert D. English, Russia and the Idea of the West: Gorbachev, Intellectuals, and the End of the Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000); Lawrence S. Wittner, Toward Nuclear Abolition: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, 1971 to the Present (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003). For discussions of hegemony and soft power, see the citations in notes 5 and 29.

Melvyn P. Leffler is the Edward Stettinius Professor of American History at The University of Virginia. Currently, he is a Jennings Randolph Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace and holds the Henry Kissinger Chair at the Library of Congress. His book, A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War (Stanford University Press, 1993), won the Bancroft, Ferrell, and Hoover prizes. He is now writing a book about why the Cold War lasted as long as it did and why it ended when it did.

Authored by

Melvyn P. Leffler University of Virginia Charlottesville, Virginia

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The Cold War Timeline

This post is a comprehensive timeline of the Cold War, from the origins of the Russian-American conflict following World War Two to the final dissolution of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall at the end of the 20th century.

Scroll down to learn more. Alternatively, watch this nine-minute explainer video for an overview of the Cold War.

This article is part of our larger collection of resources on the Cold War. For a comprehensive outline of the origins, key events, and conclusion of the Cold War, click here. 

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The Cold War (1945-1989) essay

The Cold War is considered to be a significant event in Modern World History. The Cold War dominated a rather long time period: between 1945, or the end of the World War II, and 1990, the collapse of the USSR. This period involved the relationships between two superpowers: the United States and the USSR. The Cold War began in Eastern Europe and Germany, according to the researchers of the Institute of Contemporary British History (Warner 15).  Researchers state that “the USSR and the United States of America held the trump cards, nuclear bombs and missiles” (Daniel 489). In other words, during the Cold War, two nations took the fate of the world under their control. The progression of the Cold War influenced the development of society, which became aware of the threat of nuclear war. After the World War II, the world experienced technological progress, which provided “the Space Race, computer development, superhighway construction, jet airliner development, the creation of international phone system, the advent of television, enormous progress in medicine, and the creation of mass consumerism, and many other achievements” (Daniel 489). Although the larger part of the world lived in poverty and lacked technological progress, the United States and other countries of Western world succeeded in economic development. The Cold War, which began in 1945, reflected the increased role of technological progress in the establishment of economic relationships between two superpowers.   The Cold War involved internal and external conflicts between two superpowers, the United States and the USSR, leading to eventual breakdown of the USSR.

• The Cold War: background information

The Cold War consisted of several confrontations between the United States and the USSR, supported by their allies. According to researchers, the Cold War was marked by a number of events, including “the escalating arms race, a competition to conquer space, a dangerously belligerent for of diplomacy known as brinkmanship, and a series of small wars, sometimes called “police actions” by the United States and sometimes excused as defense measures by the Soviets” (Gottfried 9). The Cold War had different influences on the United States and the USSR. For the USSR, the Cold War provided massive opportunities for the spread of communism across the world, Moscow’s control over the development of other nations and the increased role of the Soviet Communist party.

In fact, the Cold War could split the wartime alliance formed to oppose the plans of Nazi Germany, leaving the USSR and the United States as two superpowers with considerable economic and political differences. The USSR was based on a single-party Marxist–Leninist system, while the United States was a capitalist state with democratic governance based on free elections.

The key figure in the Cold War was the Soviet leader Gorbachev, who was elected in 1985. He managed to change the direction of the USSR, making the economies of communist ruled states independent. The major reasons for changing in the course were poor technological development of the USSR (Gottfried 115). Gorbachev believed that radical changes in political power could improve the Communist system. At the same time, he wanted to stop the Cold War and tensions with the United States. The cost of nuclear arms race had negative impact on the economy of the USSR. The leaders of the United States accepted the proposed relationships, based on cooperation and mutual trust. The end of the Cold War was marked by signing the INF treaty in 1987 (Gottfried 115).

• The origins of the Cold War

Many American historians state that the Cold War began in 1945. However, according to Russian researchers, historians and analysts “the Cold War began with the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, for this was when the capitalist world began its systematic opposition to and effort to undermine the world’s first socialist state and society” (Warner13). For Russians, the Cold War was hot in 1918-1922, when the Allied Intervention policy implemented in Russia during the Russian Civil War. According to John W. Long, “the U.S. intervention in North Russia was a policy formulated by President Wilson during the first half of 1918 at the urgent insistence of Britain, France and Italy, the chief World War I allies” (380).

Nevertheless, there are some other opinions regarding the origins of the Cold War. For example, Geoffrey Barraclough, an outstanding English historian, states that the events in the Far East at the end of the century contributed to the origins of the Cold War. He argues that “during the previous hundred years, Russia and the United States has tended to support each other against England; but now, as England’s power passed its zenith, they came face to face across the Pacific” (Warner 13). According to Barraclough, the Cold War is associated with the conflict of interests, which involved European countries, the Middle East and South East Asia. Finally, this conflict divided the world into two camps. Thus, the Cold War origins are connected with the spread of ideological conflict caused by the emergence of the new power in the early 20-th century (Warner 14). The Cold War outbreak was associated with the spread of propaganda on the United States by the USSR. The propagandistic attacks involved the criticism of the U.S. leaders and their policies. These attacked were harmful to the interests of American nation (Whitton 151).

