The Cold War winds down
At its zenith, the Cold War encompassed events
across the entire world, as shown in Map 4.4.
In Europe, NATO faced the Warsaw Pact.
Elsewhere, countries that considered themselves
to be nonaligned members of the Third World
and, therefore, members of neither the Western
(First World) nor Soviet (Second World) blocs
repeatedly became arenas for conflict between
Americans and Soviets and their proxies. Thus,
when the Belgian Congo gained independence in
1960, it became an arena of Cold War conflict
until the ascent of American-supported Joseph
Mobutu. Similar struggles took place in Africa,
Asia, and Latin America, and, in countries like
Somalia and Angola, civil wars raged long after the
Cold War had ended, with weapons that had been
supplied to local supporters by both sides at the
height of the East–West conflict.
Every arena of human activity was contested
during the epic struggle. Each side sought to prove
that its economy, art, literature, music, sports, and
technology was superior. The “space race” became
a feature of the Cold War when the Soviet Union
became the first country to launch an intercontinental
ballistic missile (ICBM) (1957), the first
to launch a space satellite (Sputnik) (1957), and
the first to put a man into space (1961).42 The
United States placed the second man in space a
month later.
Fortunately, the Cold War never led to a
nuclear exchange between the superpowers. Such
an exchange seemed imminent on several occasions,
especially during the Cuban missile crisis
in the autumn of 1962, after the Soviet Union
secretly installed nuclear missiles on the island of
Cuba. The Soviet action violated US expectations
that neither superpower would meddle in the
other’s neighborhood. Despite rhetoric about
“rolling back” communism in Eastern Europe, the
US remained passive when East Berliners rioted
against Soviet rule in 1953, when Hungarians
staged an unsuccessful revolution against Soviet
occupation in 1956, and following the Soviet
1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. By contrast, in
1962 the USSR was deeply involved in an adventure
only 90 miles from Florida.
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev apparently
ordered the missiles to Cuba because he wished to
compensate for the US strategic nuclear advantage
in having military bases along the Soviet periphery
in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. He also
feared that the United States would try again
to overthrow Cuba’s communist president, Fidel
Castro, as it had in 1960 when it provided covert
support for an invasion of anti-communist Cuban
exiles at the Bay of Pigs. The missile crisis lasted 13
tense days during which President John F. Kennedy
(1917–63) imposed a naval “quarantine” around
Cuba and threatened war with the USSR to compel
removal of Soviet missiles. Although the
United States pledged not to invade Cuba as part
of the final settlement of the crisis and at a later
date removed obsolete missiles from Turkey, the
Soviet retreat from Cuba was partly responsible
for Khrushchev’s 1964 ouster as head of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Soviet
leaders clearly had in mind his Cuban adventure
when they accused him of “hair-brained schemes”
and replaced him with Leonid Brezhnev (1906–82).
Analysts believe that “hot” war did not occur
because both sides possessed so many nuclear
weapons that such a war would lead to mutual
suicide. There had been earlier temporary thaws.
After Stalin’s death in 1953, Soviet–American
relations were briefly warmed by the “spirit of
Geneva” (named after a 1955 summit conference
in that city), and in 1956, Khrushchev denounced
Stalin, and “peaceful coexistence” with the West
became official Soviet policy. The missile crisis,
however, marked a fundamental change in superpower
relations as both sides became more careful
about using nuclear weapons and, as we shall see
in Chapter 8, both began to view arms control as
a way of reducing the risks of nuclear war. Later
crises that threatened superpower escalation
such as the US bombing of the North Vietnamese
port of Haiphong in May 1972 and US–Soviet
confrontation during the 1973 Yom Kippur War
provided additional impetus for the superpowers
to develop procedures to avoid conflict.
The period after 1962 was known as the era of
détente because it entailed a progressive reduction
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USA and allies
American influence
Allied colonies
Soviet Union and allies
Soviet influence
Map 4.4 Cold War, 1945–60
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in tension. Arms control efforts led to the banning
of most nuclear tests, outlawing military tests in
space (1963), a ban on nuclear weapons proliferation
(1968), a limitation on the number and
type of Soviet and American intercontinental
ballistic missiles (1972, 1979), and elimination of
intermediate-range nuclear forces (INFs) (1987).
Both sides also agreed to confidence-building
measures to increase trust. Among the most
important was the Helsinki Conference of 1975 in
which 35 countries in Europe as well as the USSR,
Canada, and the United States signed an agreement
that legalized Europe’s post-World War Two
territorial boundaries and promised progress in
human rights.
