A variety of internal and external factors contribute to state formation, expansion, and decline. Governments maintain order through a variety of administrative institutions, policies, and procedures, and governments obtain, retain, and exercise power in different ways and for different purposes

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

Explain the causes of the end of the Cold War.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS

KC-6.2.IV.E Advances in U.S. military and technological development, the Soviet Union’s costly and ultimately failed invasion of Afghanistan, and public discontent and economic weakness in communist countries led to the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLES

Collapse of the Soviet Union (and end of the Cold War)

§ Advances in U.S. military and technological development

§ Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan

§ public discontent

§ economic weakness

§ Advances in U.S. military and technological development

• Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) AKA “Star Wars”

  • • The concept was first announced on March 23, 1983

    • called upon US scientists and engineers to develop a system that would render nuclear weapons obsolete

      • • A wide array of advanced weapon concepts, including lasers, particle beam weapons, and ground- and space-based missile systems were studied

    • controversial and was criticized for threatening to destabilize the MAD-approach and to possibly re-ignite "an offensive arms race"

    • SDI officially ended in 1993

    • viewed by some as the US starting an economic war through a defensive arms race to further cripple the Soviet economy with extra military spending

• F-117 Nighthawk

  • • 1981 -- test flight of the world’s first radar-resistant aircraft

    • 1982 -- U.S. Airforce began taking delivery

    • 1988 -- become declassified and made public

§ Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan

• April Revolution (1978)

  • • soldiers aligned with Noor Taraki’s “Khalq” faction assaulted the presidential palace, where troops executed Mohammed Daoud and his family (he came to power in 1973)

    • summer of 1979 -- Deputy Prime Minister Hafizullah Amin (a longtime ally of Taraki) received word that Babrak Karmal (Daoud’s early supporter) was leading a Parcham plot to overthrow the Taraki regime. Amin took the opportunity to purge and execute many Parchamists and consolidate his own power

    • Islamic tribal areas beyond Kabul rose up in armed revolt throughout the country

    • Amin and Taraki traveled to Moscow to sign a friendship treaty which included a provision that would allow direct Soviet military assistance should the Islamic insurgency threaten the regime.

    • it became increasingly obvious to the Soviets that Taraki could not prevent all-out civil war and the prospect of a hostile Islamic government taking control

• Soviets invaded Afghanistan to bolster a communist government (1979)

  • • mid-1979 Moscow was searching to replace Taraki and Amin, and dispatched combat troops to Bagram Air Base outside of Kabul

    • faced with mutinies and an uncertain leadership, the Afghan Army was unable to provide basic security to the government against the onslaught of Islamic fighters nearing Kabul

    • Soviets began by sending in motorized divisions and Special Forces

    • Christmas Eve 1979 -- full invasion began

      • • Soviet troops killed Amin and installed Babrak Karmal as the Soviet’s puppet head of government.

• U.S. Response

  • • Carter administration to begin supplying non-lethal aid to Afghan mujahedeen, or Islamic insurgents

    • Carter enacted economic sanctions and trade embargoes against the Soviet Union

      • • cut off sale of surplus grains to USSR

    • called for a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics

    • USA covertly offered military support to Afghan fighters

• Result

  • • ten years of grinding insurgency before Moscow finally withdrew

    • cost Soviet Union millions of lives and billions of dollars

    • Soviets left a shattered country in which the Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist group, seized control

    • later providing Osama bin Laden with a training base from which to launch terrorist operations worldwide

§ economic weakness

Mikhail Gorbachev

1978 -- Gorbachev was made a member of the Party’s Central Committee in Moscow

1980 -- Gorbachev became a full member of the ruling Politburo and secretary of the Central Committee

March 1985 -- Mikhail Gorbachev (elected by the Politburo) becomes general secretary of the Party, and he became the new leader of the Soviet Union

February 1986 -- Gorbachev made clear the need for changes in Soviet society:

‘‘The practical actions of the Party and state agencies lag behind the demands of the times and of life itself. . . . Problems grow faster than they are solved. Sluggishness, ossification in the forms, and methods of management decrease the dynamism of work. . . . Stagnation begins to show up in the life of society.’

