End of the Cold War

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End of the Cold War
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Arms Race Gets Crazy!

• US President Reagan increases funding for arms
  (example Star Wars missile defense system)
• USSR, going broke, throws more into nukes
• US USSR arms build up again!
• USSR economically, begins to unravel
• Could not sustain weapons build up AND make
  consumer goods (centrally planned economy
  communism)

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1985 - Gorbachev comes to power

• Gorbachev ushered in an era of reform (change).
• Once the door to criticism was cracked open, it
  couldnt be cut off again
• Glasnost (openness)
• allowed greater free expression and criticism of
  Soviet policies
• Perestroika (restructuring)
• Economic reforms (more market based could
  suggest improvements, etc.)

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• Gorbachev's reforms led many Soviet citizens to
  demand more freedoms and an immediate move to
  capitalism.
• Throughout the late 80's Eastern European
  nations had movements against the Communist
  governments. The Soviet Union did not stop them.

Velvet Revolution 1989 Czechoslovakia
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• Gorbachev and President
• George H. Bush held a summit
• meeting at Malta
• and negotiated important
• reductions in intermediate range
• Nuclear weapons
• Late in 1991 there was a coup
• in the Soviet Union. Hardcore
  communist Soviet leaders held
• Gorbachev hostage.
• Parliament elects Yeltsin President.
• Gorbachev resigns as President of the
• USSR, a country that ceased to exist.

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74 years

• 1917, a successful coup toppled Czar Nicholas II
  and established a communist Russia (U.S.S.R).
• 1991, the communist party collapsed due to a
  failed coup.

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1989 - Berlin Wall falls

• The Berlin Wall came down signaling the end of
  the Cold War.
• Hungary opened its border with Austria, allowing
  East Germans to flee to the West.
• Massive public demonstrations East Germany and
  Eastern Europe
• The Berlin Wall fell on November 9.

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End of the USSR

• Various Soviet republics protested to be free of
  the system
• The Soviet and home nations armies were
  unwilling to fire upon citizens any longer
• The power of the Soviet political elites
  crumbled.
• 1992 USSR officially ceases to exist.

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The forty years of the Cold War were costly in
resources.
We spent 3.5 trillion, and for what?
We spent 5.5 trillion dollars on nuclear arms,
and we won!
How much is a trillion dollars?
Michail Gorbachev
George H.W. Bush
A trillion dollars is enough to give each family
in the U.S. 100,000.