There ’s an Africanproverbthat suppose : " When elephants fight , it is the gage that stomach . " For more than45 years , the elephantine power of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ( USSR ) and the United States fought the Cold War — and some might argue the grass was , in this lawsuit , the rest of the earth .
While the Cold War was largely a warfare of threat , there was plenty of real violence , too . The aggression between the U.S. and USSR spilled over into places likeAngola and Nicaragua . The two nations foughtproxy state of war , conflicts between warring parties of a third Carry Nation that were patronise by the U.S. and USSR . The ground of European nations serve asnuclear missile sitesfor both sides .
In gain to the15 member statesof the USSR , there were seven Sovietsatellite statesin Eastern Europe where populations were repressed and subjugated bycommunistrule . Chilean authoritarian Augusto Pinochet condoned snatch and murder of the left-of-center universe under an American - backed regime . And the spherical head was hassle by anxiety over possible atomic war .
The tense standoff that characterise the Cold War ended when theUSSR collapsed completely in 1991 , becoming a number of sovereign countries and the Russian Federation . This crash was preceded by revolution in the satellite states of Poland and Czechoslovakia , as well as thefall of the Berlin Wallin Germany . When the USSR fell , the Soviet states dethaw .
The end of the Cold War came so abruptly that even years later , skepticism gripped the West . A 1998 episode of the American television show " The Simpsons " depicts a Russian delegate at theUnited Nationsreferring to his country as the Soviet Union . " Soviet Union ? " enquire the American delegate . " I cogitate you guys break off up . " " Nyet ! That ’s what we wanted you to think ! " the Soviet delegate response and laughs ominously [ source : IMDB ] .
This scene underscores a stylemark of the Cold War ’s conclusion : doubt . What precisely direct to the downfall of the Soviet Union ? Was the flop of the USSR inevitable , or did America hotfoot its disintegration ?
Did the U.S. Beat the Soviet Union?
historiographer who believe that the U.S. won the Cold War largely agree that American triumph was guarantee through finances . The United States phlebotomise Soviets caisson dry through proxy warfare and thenuclear subdivision wash . But this fiscal drain may not have been possible without the unprecedented stockpiling of nuclear weapons .
The world came as close as it ever has to the brink of atomic warfare between Oct. 18 and 29 , 1962 , during theCuban missile crisis . The showdown over the presence of Soviet nuclearmissilesin Cuba , just 90 Admiralty mile south of the crown of Florida in the U.S. , culminated in the USSR ’s backdown . In a flurry of communications , Russia agreed to remove the missilesin Cuba if the U.S. agree not to invade the island . The U.S. also agreed to withdraw its projectile from Turkey . The situation was tense enough to inspire the creation of thehotline between Washington and Moscowto head off any future nuclear tensions .
But the USSR still conclude to outpace the U.S. in atomic capabilities . This vivid nuclear inquiry and development did n’t come cheap , as the U.S. pair the Soviets ' nuclear stride . In 1963 , the United States spent9 percentof the state ’s thoroughgoing domestic product on defense — nearly $ 53.5 billion ( that ’s around $ 458 billion in 2022 dollars ) [ generator : UPI ] .
Throughout the 1960s , the U.S. continued to pad its atomic arsenal . However , during the ' 70s , the Ford and Carter administrations favored sharp unfavorable judgment of Soviet policies over stockpiling nuclear arms . When President Ronald Reagan take office in 1981 , he reinvigorate vindication disbursal , increasing the defense budget by 35 percent .
Many historian credit Reagan with dealing the death blows that at last land down the Soviet Union . Perhaps the one that bespeak the end for the USSR was Reagan’sStrategic Defense Initiative(SDI ) . This incomplete labor , popularly calledStar Wars , would have cost hundreds of billions of dollars . It called for the weaponization of outer space — a shield comprised of a web of nuclear missiles and optical maser that would tap a Soviet nuclear first ten-strike . The SDI initiative was the pinnacle of both the quad race and the arms race between the U.S. and the USSR .
Star Wars was criticize as phantasy by defense reaction observers on both sides of theIron Curtain(the term strike by Winston Churchill that describes the bound in Europe between communism and the rest of the world ) . But Reagan was give to the project , and the Soviet’sflagging , nation - own economysimply could n’t equalise this escalation in defense spending .
Part of the USSR ’s pecuniary woes came from decant fund into Afghanistan . In1979 , the Soviets invadedand occupied the country . TheTruman Doctrinehad clearly stipulate that American policy was to contain the spreadhead of communism throughout the human race , so the U.S. responded by secretly abide and training theMujahedeen(Arabic for " struggler " ) , freedom fighter rebels who rallied against Soviets in Afghanistan . The U.S. irresistibly prove support for the Mujahedeen , and the Soviet invasion grew protracted and expensive . in the end , the Afghanis defeated the USSR , and the Soviets retire in 1989 .
But not everyone agrees the end of communism was the result of the United States ' deep pockets . Some historians swan that the USSR had lived its innate life sentence dyad and the U.S. was merely a attestant to its death .
Did the USSR Die of Natural Causes?
Some shoal of opinion insist that communism is simplyunsupportable on a declamatory scale . Therefore , the declension of the USSR was inevitable . So can anyone be declared a victor in a war if one of the opponents ends itself as a political entity ? That bet on how you count at it . The U.S. was lead as the last man fend in the Cold War . And any boxing buff can order you that the last man standing is the one who wins .
Moves were being made inside the USSR that would hasten its end . Former Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev , who serve as Reagan ’s Cold War counterpart , introduced sweeping reform that fundamentally altered the social , political and economical textile of the USSR . Gorbachev’sperestroika(“restructuring " ) plan opened up the state - have economic system to some private possession , creating the changeover to a complimentary - market economic system . But the economic backlash against this radical and rapid modulation was unable to sustain the Soviet Union . Widespread trouble like poorness and food shortfall molest the land .
These problems may have had less of an effect on the disintegration of the USSR had it not been for Gorbachev ’s other major reform . Glasnost(“openness " ) basically reversed the USSR ’s policies of brutal totalitarianism and suppression of government criticism and free speech .
Under glasnost , worker could hit , journalists could bring out editorials in opposition to the Kremlin and protestors could assemble . The combination of the political and economical reforms of perestroika and the societal exemption given by glasnost helped bring to a grassroots rotation in the USSR that lead to the replacement of a unmarried - party communist arrangement with a multi - party democratic system of rules .
So if the USSR died of natural case or fundamentally dissolved itself , who merit the title of Cold War master ? There was actually more than one winner . Certainly , democracy won as it replaced the one - party communist system in not only the USSR member state , but also in Soviet satellite state . The free securities industry won , too , as did multinational corporations that abruptly had billions more customers after the fall of the USSR . And really , the entire world won , having come forth from the Cold War without meet complete atomic annihilation .
