End of the Cold War

1941-1991 The Cold War

Factors

1. Ideological challenges and dissent
   1. Eastern Europe, Soviet republics
   2. From within the Soviet bloc
   3. From the USA
2. Economic problems – USSR
3. Arms race
   • escalation during 1979-1995 Second Cold War, especially with SDI + USSR economic issues → pursuit of reconciliation

Timeline

Confrontation (1980-1985)

• 1979-1995 Second Cold War
• Ideological attack on the USSR
• Containment became Roll-Back (active support for anti-Marxist regimes)
• 1983 end: Reagan & advisers concluded Soviet-American relations had to be improved, leading to Reconciliation (1985 onwards)
  • the U.S. govt was more confident & had gained superiority esp in technology
  • European allies appealed for the US to be less aggressive and avoid provoking war
  • tensions between superpowers 1983 Sep-Dec convinced Reagan to avoid a war
• 1984-1985: Soviet responses to American diplomatic initiatives delayed
  • 1984 Feb: Yuri Andropov dies
    • Yuri Andropov: General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1982-death in 1984)
  • Konstantan Chemenko

Reconciliation (1985 onwards)

• Renewed détente in USSR and Third World
• 1985: 👤 Mikhail Gorbachev ascends to power, implementation of New Political Thinking
• 1987 December: Signing of 1987 INF Treaty
• 1988 December: Gorbachev’s UN speech; declared huge unilateral cuts in military forces in Eastern Europe and Western USSR → USSR couldn't crush dissent as it had done in 1956, 1968 ^816907
  • reduced troops committed to Warsaw pact by 500,000
  • factor in later overthrowing of communist govts across Eastern Europe
  • encouraged hopes for reform + West perceived USSR as less of a threat; their expansionist mechanism was cut
• 1989 summer – autumn: Overthrow of communist governments in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, East Germany
• 1989 Dec: Overthrow of communist government in Romania
• 1989 Dec: Bush-Gorbachev summit in Malta; declaration of end of the Cold War
• 1990 autumn: 1990 Reunification of Germany

  1990 Reunification of Germany

  Info

  Considered the 1980-1991 End of the Cold War; the 1941-1991 The Cold War arguably started in Germany, and ended with the resolution of the German problem

  • 1989 Nov 9: Destruction of Berlin Wall begins
  • 1989: Leonard Bernstein conducts Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 with a mixed East/West German symphony; same performance repeated in East & West Germany to celebrate reunification
  • 1990 Sept 12: Two-Plus-Four Treaty signed in Moscow
    • ended partition of Germany
    • terminated residual rights of former occupying powers
    • committed new state to recognising Oder-Neisse border with Poland
  • 1990 Oct 2: German Democratic Republic (E. Germany) integrated into Federal Republic of Germany (W. Germany) → REUNITED!

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• 1990 Nov: Paris agreements
  • Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe
    • equal reduction of conventional weapons in E. & W. Europe
    • agreed on process of inspection & verification (external audit)
    • declaration of countries signing pact: "we are no longer adversaries"
  • Charter of Paris for a New Europe
    • secretariat to organise annual meetings of heads of states
    • creation of Conflict Prevention Center in Vienna
• 1991 Dec: Collapse of USSR into fifteen constituent republics; disappearance of a major Cold War protagonist

  1991 Collapse of USSR

  1980-1991 End of the Cold War, 1921-1991 🇷🇺 Communist Russia

  Factors

  External reasons

  Military

  • 1979-1989 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was a 'bleeding wound' + discredited USSR in Middle East & Third World
  • Brezhnev’s Developing World ambitions faced setbacks (Egypt, Iran, Africa) + $40b cost of supporting Cuba, VIetnam, Ethiopia, Aghanistan
    • Gorby inherited these problems
  • Reagan’s 'systematic challenge' of the 'evil empire' & SDI worried leaders in Kremlin

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  • • 📉 Oil revenues decreasing – reverse oil shock, $35 to $16 per barrel

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  • nationalism
  • influences from outside world weakened Soviet systems
    • 1990: first McDonald’s opens in Moscow
  • growing developing world economies undermined Lenin’s imperialism

  Internal

  • 60 years of communist rule
  • planned economy failed to generate growth

    Economic

    • 📉 economic growths declining since late 1950s → increasing gross national product gap between USSRS and US
      • GNP: total value of all finished goods and services produced by a country’s citizens + output generated by country's businesses, domestically and abroad
    • 📈 40% of state budget going towards armed forces
    • Soviet society lagging behind in development of new technology (esp. computing)
      • ❌ “All my friends are falling in love, and I’m falling behind”
        ✅ “All my friends are developing tech, and I’m falling behind”
    • 📉 Oil revenues decreasing – reverse oil shock, $35 to $16 per barrel

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  • Gorbachev’s reforms opened a floodgate → collapse
  • lack of timing
  • conflict with Yeltsin

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Role of Leader

Important

Gorbachev de-escalated, Reagan escalated.