In the 1960s, a split arose between China’s
communists and the Soviet Union. Once in
power, Mao soon became dissatisfied with the aid
China received from the USSR, and, after Stalin’s
death in 1953, the two communist states became
engaged in ideological disputes over interpretations
of Marxism. Mao defended Stalinism and
opposed US–Soviet détente, publicly accusing
the USSR of betraying Marxism. In 1964, China
became a nuclear power and began to view itself
as an alternative leader of the world communist
movement. Territorial disputes exacerbated the
relationship and in March 1969 Chinese and
Soviet forces clashed along their common border
in the Xinjian region of China. The Sino-Soviet
schism weakened global communism and provided
a political opportunity for the United States,
as Mao came to regard the USSR as a greater threat
to Chinese security than the US.
Although superpower rivalry continued after
the missile crisis, fear of nuclear war and the defection
of China from the Soviet bloc encouraged the
evolution of tacit rules that reduced the risks of
conflict and allowed the expectations of the
adversaries to converge around the status quo.
These included:
■ Avoiding direct military confrontation by
using proxies such as the Vietnamese, Syrians,
and Israelis involved in regional conflicts.
■ Designing weapons systems that could survive
an enemy attack and deploying surveillance
systems, notably satellites, to make “surprise
attacks” unlikely.
■ Avoiding interference in the adversary’s
sphere of influence, as when the US refused
to intervene in Hungary’s 1956 revolution
effort, or when the USSR remained passive
during America’s 1965 intervention in the
Dominican Republic and its 1983 invasion of
the Caribbean island of Grenada.
■ Employing in non-military means including
propaganda, espionage, subversion, overt
and covert economic, political, and military
assistance.
■ Improving communication between
Washington and Moscow, as in the establishment
of a direct teletype link called the
Hotline in 1963.
Nevertheless, Soviet–American détente was
tentative. In the mid- and late 1970s, relations
were poisoned by a new Soviet arms build-up and
growing Soviet involvement in the Horn of Africa
and southern Africa. The USSR was angered by
President Jimmy Carter’s human rights policy and
intrusive US efforts to force the Soviet Union to
ease barriers to Jewish emigration from the USSR.
Then, on December 24, 1979, Soviet troops
crossed the border with Afghanistan to maintain
communist control, bringing an abrupt end to
US–Soviet détente. As early as July 1979, President
Carter had authorized covert assistance to the
enemies of Afghanistan’s pro-Soviet government
and, according to the president’s National
Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, had sought
to increase the probability of a Soviet invasion in
order to draw “the Russians into the Afghan
trap.”43 In 1980, Carter embargoed grain exports
to the USSR (even though US farmers stood to
lose a lucrative market), and the US boycotted
the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow. A US arms
build-up began in the last year of the Carter
administration and was accelerated by President
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004).
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With the 1980 election of President Reagan
US–Soviet relations deteriorated, and there began
a period some call the “second Cold War.” The
administration’s initial strategy was to refocus
American policy on the Soviet threat. It set out
to “win” the arms race by taking advantage of
America’s economic and technological superiority
and by directly challenging the USSR in regional
conflicts by supporting anti-Soviet proxies.
Secretary of State Alexander Haig (1924–2010)
acknowledged a tougher line in 1981 when he
described Soviet power as the “central strategic
phenomenon of the post-World War Two era”
and added that the “threat of Soviet military intervention
colors attempts to achieve international
civility.”44 President Reagan’s antipathy toward
the Soviet Union was evident in his “evil empire”
speech, delivered on June 8, 1982, to the UK’s
House of Commons. Echoing Churchill’s Iron
Curtain speech, he declared: “From Stettin on the
Baltic to Varna on the Black Sea, the regimes
planted by totalitarianism have had more than
thirty years to establish their legitimacy. But none
– not one regime – has yet been able to risk free
elections. Regimes planted by bayonets do not
take root.” And he asked rhetorically whether
freedom must “wither in a quiet, deadening
accommodation with totalitarian evil?”45 A year
later, Reagan described the contest between the
United States and USSR as a “struggle between
right and wrong, good and evil.”46
The heart of the tough US policy was a
massive arms build-up. A $180-billion nuclear
modernization program was begun in which new
land-based and sea-based missiles and long-range
bombers were added to America’s arsenal. New
intermediate-range nuclear missiles were subsequently
deployed in Western Europe to counter
similar Soviet weapons. In 1983, Reagan also
proposed a comprehensive antiballistic missile
system called the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)
(nicknamed “Star Wars” by critics) to protect
America’s homeland from nuclear attack.