• The major causes of the Cold War

The United States and the USSR were regarded as two superpowers during the Cold War, each having its own sphere of influence, its power and forces. The Cold War had been the continuing conflict, caused by tensions, misunderstandings and competitions that existed between the United States and the USSR, as well as their allies from 1945 to the early 1990s (Gottfried 10). Throughout this long period, there was the so-called rivalry between the United States and the USSR, which was expressed through various transformations, including military buildup, the spread of propaganda, the growth of espionage, weapons development, considerable industrial advances, and competitive technological developments in different spheres of human activity, such as medicine, education, space exploration, etc.

There four major causes of the Cold War, which include:

• Ideological differences (communism v. capitalism);
• Mutual distrust and misperception;
• The fear of the United State regarding the spread of communism;
• The nuclear arms race (Gottfried 10).

The major causes of the Cold War point out to the fact that the USSR was focused on the spread of communist ideas worldwide. The United States followed democratic ideas and opposed the spread of communism. At the same time, the acquisition of atomic weapons by the United States caused fear in the USSR. The use of atomic weapons could become the major reason of fear of both the United States and the USSR. In other words, both countries were anxious about possible attacks from each other; therefore, they were following the production of mass destruction weapons. In addition, the USSR was focused on taking control over Eastern Europe and Central Asia. According to researchers, the USSR used various strategies to gain control over Eastern Europe and Central Asia in the years 1945-1980. Some of these strategies included “encouraging the communist takeover of governments in Eastern Europe, the setting up of Comecon, the Warsaw Pact, the presence of the Red Army in Eastern Europe, and the Brezhnev Doctrine” (Phillips 118). These actions were the major factors for the suspicions and concerns of the United States. In addition, the U.S. President had a personal dislike of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and his policies. In general, the United States was concerned by the Soviet Union’s actions regarding the occupied territory of Germany, while the USSR feared that the United States would use Western Europe as the major tool for attack.

• The consequences of the Cold War

The consequences of the Cold War include both positive and negative effects for both the United States and the USSR.

• Both the United States and the USSR managed to build up huge arsenals of atomic weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles.
• The Cold War provided opportunities for the establishment of the military blocs, NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
• The Cold War led to the emergence of the destructive military conflicts, like the Vietnam War and the Korean War, which took the lives of millions of people (Gottfried13).
• The USSR collapsed because of considerable economic, political and social challenges.
• The Cold War led to the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the unification of the two German nations.
• The Cold War led to the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact (Gottfried 136).
• The Cold war provided the opportunities for achieving independence of the Baltic States and some former Soviet Republics.
• The Cold War made the United States the sole superpower of the world because of the collapse of the USSR in 1990.
• The Cold War led to the collapse of Communism and the rise of globalization worldwide (Phillips 119).

The impact of the Cold War on the development of many countries was enormous. The consequences of the Cold War were derived from numerous internal problems of the countries, which were connected with the USSR, especially developing countries (India, Africa, etc.). This fact means that foreign policies of many states were transformed (Gottfried 115).

The Cold War (1945-1989) essay part 2

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Cold War summary

Learn about the cause of the cold war between the u.s. and the soviet union and its impact.

Cold War , Open yet restricted rivalry and hostility that developed after World War II between the U.S. and the Soviet Union and their respective allies. The U.S. and Britain, alarmed by the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, feared the expansion of Soviet power and communism in Western Europe and elsewhere. The Soviets were determined to maintain control of Eastern Europe, in part to safeguard against a possible renewed threat from Germany. The Cold War (the term was first used by Bernard Baruch during a congressional debate in 1947) was waged mainly on political, economic, and propaganda fronts and had only limited recourse to weapons. It was at its peak in 1948–53 with the Berlin blockade and airlift, the formation of NATO , the victory of the communists in the Chinese civil war, and the Korean War . Another intense stage occurred in 1958–62 with the Cuban missile crisis, which resulted in a weapons buildup by both sides. A period of détente in the 1970s was followed by renewed hostility. The Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Essay on the Cold War: it’s Origin, Causes and Phases

After the Second World War, the USA and USSR became two Super Powers. One nation tried to reduce the power of other. Indirectly the competition between the Super Powers led to the Cold War.

Then America took the leadership of all the Capitalist Countries.

Soviet Russia took the leadership of all the Communist Countries. As a result of which both stood as rivals to each other.

Definition of the Cold War:

ADVERTISEMENTS:

In the graphic language of Hartman, “Cold War is a state of tension between countries in which each side adopts policies designed to strengthen it and weaken the other by falling short by actual war”.

Image Source: i.ytimg.com/vi/y9HjvHZfCUI/maxresdefault.jpg

Infact, Cold War is a kind of verbal war which is fought through newspapers, magazines, radio and other propaganda methods. It is a propaganda to which a great power resorts against the other power. It is a sort of diplomatic war.

Origin of Cold War:

There is no unanimity amongst scholars regarding the origin of the Cold War In 1941 when Hitler invaded Russia, Roosevelt the President of USA sent armaments to Russia. It is only because the relationship between Roosevelt and Stalin was very good. But after the defeat of Germany, when Stalin wanted to implement Communist ideology in Poland, Hungery, Bulgaria and Rumania, at that time England and America suspected Stalin.

Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of England in his ‘Fulton Speech’ on 5 March 1946 said that Soviet Russia was covered by an Iron Curtain. It led Stalin to think deeply. As a result of which suspicion became wider between Soviet Russia and western countries and thus the Cold War took birth.

Causes of the Cold War:

Various causes are responsible for the outbreak of the Cold War. At first, the difference between Soviet Russia and USA led to the Cold War. The United States of America could not tolerate the Communist ideology of Soviet Russia. On the other hand, Russia could not accept the dominance of United States of America upon the other European Countries.