Gorbachev’s radical reforms

• perestroika or ‘‘restructuring’

  • • initially this meant only a reordering of economic policy as Gorbachev called for the beginning of a market economy with limited free enterprise and some private property.

    • Gorbachev soon perceived, however, that in the Soviet system, the economic sphere was intimately tied to the social and political spheres. Attempting to reform the economy without political or social reform would be doomed to failure.

    • One of the most important instruments of perestroika was glasnost

• glasnost or ‘‘openness’’

  • • Soviet citizens and officials were encouraged to discuss openly the strengths and weaknesses of the Soviet Union

    • Pravda -- the official newspaper of the Communist Party, began to include reports of official corruption, sloppy factory work, and protests against government policy.

    • arts also benefited -- Previously banned works were now published, and music based on Western styles, such as jazz and rock, began to be performed openly

Comparison between the Soviet Union and the United States economies (1989) according to 1990 CIA The World Factbook

• USA

  • • GDP (GNP) (1989; millions $) 5,233,300

    • Population (July 1990) 250,410,000

    • GDP per capita (GNP) ($) 21,082

    • Labor force (1989) 125,557,000

• Soviet Union

  • • GDP (GNP) (1989; millions $) 2,659,500

    • Population (July 1990) 290,938,469

    • GDP per capita (GNP) ($) 9,211

    • Labor force (1989) 152,300,000

§ public discontent

Political Reforms

• 1988 -- Gorbachev called for the creation of a new Soviet parliament, the Congress of People’s Deputies, whose members were to be chosen in competitive elections

• 1990 -- Gorbachev legalized the formation of other political parties and struck Article 6, which had guaranteed the ‘‘leading role’’ of the Communist Party, from the Soviet constitution

  • • Gorbachev attempted to consolidate his power by creating a new state presidency

    • March 1990 -- Gorbachev became the Soviet Union’s first president

Problems associated with a multi-ethnic country

• The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics contained 92 nationalities and 112 recognized languages

  • • the Communist Party (Moscow) traditionally suppressed these groups

• by-product of glasnost

  • • Ethnic groups took advantage of the new openness to protest what they perceived as ethnically motivated slights

    • When violence erupted, the Soviet army, in disrepair since its ill-fated decade-long foray into Afghanistan, had difficulty controlling the situation

nationalist movement (1988-1990)

• Within the Soviet Union:

  • • Georgia in late 1988

    • then in Latvia

    • Estonia

    • Moldova

    • Uzbekistan

    • Azerbaijan

    • Lithuania

      • • March 11, 1990, the Lithuanian Supreme Council proclaimed Lithuania an independent state.

• Eastern European countries

  • • 1989-Gorbachev rejects the Brezhnev Doctrine and notifies the leaders of the satellite nations that the USSR will not intervene with domestic issues

    • 1989

      • • Poland (free elections)

        • Hungary (breakup of Communist Party)

        • East Germany (fall of the Berlin Wall ; free elections and German reunification in 1990)

        • Czechoslovakia (free elections)

        • Bulgaria (Communist leader steps down)

        • Romania (Freedom protests answered with violence, dictator arrested and executed)

    • 1990

      • • Yugoslavia (End of Communist Party control, promise of free elections)

conservative reaction in 1991

• traditional Soviet institutions—the army, government, KGB, and military industries—had grown increasingly worried about the impending dissolution of the Soviet Union and its impact on their own fortunes

• August 19, 1991 -- a group of these discontented rightists arrested Gorbachev and attempted to seize power

  • • Gorbachev’s unwillingness to work with the conspirators and the brave resistance in Moscow of Yeltsin and thousands of Russians who had grown accustomed to their new liberties caused the coup to disintegrate rapidly

• December 1, 1991 -- Ukraine voted for independence

• a week later, the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus announced that the Soviet Union had ‘‘ceased to exist’’ and would be replaced by the new and voluntary Commonwealth of Independent States

• December 25, 1991 -- Gorbachev resigned and turned over his responsibilities as commander in chief to Boris Yeltsin, the president of Russia

Activity

• Historical Causation

  • • What conditions in the Soviet Union led Gorbachev to promote these policies?