At first, the USSR responded in kind, continuing
to deploy mobile intermediate-range
missiles, building new long-range missiles, and
modernizing its nuclear submarine fleet. It also
continued to assist pro-communist militants in
Afghanistan, Angola, Kampuchea (Cambodia),
and Ethiopia. Finally, it broke off arms-reduction
talks after American INF deployments began in
Western Europe in November 1983.
Nevertheless, even as Moscow continued to
command an immense military establishment
and underwrite new foreign policy ventures,
cracks appeared in the country’s social and economic
fabric that required dramatic repair.
Isolated from currents of economic globalization,
the Soviet Union was becoming a second-rate
power. The centrally planned economic system
established in the 1920s and 1930s that was dominated
by defense and heavy industry and by
collectivized agriculture had begun to atrophy.
Soviet GNP continued to rise through the
1970s, but overall economic performance was
uneven. By the mid-1970s, the system began to
run down. The Soviet leaders who followed
Khrushchev – Brezhnev (1964–82), Yuri Andropov
(1982–84), and Konstantin Chernenko (1984–85)
– all elderly and in poor health, were unable to halt
the economic stagnation. Corruption, alcoholism,
poor service, and cynicism became widespread.
Agriculture remained a problem, and, by the
1980s, the USSR was dependent on Western grain
imports to make up shortfalls at home. Finally, as
the Soviet economy became more complex, “muscle
power” – a key to earlier growth – became less
productive and high technology became critical.
The Soviet economy was afflicted by technological
obsolescence, low productivity, and scarcity of
consumer goods, and GNP growth virtually ceased
in the early 1980s. In short, the Soviet economy
was no longer able to support large-scale defense
spending or adventures around the world.
The end of the Cold War
On March 11, 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev assumed
the reins of power of the Soviet communist party
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and government. He recognized that defense
spending was eating up much of the Soviet budget
and that the USSR was on the verge of economic
collapse and had fallen far behind the United
States in critical areas of technology. Indeed,
concerns about the quality of Soviet technology
and the absence of openness in the country were
heightened on April 26, 1986, when a nuclear
meltdown at the Chernobyl power plant near the
city of Kiev sent radioactive debris over the
western USSR, Eastern Europe, and Scandinavia.
This was the worst nuclear accident in history and
led to the evacuation of hundreds of thousands
from areas that still remain contaminated.
The Gorbachev reforms and the
resolution of key issues
Gorbachev realized that, unless conditions
changed, the USSR would gradually become a
marginal actor in world affairs. Thus, he decided
to sponsor reforms, the two most important of
which he announced at the 27th Congress of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1986.
They were perestroika – a program of economic,
political, and social restructuring – and glasnost
– a policy of openness in public discussion that
would enhance the legitimacy of Soviet institutions
and the communist party.
Domestic pressures were the incentive for
Gorbachev to seek an end to the Cold War.
Overseas adventures and unproductive military
investments could not continue if domestic
reform were to succeed. Gorbachev therefore
set out to move Soviet thinking away from belief
in the need for nuclear “superiority” toward
acceptance of “sufficiency.” He would reduce
Soviet force levels, adopt an unprovocative
conventional-force posture, and scale back Soviet
global commitments. These steps meant greater
flexibility to address the crisis at home.
By the Reagan administration’s second term
(1984–88), the stage was set for reordering superpower
relations. A new attitude was developing in
Washington as well as Moscow. The US arms
build-up was producing alarming budget deficits,
and increases in military spending were no longer
assured of congressional or public support. In
addition, the country’s mood favored greater
cooperation with the USSR, especially in arms
control. President Reagan himself concluded that
it was possible to end the Cold War and saw
himself a man of peace. Accommodative moves
by both sides followed. Negotiations on intermediate
and strategic nuclear weapons began early
in 1985, and the first summit meeting since 1979
between Soviet and American leaders was held in
November. Additional summits followed.
Major arms control agreements were reached
and efforts were made to address old regional
differences. Soviet troops withdrew from
Afghanistan, and civil war ended in Angola so
that Cuban troops could leave that country. The
most dramatic example of Soviet–US cooperation
followed Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990.