Secondly, the Race of Armament between the two super powers served another cause for the Cold War. After the Second World War, Soviet Russia had increased its military strength which was a threat to the Western Countries. So America started to manufacture the Atom bomb, Hydrogen bomb and other deadly weapons. The other European Countries also participated in this race. So, the whole world was divided into two power blocs and paved the way for the Cold War.

Thirdly, the Ideological Difference was another cause for the Cold War. When Soviet Russia spread Communism, at that time America propagated Capitalism. This propaganda ultimately accelerated the Cold War.

Fourthly, Russian Declaration made another cause for the Cold War. Soviet Russia highlighted Communism in mass-media and encouraged the labour revolution. On the other hand, America helped the Capitalists against the Communism. So it helped to the growth of Cold War.

Fifthly, the Nuclear Programme of America was responsible for another cause for the Cold War. After the bombardment of America on Hiroshima and Nagasaki Soviet Russia got afraid for her existence. So, it also followed the same path to combat America. This led to the growth of Cold War.

Lastly, the Enforcement of Veto by Soviet Russia against the western countries made them to hate Russia. When the western countries put forth any view in the Security Council of the UNO, Soviet Russia immediately opposed it through veto. So western countries became annoyed in Soviet Russia which gave birth to the Cold War.

Various Phases of the Cold War:

The Cold War did not occur in a day. It passed through several phases.

First Phase (1946-1949 ):

In this phase America and Soviet Russia disbelieved each other. America always tried to control the Red Regime in Russia. Without any hesitation Soviet Russia established Communism by destroying democracy in the Poland, Bulgaria, Rumania, Hungery, Yugoslavia and other Eastern European Countries.

In order to reduce Russia’s hegemony, America helped Greece and Turkey by following Truman Doctrine which came into force on 12 March 1947. According to Marshall Plan which was declared on 5 June, 1947 America gave financial assistance to Western European Countries.

In this phase, non withdrawal of army from Iran by Soviet Russia, Berlin blaockade etc. made the cold was more furious. After the formation of NATO in 1949, the Cold War took a halt.

Second Phase (1949-1953 ):

In this phase a treaty was signed between Australia, New Zeland and America in September, 1957 which was known as ANZUS. America also signed a treaty with Japan on 8 September, 1951. At that time by taking armaments from Russia and army from China, North Korea declared war against South Korea.

Then with the help of UNO, America sent military aid to South Korea. However, both North Korea and South Korea signed peace treaty in 1953 and ended the war. In order to reduce the impact of Soviet Communism, America spent a huge amount of dollar in propaganda against Communism. On the other hand, Soviet Russia tried to be equal with America by testing atom bomb.

Third Phase (1953-1957):

Now United States of America formed SEATO in 1954 in order to reduce Soviet Russia’s influence. In 1955 America formed MEDO in Middle East. Within a short span of time, America gave military assistance to 43 countries and formed 3300 military bases around Soviet Russia. At that time, the Vietnamese War started on 1955.

To reduce the American Power, Russia signed WARSAW PACT in 1955. Russia also signed a defence pact with 12 Countries. Germany was divided into Federal Republic of Germany which was under the American control where as German Democratic Republic was under Soviet Russia. In 1957 Soviet Russia included Sphutnick in her defence programme.

In 1953 Stalin died and Khrushchev became the President of Russia. In 1956 an agreement was signed between America and Russia regarding the Suez Crisis. America agreed not to help her allies like England and France. In fact West Asia was saved from a great danger.

Fourth Phase (1957-1962):

In 1959 the Russian President Khrushchev went on a historical tour to America. Both the countries were annoyed for U-2 accident and for Berlin Crisis. In 13 August 1961, Soviet Russia made a Berlin Wall of 25 Kilometres in order to check the immigration from eastern Berlin to Western Berlin. In 1962, Cuba’s Missile Crisis contributed a lot to the cold war.

This incident created an atmosphere of conversation between American President Kenedy and Russian President Khrushchev. America assured Russia that she would not attack Cuba and Russia also withdrew missile station from Cuba.

Fifth Phase (1962-1969 ):

The Fifth Phase which began from 1962 also marked a mutual suspicion between USA and USSR. There was a worldwide concern demanding ban on nuclear weapons. In this period Hot Line was established between the White House and Kremlin. This compelled both the parties to refrain from nuclear war. Inspite of that the Vietnam problem and the Problem in Germany kept Cold War between USA and USSR in fact.

Sixth Phase (1969-1978 ):

This phase commencing from 1969 was marked by DETENTE between USA and USSR- the American President Nixon and Russian President Brezhnev played a vital role for putting an end to the Cold War. The SALT of 1972, the summit Conference on Security’ of 1975 in Helsinki and Belgrade Conference of 1978 brought America and Russia closer.

In 1971, American Foreign Secretary Henry Kissinger paid a secret visit to China to explore the possibilities of reapproachment with China. The American move to convert Diego Garcia into a military base was primarily designed to check the Soviet presence in the Indian Ocean. During the Bangladesh crisis of 1971 and the Egypt-Israel War of 1973 the two super powers extended support to the opposite sides.

Last Phase (1979-1987 ):

In this phase certain changes were noticed in the Cold War. That is why historians call this phase as New Cold War. In 1979, the American President Carter and Russian President Brezhnev signed SALT II. But in 1979 the prospects of mitigating Cold War were marred by sudden development in Afghanistan.

Vietnam (1975), Angola (1976), Ethiopia (1972) and Afghanistan (1979) issues brought success to Russia which was unbearable for America. American President Carter’s Human Rights and Open Diplomacy were criticised by Russia. The SALT II was not ratified by the US Senate. In 1980 America boycotted the Olympic held at Moscow.

