By the middle nineteen eighties, the Cold War had been going on for forty years. During that time the United States and the Soviet Union spent huge amounts of money to develop nuclear weapons.
Each country also spent vast amounts on military struggles. In Chapter nineteen, you read about United States' efforts to stops the spread of communism in Vietnam. In the nineteen fifties and sixties, the Soviet Union used its army to crush movements for democracy in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. In the nineteen seventies, the Soviet Union invaded the South Asian nation of Afghanistan. The fighting in that nation took its toll in many Soviet and Afghan lives and resources.
Problems were also growing within the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries. Government-run businesses could not provide enough food and other goods to meet people's needs. People could not discuss these problems without risking arrest. The communist system was not working well.