9.3 End of the Cold War

called Soviet Communists the evil empire, more flexible response in 2nd term to USSR and satellites in Eastern Europe

• military buildup - increasing spending on new weapons systems

  • increased spending on Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)

• supporting dictators in Latin America to keep out Communism

  • Nicaragua (1979)

  • Reagan supported El Salvador government against leftist guerrillas

• Grenada - small Caribbean island, invaded by U.S. (1983) to reestablish a pro-U.S. government and dissolve previous pro-Cuban regime

• Iran-Contra affair - Reagan’s advisers violate Boland Amendment and fund Contras in Nicaragua using money obtained from selling weapons to Iran to fight against Iraq

  • plan kept secret from American public

• Lebanon, Israel, Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO)

plan for building high-tech system of lasers and particle beams to destroy enemy missiles

• referred to as Star Wars by critics because of costly expense and escalation of arms race

• Sandinistas (Marxist movement) overthrew Nicaraguan dictator

• U.S. provided military aid to Contras trying to dislodge Sandinistas

• Boland Amendment (1985) - Democratic Congress prohibited further aid to Contras

• small Caribbean island with an established pro-Cuban regime

• invaded by U.S. in 1983, reestablishing a pro-U.S. government

• Israel invades southern Lebanon (1982) with U.S. approval to stop Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) fighters rom raiding Israel

• Reagan sends peacekeeping forces into Lebanon to contain civil war, pulls out after hundreds of losses with nothing to show

• Reagan’s secretary of state pushes for peaceful settlement, U.S. pressure causes Yasser Arafat (leader of PLO) to recognize Israel’s right to exist (1988)

• Mikhail Gorbachev - new leader of the USSR

• Communist reform

  • glasnost - openness to end political repression, increased political freedom

  • perestroika - restructuring the Soviet economy, introducing free-market practices

• INF agreement - created at Reagan and Gorbachev’s 3rd summit meeting - agreement to remove and destroy all intermediate-range missiles

• Gorbachev starts to pull out of Afghanistan (1988) and cooperates with the U.S. to pressure Iran and Iraq to end the war

• Saddam Hussein (Iraqi dictator) invades Kuwait for oil, threatening western oil resources in Saudi Arabia and Persian Gulf

• Operation Desert Storm - George H.W. Bush and other leaders of U.N. nations invade and defeat the Iraqi army

• Tiananmen Square, Beijing (1989) - pro-democracy students and workers demonstrate for freedom, broadcasted round the world, crushed by Chinese Communist government at night

• Eastern Europe

  • Lech Walesa - led solidarity movement allowing Communist Party to fall in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania

  • Berlin Wall torn down by protesters (1989), Communists in East Germany forced out of power, two Germanys reunite 1990

• Soviet Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania declare independence (1990), remaining republics dissolve USSR in 1991

• Boris Yeltsin - president of Russian Republic

  • out of former Soviet republics, forms loose confederation Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)

  • disbands Communist Party in Russia

  • attempts to establish democracy and free-market economics

• START I agreement (1991) - George H.W. Bush and Gorbachev reduce the number of nuclear warheads to under 10,000 on each side

• START II treaty (1992) - Bush and Yeltsin agree to reduce the number of nuclear weapons to just over 3,000 each, U.S. offers assistance to Russian economy

• outbreak of civil wars and violence in former USSR

• European Union (EU) (2002) - unified 15 nations, euro currency

  • grew to include former satellites of USSR (e.g. Poland, Bulgaria, Romania)

• Russia struggled to reform economy and fight corruption, strained relations with U.S.

  • Vladimir Putin - Yeltsin’s elected successor

• war in former Yugoslavia - violent suppression of independence movements

  • ethnic cleansing - murder of hundreds of thousands of people including Muslims

  • Bosnia (1995) - bloodshed stopped by diplomacy, bombing, NATO troops