In 1983, Russia withdrew from a talk on missile with America. In 1984 Russia boycotted the Olympic game held at Los-Angeles. The Star War of the American President Ronald Regan annoyed Russia. In this way the ‘New Cold War’ between America and Russia continued till 1987.

Result of the Cold War:

The Cold War had far-reaching implications in the international affairs. At first, it gave rise to a fear psychosis which resulted in a mad race for the manufacture of more sophisticated armaments. Various alliances like NATO, SEATO, WARSAW PACT, CENTO, ANZUS etc. were formed only to increase world tension.

Secondly, Cold War rendered the UNO ineffective because both super powers tried to oppose the actions proposed by the opponent. The Korean Crisis, Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam War etc. were the bright examples in this direction.

Thirdly, due to the Cold War, a Third World was created. A large number of nations of Africa, Asia and Latin America decided to keep away from the military alliances of the two super powers. They liked to remain neutral. So, Non-Alignments Movement became the direct outcome of the Cold War.

Fourthly, Cold War was designed against mankind. The unnecessary expenditure in the armament production created a barrier against the progress of the world and adversely affected a country and prevented improvement in the living standards of the people.

Fifthly, the principle ‘Whole World as a Family’, was shattered on the rock of frustration due to the Cold War. It divided the world into two groups which was not a healthy sign for mankind.

Sixthly, The Cold War created an atmosphere of disbelief among the countries. They questioned among themselves how unsafe were they under Russia or America.

Finally, The Cold War disturbed the World Peace. The alliances and counter-alliances created a disturbing atmosphere. It was a curse for the world. Though Russia and America, being super powers, came forward to solve the international crisis, yet they could not be able to establish a perpetual peace in the world.

Related Articles:

• Essay on the Cold War, 1945
• Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO): Structure, Principles and Other Details
• History of The Cold War: Origin, Reasons and Other Details
• Truman Doctrine: A Policy Statement Made by US during the Cold War

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Could a Russian Revolution End the Ukraine War?

• Posted on August 5, 2024
• By Peter Zeihan
• In Russia , Ukraine

*This video was recorded in May of 2024.

We’ve all stared at the stars thinking about the different ways the Ukraine War could end, but could a coup or revolution in Russia be the way it goes down? It sounds great, but there’s quite a few obstacles in the way.

The first option is a palace coup. Given that all the top Russian political figures are part of Putin’s cabal and have been thoroughly vetted for lack of ambition, this is fairly unlikely. What about a revolution? Despite the standard of living decreasing and economic challenges, public uprisings are unlikely given the nature of Russian culture. Historically speaking, revolutions in Russia have only occurred when military strength weakens significantly – and very suddenly.

So, even if a revolution did happen (and it likely will in the future), we probably wouldn’t know about it until that day. But once that first domino falls, it could lead to a complete restructuring of Russia as we know it.

Here at Zeihan On Geopolitics we select a single charity to sponsor. We have two criteria:

First, we look across the world and use our skill sets to identify where the needs are most acute. Second, we look for an institution with preexisting networks for both materials gathering and aid distribution. That way we know every cent of our donation is not simply going directly to where help is needed most, but our donations serve as a force multiplier for a system already in existence. Then we give what we can.

Today, our chosen charity is a group called Medshare, which provides emergency medical services to communities in need, with a very heavy emphasis on locations facing acute crises. Medshare operates right in the thick of it. Until future notice, every cent we earn from every book we sell in every format through every retailer is going to Medshare’s Ukraine fund.

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Hey, everyone. Peter Zeihan here, coming to you from the south of France and the National Park. One of the questions I’ve been getting repeatedly in Europe is, “Isn’t Russia due for a coup or a revolution or something?” People are looking for a way to end the Ukraine war quickly. Well, there are three problems with that.

Number one, I don’t think we’re going to see a palace coup anytime soon. Most of the people at the top of the Russian political heap are folks that Putin has known or trained for the last 30 years. One of the many characteristics of the Soviet system is that the intelligence folks tended to be in charge, especially after they threw an internal coup back in the early ’80s. That’s when the Andropov, Chernenko, Gorbachev trio came to power, all former intelligence officers. Putin is an heir to that legacy. Remember, he used to be stationed in East Germany to steal industrial secrets from the West. After that coup, everyone else in the communist hierarchy was basically purged. So, those were the people who took over the post-Soviet Russian system.

There are only about 120 of them left at this point, but all of them are personally loyal to Putin from their days in the KGB or are former interns of people like Putin. Take Alexey Miller at Gazprom, literally a former intern. They all see the world through the same lens, and they all owe their positions partly to Putin. Putin has spent the last 30 years purging this group of anyone who might be disloyal. So, number one, they see the world the same way. If something were to happen to Putin, they would probably have a really interesting conversation about who’s in charge next and then just prosecute the war more or less as it’s been going.

Number two, they’re personally loyal. About the only one of the 120 who might have the guts to try something a little scrappy would be Igor Sechin, a former gunrunner who now runs Rosneft, the state oil monopoly. He probably has the guts to kill Putin. But the other 119, if there’s anything they agree on, aside from seeing the world through the same lens, it’s that they all hate Igor Sechin. So, if Sechin did try something, he would probably be dead the next day. So, an internal palace coup is probably not going to happen.