Source: Pages 140–141, 253–254 from Perestroika by Mikhail Gorbachev. Copyright ª 1987 by Mikhail Gorbachev

Context: After assuming leadership of the Soviet Union in 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev worked to liberalize and restructure the country. His policies opened the door to rapid changes in Eastern Europe and in Soviet-American relations at the end of the 1980s. In his book Perestroika, Gorbachev explained some of his ‘‘New Thinking.’’

Mikhail Gorbachev, Perestroika

The fundamental principle of the new political outlook is very simple: nuclear war cannot be a means of achieving political, economic, ideological or any other goals. This conclusion is truly revolutionary, for it means discarding the traditional notions of war and peace. It is the political function of war that has always been a justification for war, a ‘‘rational’’ explanation. Nuclear war is senseless; it is irrational. There would be neither winners nor losers in a global nuclear conflict: world Civilization would inevitably perish. . . .

But military technology has developed to such an extent that even a non-nuclear war would now be comparable with a nuclear war in its destructive effect. That is why it is logical to include in our category of nuclear wars this ‘‘variant’’ of an armed clash between major powers as well.

Thereby, an altogether different situation has emerged. A way of thinking and a way of acting, based on the use of force in world politics, have formed over centuries, even millennia. It seems they have taken root as something unshakable. Today, they have lost all reasonable grounds. . . . For the first time in history, basing international politics on moral and ethical norms that are common to all humankind, as well as humanizing interstate relations, has become a vital requirement. . . .

There is a great thirst for mutual understanding and mutual communication in the world. It is felt among politicians, it is gaining momentum among the intelligentsia, representatives of culture, and the public at large. And if the Russian word ‘‘perestroika’’ has easily entered the international lexicon, this is due to more than just interest in what is going on in the Soviet Union. Now the whole world needs restructuring, i.e., progressive development, a fundamental change.

People feel this and understand this. They have to find their bearings, to understand the problems besetting mankind, to realize how they should live in the future. The restructuring is a must for a world overflowing with nuclear weapons; for a world ridden with serious economic and ecological problems; for a world laden with poverty, backwardness and disease; for a human race now facing the urgent need of ensuring its own survival.

We are all students, and our teacher is life and time. I believe that more and more people will come to realize that through RESTRUCTURING in the broad sense of the word, the integrity of the world will be enhanced. Having earned good marks from our main teacher—life—we shall enter the twenty-first century well prepared and sure that there will be further progress.

Class Activity:

1.) Read the document.

2.) Identify clues that The Cold War would end soon.

3.) Source the document below in one way (H.I.P.P.)

H-Historical Context

I-Intended Audience

P-Purpose

P-Point Of View (limitations of using the document)

Source: Ronald Reagan, President of the United States, June 12, 1987. Speech given in West Berlin.

In the 1950s, Khrushchev predicted: "We will bury you." 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 the nations with comity and peace. Freedom is the victor.

And 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. Some political prisoners have been released. Certain foreign news broadcasts are no longer being jammed. Some economic enterprises have been permitted to operate with greater freedom from state control.

Are these the beginnings of profound changes in the Soviet state? Or are they token gestures, intended to raise false hopes in the West, or to strengthen the Soviet system without changing it? We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. 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, tear down this wall!

Activity:

1.) Below, you will find three broad claims. Each of these claims needs to be supported with evidence. Go back through your notes and find evidence to support each claim.

2.) take each claim, make it a topic sentence, the write a paragraph supporting the claim with your evidence.

Claims:

A.) In part, the United States; military and technological development led to the end of the Cold War.

B.) Another major development that led to the end of the Cold War was the Soviet Union’s failed invasion of Afghanistan.

C.) Public discontent and economic weakness in communist countries led not only to the collapse of the Soviet Union, but also to the end of the Cold War.

Key Takeaways

A.) The collapse of the Soviet Union was a result of multiple factors:

• inability to keep-up with technological developments of western nations

• failed invasion of Afghanistan

• discontent and economic weakness in communist countries (Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union)

B.) Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms (Perestroika and Glasnost) contributed to the collapse and faced opposition from both sides

• Reformers believed the reforms did not go far enough

• conservatives reacted with an attempted coup d'etat

C.) The fall of the old empires, along with the disappearance of the superpowers’ bipolar cold war world, pointed to the emergence of a new kind of world order: one without borders