Gorbachev

👤 Mikhail Gorbachev

1921-1991 🇷🇺 Communist Russia, 1980-1991 End of the Cold War

Summary

• General Secretary of CPSU
• relatively youthful, intelligent, flexible, dynamic
• Leninist; sought to reform the system for it to survive
• aimed to modernise USSR
• realized that Soviet survival depended on ending CW & reforming Soviet economy
• “We can’t go on living like this”

Context: Issues facing Russia (mid-1980s)

Important

Gorby inherited a broken USSR; he was very incentivised to end the Cold War to ensure USSR survival & focus on domestic issues.

Economic

• 📉 economic growths declining since late 1950s → increasing gross national product gap between USSRS and US
  • GNP: total value of all finished goods and services produced by a country’s citizens + output generated by country's businesses, domestically and abroad
• 📈 40% of state budget going towards armed forces
• Soviet society lagging behind in development of new technology (esp. computing)
  • ❌ “All my friends are falling in love, and I’m falling behind”
    ✅ “All my friends are developing tech, and I’m falling behind”
• 📉 Oil revenues decreasing – reverse oil shock, $35 to $16 per barrel

Social

• 📉 ↑ infant mortality, ↓ birth rate
• 📉 ↓ male life expectancy
  • 1960s: 66 years → 1986: 60 years

Political

• tense situation in Poland; challenge from Solidarity
• China still challenging USSR as leader of the socialists
  • [[1949-1976 Communist China’s Foreign Policy and Affairs#1970-1989-triangular-diplomacyyitianxian-一条线-one-united-front|1970-1989 Triangular Diplomacy/yitianxian (一条线), one united front]]
• Soviet commuism denounced by 'Euro-Communists' in Western Europe

Military

• 1979-1989 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was a 'bleeding wound' + discredited USSR in Middle East & Third World
• Brezhnev’s Developing World ambitions faced setbacks (Egypt, Iran, Africa) + $40b cost of supporting Cuba, VIetnam, Ethiopia, Aghanistan
  • Gorby inherited these problems
• Reagan’s 'systematic challenge' of the 'evil empire' & SDI worried leaders in Kremlin

Improvements (Impact)

Political: New Political Thinking

New Political Thinking

1921-1991 🇷🇺 Communist Russia, 1980-1991 End of the Cold War

Summary

Soviet policy implemented by 👤 Mikhail Gorbachev, emphasising:

• independence
• mutual security
• unity of mankind
• irrationality of nuclear war

It de-escalated the Cold War, at least from an ideological perspective.

	Traditional Soviet thinking	New Political Thinking
Diplomacy	Emphasis on ideology & class struggle	No more ideology or class struggle
Confrontation	Triumph of communism over capitalist West	Seen as counterproductive
		RESULT: Emphasis on cooperation instead
Arms race	Sought to match or surpass the West’s technological & military advances	Strongly repudiated nuclear war; arms race was pointless
		RESULT: Arms reduction & 'reasonable sufficiency'
Military	Military power first!	Political accommodation → solve problems & achieve real security

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Economic: Perestroika

Perestroika

Quote

“The goal of perestroika is to make the Soviet Union richer, stronger, better; raise it to a qualitatively new level.”
–Mikhail Gorbachev, 📘 Perestroika (1987)

Historiography: Jonathan Haslam

Gorbachev fundamentally "sought to improve the Soviet Union, not destroy it.”
–Jonathan Haslam

• Perestroika: ‘restructuring’ the economy instead of dismantling it
  • planning was decentralized → certain degree of self-planning allowed in businesses
    • managers were allowed to implement changes without waiting for state approval or permission from GOSPLAN
    • basically ‘shock therapy’ á la ga ge kai fang for China; the Soviet economy didn’t know how to cope
      • managers didn’t know how to make businesses profitable or adapt to market needs without GOSPLAN breathing down their necks
  • state price controls ended → standards of living ↓ but foreign investment was now possible
  • resulted in uncertainty over employment and economy
• alcoholism was a Big Problem… banning alcohol → loss of state revenue
  • people absent because of drinking, people showing up to work drunk, etc.
• nothing on shelves to buy – sugar, wheat, bread (basics) are in short supply → people were still queuing for state handouts
• high inflation due to all these changes
  • any economic gains caused by Perestroika were cancelled out by the rise of cost of living

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Political/Military: Developing World

Summary

• Gorbachev Doctrine – disengaging from involvement in the developing world in order to avoid confrontation with the USA
• U.S. sponsored peaceful settlement of conflicts in DW → security via cooperation → improved relations
• tying up loose ends in terms of proxy wars fought