That leaves the option of revolution. The standard of living in Russia is dropping. They can’t access Western goods or Western travel destinations. The economic elite, such as it is, is having a rough time of it. Inflation is an ongoing issue in many parts of the world, Russia included, because now the Russian industrial complex is being retooled to make tanks and refurbish military equipment. So, it’s not available for what paltry commercial goods it was capable of producing in the first place.

So, what about a revolution? Well, the problem is that this is not the West. These are not democratic societies. These are despotisms. As a result, you usually don’t get public uprisings in a place like Russia unless and until the standard of living tanks and the sense of nationhood itself is thrown into question. Russia has had popular uprisings in the past, but the Cold War wasn’t one. Basically, you have to see the Russian army disintegrate in a military campaign to the point that people know the strongmen are gone and broken. We’re not there yet, and there’s nothing on the short-term horizon in the Ukraine war that suggests we’re anywhere close.

For those thinking this is still perhaps the path forward, I don’t want to say you’re wrong because we do have a lot of similarities right now between what’s going on in Russia and what went on in the 1980s: similar economic dislocation, similar failure of state institutions. The best parallel I can draw is the Wagner rebellion of last year. We had a rogue paramilitary commander who marched on Moscow for a thousand miles. Much to Putin’s delight, not a single military officer joined him. But much to Putin’s despair, not a single military officer stood against Wagner either. No one loves Russia, just like no one loved the Soviet Union.

When this does go, and the odds are it will in time, the whole thing goes—the whole regime, the whole governing structure—just like it did in 1992. Because aside from the corrupt, there is no vested interest in maintaining this system. It just has to have some sort of short, sharp shock, like an extreme military defeat, for us to get from here to there.

So, are we going to see a revolution in Russia? Almost certainly. But there aren’t going to be any warning signs until the day it happens. And as soon as it’s over, that’s it for the Russian state. They don’t have enough time, demographically speaking, to try something new. So, when this is over, it’s over.

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Things to know about the largest US-Russia prisoner swap in post-Soviet history

The United States and Russia have made their biggest prisoner swap in post-Soviet history, releasing three Americans and one green card holder in the process. President Joe Biden is heralding it as a major diplomatic achievement.

Russian President Vladimir Putin greeted Russian prisoners freed as part of a swap with the U.S. on Thursday night as they arrived at the airport in Moscow.

This photo combination shows, in the centre, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, and clockwise from top left are Russian opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza, corporate security executive and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, Lilia Chanysheva, former coordinator of regional offices of the late opposition figure Alexei Navalny, co-chair of the Nobel Peace Prize winning Memorial Human Rights Centre Oleg Orlov, artist and musician Sasha Skochilenko, Russian opposition activist and former municipal deputy of the Krasnoselsky district Ilya Yashin, government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Tatar-Bashkir service Alsu Kurmasheva and former head of Open Russia movement Andrei Pivovarov. (AP Photo)

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President Joe Biden, left, hugs Alsu Kurmasheva at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., following her release as part of a 24-person prisoner swap between Russia and the United States, Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Vice President Kamala Harris, right, looks on at Paul Whelan at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., following his release as part of a 24-person prisoner swap between Russia and the United States, Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Reporter Evan Gershkovich, center, is greeted on the tarmac by his mother, Ella Milman, left, as President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris look on at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., following their release as part of a 24-person prisoner swap between Russia and the United States, Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Russian President Vladimir Putin, foreground right, walks with released Russian prisoners and relatives upon their arrival at the Vnukovo government airport outside Moscow, Russia, on Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024. (Mikhail Voskresensky, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

This image released by the White House shows Evan Gershkovich, left, Alsu Kurmasheva, right, and Paul Whelan, second from right, and others aboard a plane, Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024, following their release from Russian captivity. (White House via AP)

In this image made from video provided by Russian Federal Security Service via RTR on Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, center,is escorted by a Russian Federal Security Service agent, left, as they arrive at an airport outside Moscow, Russia. (Russian Federal Security Service/RTR via AP)

In this image made from video provided by Russian Federal Security Service via RTR on Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024, Paul Whelan, center, a former U.S. Marine who was arrested on espionage charges, is escorted by Russian Federal Security Service agents, left, as they arrive at an airport outside Moscow, Russia. (Russian Federal Security Service/RTR via AP)

Miriam Butorin, from left, and Bibi Butorin, daughters of Alsu Kurmasheva, run to hug their mother at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., following her release as part of a 24-person prisoner swap between Russia and the United States, Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. and Russia on Thursday completed their largest prisoner swap in post-Soviet history, a deal involving 24 people, many months of negotiations and concessions from other European countries who released Russians in their custody as part of the exchange.

Here are some things to know:

Who was freed

The 24 people — some prominent, some not — included a collection of journalists and political dissidents, suspected spies, a computer hacker and a fraudster. Even a man convicted of murder.

Russia released 16 people, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, a corporate security executive from Michigan . Both were facing long prison sentences after being convicted in Russia’s heavily politicized legal system of espionage charges that the U.S. government called baseless.

Also freed by Moscow was Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist Alsu Kurmasheva , a dual U.S.-Russian citizen convicted in July of spreading false information about the Russian military — accusations her family and employer have rejected.

Gershkovich, Whelan and Kurmasheva all arrived late Thursday at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, where they were greeted by President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Russia also released Vladimir Kara-Murza , a Kremlin critic and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer serving 25 years on charges of treason widely seen as politically motivated.

The most infamous of the eight people Russia got back is Vadim Krasikov, who was convicted in Germany in 2021 of killing a former Chechen rebel in a Berlin park two years earlier, apparently on the orders of Moscow’s security services. It also received two alleged “sleeper” agents who were jailed in Slovenia, three men charged by federal authorities in the U.S. and two men returned from Norway and Poland.

