THE END OF COLD WAR: REAGAN AND

GORBACHEV
The cold war begins when America was expecting peace and ended when they
were girding for a new era of conflict. The soviet empire collapsed even more
suddenly and America changed its attitude towards Russia from hostility to
friendship.

Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev rose to power believing in their victory in
cold war. Gorbachev brought great reforms in Soviet Union to save it from
destruction and saving its economy.

During his first term, Reagan denounced the pre-Gorbachev Soviet Union as an
“evil empire.” The name-calling riled many Soviets (and more than a few
Sovietologists) but did little diplomatic harm, since relations between Washington
and Moscow were already in a rut. The Kremlin had become a geriatric ward, with
Red Square doubling as the world’s largest funeral parlor.

Then, in 1985, soon after Reagan’s second inauguration, the vigorous, 54-year-old
Gorbachev ascended to the leadership. He wanted to demilitarize Soviet foreign
policy so that he could divert resources to the Augean task of fixing a broken
economy. Initially, he expected no help from Reagan, whom he regarded as “not
simply a conservative, but a political ‘dinosaur.'”

Getting back into the business of diplomacy with the principal adversary of the
United States appealed to Reagan, just as it had to six previous occupants of the
Oval Office. Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy had tried to make the
most of Nikita S. Khrushchev’s slogan of “peaceful coexistence”; Lyndon B.
Johnson jump-started arms control talks with Aleksei N. Kosygin; Richard Nixon,
Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter signed strategic-arms limitation agreements with
Leonid I. Brezhnev. But those Soviet leaders were committed, above all, to
preserving the status quo. Sooner or later, each caused a setback or a showdown
with the United States through some act of barbarity or recklessness: the crushing
of the Hungarian uprising in 1956, the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, the invasions
of Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Afghanistan in 1979, the destruction of a South
Korean airliner that had wandered off course in 1983. Breakthroughs in United
States-Soviet relations were inherently subject to breakdowns.

Gorbachev altered that dynamic. He was determined to take the Soviet Union in a
radically different direction. His dual program of “perestroika” (“restructuring”)
and “glasnost” (“openness”) introduced profound changes in economic practice,
internal affairs and international relations. When Mikhail S. Gorbachev stepped
onto the world stage in March 1985 it was immediately clear that he was different
from his predecessors. Gorbachev was significantly younger than the aging party
members who had led the Communist superpower in previous decades–the last two
of whom had seen their rule cut short by health problems. Hailing from a younger
generation gave Gorbachev a new outlook on the challenges that faced his country.
Gorbachev realized that he had inherited significant problems. Even as the USSR
vied with the United States for global political and military leadership, its economy
was struggling, and its citizens were chafing under their relatively poor standard of
living and lack of freedom. Those difficulties were also keenly felt in the
Communist nations of Eastern Europe that were aligned with and controlled by the
Soviets.

Thus Gorbachev introduced a reform program that embodied the two main
concepts. These are Perestroika and Glasnost.
Perestroika is a restructuring concept which has started by the overhaul of the top
members of communist party. It also focused on economic issues, replacing the
centralized government planning that had been a hallmark of the Soviet system
with a greater reliance on market forces.

The accompanying concept of Glasnost sought to ease the strict social controls
imposed by the government. Gorbachev gave greater freedom to the media and
religious groups and allowed citizens to express divergent views. By 1988,
Gorbachev had expanded his reforms to include democratization, moving the
USSR toward an elected form of government.

Reagan came quickly to recognize that Gorbachev’s goals, far from being
traditional, were downright revolutionary. He also saw that the transformation
Gorbachev had in mind for his country would, if it came about, serve American
interests.

Gorbachev’s internal reforms were matched by new approaches to Soviet foreign

policy. Determined to end his country’s nuclear rivalry with the United States, he
pursued negotiations with U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Although Reagan held
strong anti-communist views and had intensified the Cold War by initiating a
buildup of U.S. forces in the early 1980s, the two leaders managed to find common
ground.

Gorbachev and Reagan took part in five summits between 1985 and 1988. Their
discussions resulted in the signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces
Treaty in 1987, which brought about a major reduction in both nations’ weapons
stockpiles. The productive dialogue was the result of fresh thinking on both sides,
but progress on many points began with Gorbachev’s willingness to abandon long-
held Soviet positions. In 1989, every other communist state in the region replaced
its government with a noncommunist one. In November of that year, the Berlin
Wall–the most visible symbol of the decades-long Cold War–was finally
destroyed, just over two years after Reagan had challenged the Soviet premier in a
speech at Brandenburg Gate in Berlin: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” By
1991, the Soviet Union itself had fallen apart. The Cold War was over. Angry
hard-line Communists attempted to remove Gorbachev from power in August 1991
by staging a coup. The revolt failed due to the efforts of Boris Yeltsin, president of
the Russian Republic, who emerged as the country’s most powerful political
figure. However, before the end of the year, Yeltsin and other reformers succeeded
in completely undoing the old order. The Soviet Union dissolved into 15 individual
republics, and on December 25, 1991, Gorbachev resigned from the presidency of
a nation that no longer existed.