• Apr 1986: Pakistan & Afghanistan sign agreements sponsored by USSR & U.S.
• Cambodia
  • Gorbachev ready to collaborate with U.S. and China to solve the Cambodian problem
  • 1989: Gorby pressured Vietnam to remove troops before Beijing visit
  • peace wasn’t immediate
  • 1991: Ceasefire negotiated by UN Security Council, with active American & Soviet assistance
• Nicaragua
  • 1981: Sandinista leaders succeed in persuading Soviets to send military equipment to Nicaragua
  • 1988: Both superpowers support Central American plan to end foreign assistance to all fighting groups + call for free elections to remove civil war
• Angola & Namibia
  • superpowers pressured Cuba, Angola, S. Africa to agree to ceasefire & withdrawal of Cuban troops
  • 1988 Dec: S. Africa agreed to implement UN. Res 435 → Namibia independence
• Ethiopia – IRRELEVANT FOR END OF CW, Soviets neglected it in final years
  • Gorbachev sent financial aid to Mengistu’s regime until 1989

Political: China

• 1978: Deng Xiaoping takes over
• 1989 May: Beijing summit meeting between Deng & Gorbachev → relations fully restored
  • Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan + Vietnamese troops from Cambodia
  • Reduction of Soviet troops along Sino-Soviet border (120000 troops along border reduced PRC's fear of attacks)

Political: Eastern Europe (ending expansionism)

• most regimes in the Soviet bloc were more or less stable
• Soviet security in Eastern Europe to safeguard through political cooperation & negotiation rather than force
• 1985 Mar: Abandonment of Brezhnev Doctrine (mandated military intervention by Warsaw Pact/USSR to prop up communist regimes where socialism was under threat)
  • Soviet troops would not be sent into any E. European state
  • 1985 Apr: reiterated this at Warsaw Pact meeting

• Transclude of 1980-1991-End-of-the-Cold-War#^816907

• encouraged Perestroika, Glasnost & Demokratizasiya in satellite states
  • similar to ideas developed by Hungarian & Czech reform communists in 1950s-1970s
• E. Europe saw mass movements calling for economic reforms + demanded greater democracy & various versions of 1968 Prague Spring
  • Prague Spring 1968: period of political liberalization and mass protest in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic
• Gorby declared ideology should play a smaller part in foreign affairs → New Political Thinking

​Military: Arms Control

• determined to negotiate major reductions in nuclear weapons
• put his money where his mouth is to signify goodwill to West
  • 1985 Apr: Froze further deployments of SS-20s in Eastern Europe
  • 1985 Aug: Declared temporary halt to Soviet underground nuclear testing
  • 1985 Sept: Proposed that superpowers ==reduce all strategic nuclear weapon stocks by 50%==
  • 1985 Oct: Announced plans for reduction of Soviet missiles in Eastern Europe
• by 1988: 4 US-Soviet summits on arms control
• Take note of summits

​​​​Dump

• copy from handout 12 slides

• McDonalds → represented import of capitalism and consumerism to the USSR

Social: Glasnost

• the USSR thrived on control of information → loosening of censorship → a lot of things were dug up and reported
• finish

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👤 Ronald Reagan

1979-1995 Second Cold War, 1980-1991 End of the Cold War

• 1981-1989: Reagan’s 2 consecutive terms in office as POTUS
• succeeds Jimmy Carter (Dem.) as president, and his two-pronged foreign policy
  • before 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan: Cyrus Vance was Secretary of State – more accommodating to Soviets
  • 1979 onwards: Brzezinski was National Secretary of Defense – hardline
• takes a hardline stance on foreign policy + determined to pursue aggressive policies to change Soviet behavior
• saw détente as a failure that had eroded American prestige and made them look weak → resulted in ‘misplaced trust’, ↓ power, prestige and influence
  • blamed Carter for loss of global power
• returned USA to containment and confrontation – a more Truman-Eisenhower-approach
• returned USA to negotiating from a position of strength with USSR

Triumphalist sequence of events

Triumphalism

Triumphalist position: that Reagan’s role was key to containing the Soviets and put pressure on them

• aka: One Great Man theory

1. strong rhetorical language against USSR; Reagan’s hardline approach
   • referred to the USSR as the ‘evil empire’ – strong rhetorical language against the USSR → Soviet moral bankruptcy of communism
     • or: the USA cancelled the USSR and strengthened the hand of democracy
   • upped the ante for both countries
2. U.S. uses scientific and technological strength & advantage to pressure Russians (e.g. SDI)
   • showed U.S. advantage to acquire first strike advantage → frightened the Soviets, because they had no solution to counteract
3. dramatic increase in military budget (lots of $$$)
   • the Soviets weren’t in a position to compete with the vast American budget → had to look for more conciliatory ways (aka détente, compromise and giving in)
     • giving in → America ‘winning’, putting pressure on the USSR
     • exposed Soviet economic weakness – states like Ethiopia were bleeding the USSR dry
     • marked a switch to diplomacy rather than military conflict
4. all this combines to form the final nail in the Soviet coffin
5. the Cold War ends and USSR collapses… all because of Reagan
   • ??? this is such a Man way of thinking