A breakthrough in US-Russia relations?

That’s unlikely.

The U.S. and Russia have reached several prior prisoner swaps during the course of Russia’s war with Ukraine, including a December 2022 trade in which Moscow freed WNBA star Brittney Griner in exchange for notorious arms trafficker Viktor Bout.

But none of those exchanges resulted in a meaningful warming of relations, particularly at a time when Russian President Vladimir Putin has refused to halt his aggression against Ukraine and as Washington continues to send significant military support to Kyiv.

Prisoner exchanges have been a rare source of compromise and an alignment of mutually agreeable interests rather than a reflection of anything broader. Even so, the fact that the countries were able to get the deal done at a time of open hostility is notable.

The Americans left behind

Though Thursday’s deal involves the most well-known of the Americans held in Russia, including two who have been formally designated as wrongfully detained, there are still several others who remain.

That group includes Travis Leake, a musician convicted on drug charges and sentenced to prison; Gordon Black, an American soldier convicted of stealing and making threats of murder; Marc Fogel, a teacher also sentenced on drug charges; and Ksenia Khavana , who was arrested in Yekaterinburg in February on treason charges, accused of collecting money for Ukraine’s military.

Khavana had returned to Russia to visit family. The owner of the spa in California where Khavana had been working previously told The Associated Press that Khavana actually was collecting funds for humanitarian aid.

In a statement after the deal was announced, Fogel’s family said it was “inconceivable” that he had not been included and urged the Biden administration to prioritize his release.

A senior administration official, who briefed reporters before the swap on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House, said the administration would be redoubling its efforts to get remaining Americans home.

The imbalance in participants

In prisoner exchanges over the past few years, the U.S. government has released criminals convicted of significant crimes, including drug and weapons traffickers and a Taliban drug lord.

The latest deal was no exception, with the U.S. and Western allies agreeing to hand back to Russia criminals regarded as properly charged and convicted.

The most notable example of that, by far, was Vadim Krasikov , who was convicted in the Aug. 23, 2019, killing of Zelimkhan “Tornike” Khangoshvili, a 40-year-old Georgian citizen who had fought Russian troops in Chechnya and later claimed asylum in Germany.

At Krasikov’s sentencing to life in prison in 2021, German judges said he had acted on the orders of Russian authorities, who gave him a false identity, passport and the resources to carry out the killing.

Throughout the course of negotiations, Russia remained adamant about getting Krasikov back, making it clear that he topped the wish list. Putin hinted earlier this year that he was interested in such a trade to free a “patriot” held in Germany.

By contrast, the Americans and Europeans released by Russia include people who were either designated by the U.S. as wrongfully detained — like Gershkovich and Whelan — or generally regarded as held on baseless charges.

“Deals like this one come with tough calls,” Biden said but added: “There’s nothing that matters more to me than protecting Americans at home and abroad.”

It could have included Navalny

Central to the deal was a man who never got to be part of it: Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

At the time of his death in February, officials were discussing a possible exchange involving him and Krasikov as a way to satisfy Russia’s relentless demand for Krasikov and unlock the imprisoned Americans.

Administration officials described the sudden and unexplained death of Navalny as a setback to that effort, but drew up a new plan to present to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

In the end, several associates of Navalny were released.

The politics of it all

Biden had foreshadowed his commitment to a deal last week, when he said in an Oval Office address announcing his plan to abandon his reelection bid: “We’re also working around the clock to bring home Americans being unjustly detained all around the world.”

On Thursday, he basked in the success of a diplomatic feat executed in the final months of his administration as he welcomed the families of the returning Americans to the White House. In an apparent jab at the “America First” mantra of Donald Trump, the former president and current Republican nominee, Biden said: “Today is a powerful example of why it’s vital to have friends in this world.”

Trump, who during his presidency had also taken an interest in hostages and wrongfully detained Americans, claimed during the June debate with Biden that he would get Gershkovich out as soon as he won the election.

On Thursday, he bashed the deal, suggesting incorrectly on his Truth Social platform that the U.S. had given Russia cash for the deal.

“Are we releasing murderers, killers, or thugs? Just curious because we never make good deals, at anything, but especially hostage swaps,” Trump wrote.

Trump and Allies Forge Plans to Increase Presidential Power in 2025

The former president and his backers aim to strengthen the power of the White House and limit the independence of federal agencies.

Donald J. Trump intends to bring independent regulatory agencies under direct presidential control. Credit... Doug Mills/The New York Times

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By Jonathan Swan Charlie Savage and Maggie Haberman

• Published July 17, 2023 Updated July 18, 2023

Donald J. Trump and his allies are planning a sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government if voters return him to the White House in 2025, reshaping the structure of the executive branch to concentrate far greater authority directly in his hands.

Their plans to centralize more power in the Oval Office stretch far beyond the former president’s recent remarks that he would order a criminal investigation into his political rival, President Biden, signaling his intent to end the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence from White House political control.

Mr. Trump and his associates have a broader goal: to alter the balance of power by increasing the president’s authority over every part of the federal government that now operates, by either law or tradition, with any measure of independence from political interference by the White House, according to a review of his campaign policy proposals and interviews with people close to him.

Mr. Trump intends to bring independent agencies — like the Federal Communications Commission, which makes and enforces rules for television and internet companies, and the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces various antitrust and other consumer protection rules against businesses — under direct presidential control.