Presidents Gorbachev and George H. W. Bush
hastily arranged a meeting in Helsinki, Finland,
and jointly condemned Saddam Hussein’s aggression.
The two then cooperated in passing UN
resolutions demonstrating the global community’s
resolve to reverse aggression.
Since the Cold War had begun in Eastern
Europe and Germany, it was fitting that the revolutionary
changes that brought an end to the
conflict should also take place in the same countries.
Poland led the way. By the end of 1989,
a noncommunist government had come to
power in that country. After it became clear that
the USSR would not intervene, the challenge
to communist power spread. Within the year,
Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany, and
other Eastern European countries had abandoned
communist rule and held democratic elections,
thereby fulfilling the promise of Yalta four
decades later.
The key to settling the Cold War lay in
Germany. Germany’s division had kindled the
Cold War, and ending that division was a
prerequisite for ending it. Political fissures in East
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Germany, long the keystone in the Soviet empire,
became apparent in spring 1989 when East
Germans took advantage as barriers were dismantled
between Austria and Hungary to travel
to Hungary as “tourists” and then flee to West
Germany. By August, a trickle had become a
deluge of 5000 emigrants a week. Unlike 1961,
when the USSR had prodded East Germany to
build the Berlin Wall, Soviet leaders did nothing
to stop this massive flight. Simultaneously,
demonstrations erupted in East German cities,
notably Leipzig. On November 9, 1989, the Berlin
Wall was opened. German reunification, previously
unthinkable, suddenly became possible, and
in November 1989, West German Chancellor
Helmut Kohl presented a plan for reunification.
In summer 1990, Gorbachev agreed to a reunified
Germany that would remain within NATO, and
in October the two Germanys were officially
reunited.
By his reforms, Gorbachev had unintentionally
begun a process that brought about the collapse
of the Soviet Communist Party and the Soviet
state. It was hard for observers to believe their eyes
as democratic movements led to the replacement
of communist regimes with democratic ones
throughout the Eastern bloc. After decades of
debate about the future of Germany, that country
was rapidly reunited, and the Warsaw Pact
disappeared. At the Malta (December 1989) and
Washington summits (June 1990), the Cold War
was formally ended with commitments between
the superpowers for future cooperation. Two
agreements reached in late 1990 clarified the new
relationship. The first was a treaty reducing and
limiting conventional weapons in Europe, and
the second was a nonaggression pact between
NATO and the Warsaw Treaty Organization that
included a formal declaration that the two sides
were no longer adversaries.
In the Soviet Union, multiparty elections
were held, and nascent capitalism, including
ownership of private property, was introduced,
accompanied by a wave of fraudulent economic
practices, organized crime, and deterioration
of medical and educational facilities. Ethnic conflict,
popular unrest, growing autonomy of nonRussian
regions of the USSR, and rapid decline
of Soviet influence overseas were among the
results of the dramatic changes, which produced
resistance to Gorbachev’s policies on the part
of conservative politicians and generals. This
resistance climaxed in an effort to overthrow
Gorbachev on August 19, 1991. In the end, he was
briefly restored to his position as leader of the
Communist Party with the aid of Boris Yeltsin
(1931–2007), who had become Russia’s first
elected president in June 1991. In August, Yeltsin
suspended all activities of the Communist Party
in Russia, and in a week Gorbachev called on the
party’s central committee to dissolve itself. With
the demise of Soviet communism, Yeltsin became
the paramount leader, and Gorbachev faded from
the scene. Still, as a reward for his policies,
Gorbachev was awarded the 1990 Nobel Prize for
Peace.
Thereafter one Soviet republic after another
declared its independence: Lithuania, Estonia,
Latvia, Moldova, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia,
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Kyrgyzstan. In
December 1991, several of these joined Russia in
a loose grouping called the Commonwealth of
Independent States that two years later became an
economic common market (see Map 4.5).
The end of the Cold War was a joyful moment
in global politics, which, together with the collapse
of the Soviet Union, brought down the
curtain on an era of global politics that had begun
early in the twentieth century. The Cold War’s end
altered, or in some cases removed, the rationale for
many American foreign policies, including global
security arrangements and budget decisions about
military spending. Although the Cold War ended
two decades ago, US foreign policy still lacks the
coherence and consensus that existed during that
epic struggle. No other issue dominated America’s
foreign policy agenda until the emergence of the
shadowy threat of militant Islam accompanied by
the prospect of global terrorism.