Ideological offensive

• new rhetoric: “The Soviet Union is the focus of all evil in the world)

Political offensive

• 1981-1982: Response to Poland situation
  • 1981 Dec: martial law imposed by Poland to stem growth of Solidarity trade union → arrest of Solidarity leadership
  • 1982 Oct: outlawing of Solidartiy leadership
  • U.S. imposed economic & trade sanctions on Poland & USSR ^a14c51
    • SIGNIFICANCE: reaffirmed importance of free market, human rights & gave the West the moral high ground (?)
• 1983: Reagan Doctrine
  • Roll-Back
  • resistance to Soviet expansionism wasn’t enough; the West had to go on the offensive with a “forward strategy to freedom”
  • assistance rendered to anti-Communist insurgents & govts
    • 1979-1989 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; Aided mujahideen rebels in Afghanistan
      • 1986: new lightweight ground-to-air missiles supplied → diminished Soviet air superiority
      • allowed guerillas the benefit of US satellite & communications information
  • reassertion of American power in Central America (Grenada, Nicaragua)
  • renewal of strategic cooperation with China ([[1949-1976 Communist China’s Foreign Policy and Affairs#1970-1989-triangular-diplomacyyitianxian-一条线-one-united-front|1970-1989 Triangular Diplomacy/yitianxian (一条线), one united front]])

Economic offensive

• blocked various exports to USSR, including vital grain deliveries

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Transclude of #^a14c51

• after 1985: all restrictions LIFTED, moving into Reconciliation (1985 onwards)

Military offensive (Militarism and arms control)

Summary

• focus on restoring American military power
• move from defensive to offensive

• AIM: argued massive defence build-up would pressure Soviets to keep up → deplete them of resources
• 1982: increased military expenditure by 13%, then 8% every year after (known as 'window of vulnerability')
• 1982-1989: 📈 increased military budget from $134b/year to $253b
  • largest peacetime budget
  • 7% of GDP in 1989
• 5-year program of $180b to modernise strategic nuclear forces
• CIA’s budget increased even omre
• refusal to ratify SALT II and negotiate
• opposition to Soviet action in Afghanistan, Poland

INF Talks

• INF: Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces
• Reagan proposed the ‘zero option’, heavily loaded against the USSR
• proposals would have:
  1. significantly increased U.S. strike capacity
  2. essentially removing Soviet nuclear power
• the talks were a set-up; the USSR would never accept those terms
• 1989: severely compromised and handicapped treaty signed

START

• START: Strategic Arms Reduction Talks
• U.S. wanted to deploy missiles in Europe → USSR abandoned the talks
  • increased tensions → geographic proximity to the Soviet capitals, a security threat
  • the Europeans weren’t happy with this – they wanted to reduce tensions with USSR and East Germany
    • obviously the U.S. won’t accept this
• for the first time in a decade, the USSR and USA weren’t negotiating
• USSR hoped the West could pressure the USA into adopting a more realistic approach to Soviet-American reactions
• Reagan blamed the USSR for abandoning talks

SDI

• SDI: Strategic Defense Initiative (“Star Wars program”)
  • $26b five-year project
  • a system of defense against WMDs → aimed to make first strike impossible
• 1983 Mar: Announced a way to repel missiles launched by UISSR – would’ve made offensive nukes redundant
• 1983 Nov: NATO deployed Pershing II and Cruise missiles – a new generation of nukes that were faster, harder to detect, and very difficult to counter
• moved from deterrence by assured defense to by assured retaliation
• aimed to replace Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) with Mutually Assured Survival (MAS)
  • which was a farce because everyone is going to die once you launch 💀
  • “we cherish life and yet we design weapons that will take away life in new, innovative lives” –Mr. Han, 2025
• went against anti-ballistic missiles (ABM) treaty agreements signed earlier on
• realistically flawed, could never work – but freaked the Soviets out so badly
  • USSR saw it as a U.S. plan to eradicate the Soviet advantage + develop American first-strike capability

Soviet perception	U.S. perception
sent shockwaves through the Politburo; they didn’t realize it was fully theoretical and unlikely to work Americans trying to gain an upper hand in military conflict erode balance and ‘get one up’ on the Soviets neutralizes the equilibrium developed over détente	big money involved with many vested interests lots of unfufiled promises and hype

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