He wants to revive the practice of “impounding” funds, refusing to spend money Congress has appropriated for programs a president doesn’t like — a tactic that lawmakers banned under President Richard Nixon.

He intends to strip employment protections from tens of thousands of career civil servants, making it easier to replace them if they are deemed obstacles to his agenda. And he plans to scour the intelligence agencies, the State Department and the defense bureaucracies to remove officials he has vilified as “the sick political class that hates our country.”

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U.S., Russia prisoner swap secures release of Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan and others

By Arden Farhi , Olivia Gazis , Camilla Schick

Updated on: August 1, 2024 / 11:44 PM EDT / CBS News

After a historically complex, monthslong negotiation involving more than six countries and two dozen prisoners, the Biden administration on Thursday announced it had secured the release of three American citizens from Russia, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich , Marine veteran Paul Whelan  and Russian-American radio journalist Alsu Kurmasheva .

The three returned to the United States late Thursday night as part of a 24-person prisoner swap — one of the largest since the end of the Cold War — among the U.S., Russia, Germany and three other Western countries. 

The deal is a significant and hard-fought win for the Biden administration, which has secured the release of more than 60 hostages or wrongful detainees from around the world over the past three years. Few cases have received a similar level of prominence or scrutiny as the ones in Russia, a longstanding geopolitical rival of the U.S. with a history of taking — and trading — foreign detainees. 

"All have endured unimaginable suffering and uncertainty. Today, their agony is over," President Biden said in a statement.  

Under the terms of the agreement, 12 political dissidents held in Russia have been released to Germany. Kremlin critic and Washington Post contributor Vladimir Kara-Murza is expected to be flown to Germany, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Thursday. Kara-Murza is a British-Russian citizen and a green card holder. His family lives in the U.S.

In return, Russia will receive eight of its nationals, including three that were being held in U.S. prisons: Vadim Konoshchenok, Vladislav Klyushin and Roman Seleznyov.

Two Russians held in Slovenia, one in Poland and another in Norway are also headed home. All have known or suspected ties to Russian intelligence, according to U.S. officials. They included a husband and wife, Artem Viktorovich Dultsev and Anna Valerevna Dultseva, who were arrested in 2022 and convicted on espionage charges in Slovenia. They were each serving a 19-month sentence. They flew back to Russia with their two children.

Key among the prisoners returned to Russia, according to American officials familiar with the talks, was Vadim Krasikov, a convicted murderer who was sentenced to life in prison by a German court in 2021 for killing a Georgian asylee who had fought against Russians in Chechnya. German judges said the killing had been ordered by Russian federal authorities and called it "state terrorism."

Details of the deal, which was coordinated over more than half a year by multiple U.S. government agencies including the White House, State Department and Central Intelligence Agency, were closely held, though speculation about the swap had mounted in recent days after prominent Russian political prisoners, including Kara-Murza, were moved from their respective jails in Russia. 

The painstakingly choreographed exchange, apparently one of the most complex in history, finally took place on Thursday on a tarmac in Ankara, Turkey.

After enduring unimaginable suffering and uncertainty, the Americans detained in Russia are safe, free, and have begun their journeys back into the arms of their families. pic.twitter.com/1rYNBTt9tJ — President Biden (@POTUS) August 1, 2024

Russia imprisons Americans

Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter, was taken into Russian custody while on assignment in Yekaterinburg in March of 2023. Russian authorities charged him with espionage, drawing immediate condemnation from the U.S. government, which in April of that year officially determined Gershkovich to be wrongfully detained.

Over a year later, in early July 2024, Gershkovich was sentenced to 16 years in prison by a Russian court. The U.S. called his hurried trial "a sham."

Gershkovich's family said in a statement Thursday, "We have waited 491 days for Evan's release, and it's hard to describe what today feels like. We can't wait to give him the biggest hug."

Wall Street Journal publisher Almar Latour and editor in chief Emma Tucker said, "We are overwhelmed with relief and elated for Evan and his family, as well as for the others who were released. At the same time, we condemn in the strongest terms Vladimir Putin's regime in Russia, which orchestrated Evan's 491-day wrongful imprisonment based on sham accusations."

In an interview with "CBS Mornings" Friday, Paul Beckett, assistant editor at the Wall Street Journal, said they had been closely monitoring efforts to gain his release. "We thought there was hope before only to find disappointment, so we felt the last couple of weeks things were starting to move," he said.

When Gershkovich was on his way back, Beckett described the surge of emotions as "everything all at once — smiles of happiness, joy, tears of relief."

Whelan, a Marine veteran and the longest-held American detainee in Russia, was arrested in December 2018 when he traveled to the country to attend a friend's wedding. He was also charged with espionage and sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2020. 

Whelan, his family and the U.S. government consistently denied the espionage allegations against him and said he was being used as a political pawn. The U.S. government also declared him wrongfully detained.

"Paul was held hostage for 2,043 days. His case was that of an American in peril, held by the Russian Federation as part of their blighted initiative to use humans as pawns to extract concessions," the Whelan family wrote in a statement Thursday. "Paul Whelan is free."

Kurmasheva, a journalist based in Prague for the U.S-funded Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) who holds dual Russian and American citizenship, was detained in June of 2023, after visiting her mother in May. Russian authorities charged her with disseminating false information about Russia's military before sentencing her to six and a half years in prison in a hurried, secret trial in July of this year.  

Pavel Butorin, Kurmasheva's husband, said Thursday, "After over a year of separation and more than nine months of brutal detention, Alsu will finally be free. Thanks to the unwavering efforts of the U.S. government and our tireless advocacy work, she will soon reunite with her family."

Unlike Whelan and Gershkovich, Kurmasheva was not officially deemed wrongfully detained by the U.S., but Mr. Biden publicly called for her release at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in April 2024. 

Not all Americans currently imprisoned in Russia were involved in the swap. American teacher Marc Fogel , musician Michael Travis Leake , U.S. Army staff sergeant Gordon Black , and Russian-American ballerina Ksenia Karelina  remain imprisoned, among others.

Negotiating the deal

Soon after American WNBA star Brittney Griner was released in exchange for convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout in December of 2022, Secretary of State Antony Blinken directed teams at the State Department to make an offer for Whelan, which the Russians rejected at the time. 

In the months that followed, at the urging of national security advisor Jake Sullivan, U.S. negotiators raised Krasikov with German interlocutors as part of a burgeoning new proposal to Russia, but made little headway. Russia had long sought the repatriation of Krasikov, a convicted murderer with ties to Russian intelligence.

But the Germans were reluctant to let Krasikov out. 

"He was certainly the biggest fish the Russians wanted back," a senior U.S. official said about Krasikov. "This is a bad dude and a member of the Russian intelligence service."

Blinken then began internal discussions at the State Department on the idea of enlarging the deal with someone Germany and other Western nations wanted freed: Alexey Navalny . 

Then things got even more complicated.

The White House found out that Gershkovich had been detained on March 29, 2023, when the Wall Street Journal, Gershkovich's employer, notified a senior official on the National Security Council. It soon became clear that the U.S. would be negotiating for the release of another American in Russian custody. 

Just days after Gershkovich's detention, Blinken called his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, and highlighted that Gershkovich is a journalist working for a respected international news outlet, that claims of him being a spy were outrageous and false, that Moscow had "crossed the line" and that the matter should be solved diplomatically. Lavrov responded that Gershkovich had been "caught red-handed" and that "him being a journalist does not provide him immunity." To which Blinken replied: "You know our country well. You know our system well. You know that for all our efforts to learn information, we do not use journalists." 

Blinken moved to raise the idea of Navalny being part of a deal with German Foreign Minister Baerbock at the G7 foreign ministers' meeting in Karuizawa, Nagano, Japan, on April 17, 2023. The secretary then took it higher, to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who agreed to the idea after further conversations.

Talks then moved to intelligence channels — the CIA talking to its Russian counterparts about spies. U.S. officials were initially reluctant to communicate via intelligence channels because they did not want to lend credence to false Russian accusations that Gershkovich was engaged in espionage.  

Yet negotiators realized it might be the only way to clinch the Americans' freedom. 

Over the summer and into 2024, it became apparent that any deal would have to be broadened in order to entice the Russians and have to include Krasikov, the Russian held in Germany on murder charges. American officials began putting out feelers with allied countries that were holding prisoners deemed to be of potential interest to the Kremlin — among them suspected Russian spies jailed in Poland, Slovenia and Norway. The U.S. also approached Kuwait and Brazil but those efforts did not pan out.

All the while, national security adviser Jake Sullivan spoke regularly with German officials, hoping to convince them to part with Krasikov.

A breakthrough finally appeared imminent in early February when Mr. Biden met with Scholz in the Oval Office. The two leaders discussed options for a potential offer to Russia that would have included Krasikov, Whelan, Gershkovich and Alexey Navalny, a prominent Russian opposition voice. 

"For you, I will do this," the German chancellor told Mr. Biden, according to a senior administration official familiar with the private meeting.

Seven days later though, Navalny died under mysterious circumstances in a Russian prison. The would-be offer collapsed before it was even presented to Moscow, U.S. officials said.

That same day, Sullivan met with Gershkovich's parents and told them there could still be a path to a deal. 

Vice President Kamala Harris huddled privately at the Munich Security Conference with Chancellor Schloz of Germany to stress the importance of releasing Krasikov, a White House official said. Harris also conferred with Robert Golob, the prime minister of Slovenia, which was holding two Russian prisoners who the U.S. had identified as being of high priority to the Russians. 

Also at the Munich Security Conference, Blinken scrambled to bring Navalny's newly widowed wife, Yulia, in through the security cordons for an emotional meeting with U.S. officials just ahead of her impactful speech at the conference. 

The U.S. would let a month or so pass before re-engaging the Germans with a new proposal that added to the deal Navalny's associates and other political prisoners held in Russia.

In April, Mr. Biden sent a letter to Scholz, detailing the plan. Scholz signed off weeks later.

Meetings ensued between senior U.S. and Russian intelligence officials in a third country, according to officials. In early July, CIA director Burns presented his Russian negotiating partners the framework of a deal. A formal proposal came in mid-July. 

The deal that was formulated by the White House, blessed by the Germans and communicated via the CIA was now in Russian hands.

The answer from Moscow? 

We have a deal.

At around 12:45 p.m. on Sunday, July 21, the president phoned his Slovenian counterpart to finalize last-minute details of the exchange. Mr. Biden was at this Rehoboth Beach vacation home, beset by COVID .

An hour later, knowing that a signature accomplishment of his presidency was within his grasp, he announced that he would not be seeking reelection .

Weijia Jiang , Pat Milton and Tucker Reals contributed to this report.

• Biden Administration
• Paul Whelan
• Evan Gershkovich
• Alexey Navalny
• Alsu Kurmasheva

Arden Farhi is the senior White House producer at CBS News. He has covered several presidential campaigns and the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations. He also produces "The Takeout with Major Garrett."

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