The End of the Cold War - Coursework Example

The end of the cold war affiliation The end of the cold war This review focuses on the quite a number of aspects that led to the end of the cold war. The main aspect for its end is the Soviet Union, but there are explaining factors that led to the downfall, of the USSR. Additionally, the review also looks at the central features of the cold war and how relevant they are in the present day. Also, it tries to find out whether the downfall, of the USSR marks and end of a history or whether it does not. At the end, it looks at the events that happened in Afghanistan and Iran and what they have to teach about the cold war. Introduction Cold War was a state of military and political tension after the World War II amongst powers in the Eastern Bloc that comprise of the Soviet Union, among others and those in the Western Bloc comprising North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), United States and others. Historians have not completely agreed on the days; however, 1947-1991 is common. This period was referred to as cold since there were no large-scale fighting openly among the two sides. However, there were some major regional wars, called proxy wars in Afghanistan, Vietnam, and Korea that the two sides supported. The cold war divided the time-based wartime alliance against Nazi Germany, this leaving the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as the two superpowers with deep political and economic differences. The former being an industrialist state with normally free elections and the latter being a single-party Marxist-Leninist state. These two superpowers did not engage openly in a full-scale armed battle, but they were each equipped for a likely all-out nuclear world war. Every side has nuclear deterrents that were used to deter an attack from the other only if that attack might lead to complete damage of the attacker. The foremost phase of the cold war started in the first two years after the Second World War ended in 1945. The states in the Eastern Bloc were being consolidated by the USSR, and the United States started a plan of worldwide containment to change the USSR power. They did this by creating NATO and extending financial and military aid to the nations of Western Europe. This paper is going to talk about how the cold war ended, the relevant features of cold war that are relevant to date, whether USSR collapse marked end of history, and what can be learned from the 1979 events in Afghanistan and Iran. How the cold war died Ever since the start of the cold war, diplomatic historians and policymakers have searched for fruitlessly to arrive in an agreement concerning its origin and the causes of its evolutionary course. Now that the cold war has ended to the surprise of everyone, the discussions have moved from animated arguments about how it originated to equally animated disputes about the reasons for its end or death. Primarily one can reason that this fresh discussion will continue for numerous years since the foundations of Cold War’s termination seem no less controversial or elusive than the foundations of its formations. However, there is no need to discuss further who has slayed cold war or who has passed away with the termination of the cold war. Several observers already think that they possess the right answers, and for that reason, they see no need to append judgment or wait for the creation of a more cogent and compelling explanation. According to them, the evidence are apparent. Unluckily, the majority of the teachings most definitely drawn from current events hang on weak empirical and logical foundations. So as fact from fiction we must query these advanced conclusions on the factors that caused the end of cold war, and this will illuminate the hazard of depending on the encouragingly simple but probably misleading teachings. In addition, questioning might also increase awareness of the necessity to pursue investigation more deeply and critically (Kegley 1994). Though counter-hypothesis from the left and center also warrant and will get critical scrutiny, those from the right deserve special consideration since they have been progressed so confidently and have received such extensive publicity. The realists from the right claim that the death of the cold war is fundamentally identical with the retreat and fragmentation of the Soviet Union, which was triggered by a number of convictions. First, it is said to have been instigated by the west’s arrangements for battle. Secondly, the nuclear weapons and their equivalent ability to deliver guaranteed destruction is among the convictions. In addition, its elegant alliance system is said to apply a powerful effect and lastly the personality of the opponent’s beliefs, socialism was gravely faulty and only required the elements listed above to end it forever. Moreover, it is important to discover the sensibleness in these four convictions. To start with, we will focus on whether the arrangement for war in the West forced the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) into submission. Numerous activists of watchful arrangements for defense believe that American dominance of the arms race was responsible for the collapse of the USSR, which resulted in the termination of a superpower contest with a win for the west. Their opinions come out from the belief that the preponderance of the United States military drove the USSR into submission. Through the U.S. Army engaging Moscow in an exorbitantly expensive arms race and presenting a premeditated protective initiative scheme in 1984 to fool the Soviets, the U.S. forced the USSR into a competition that exhausted their financial capacity and therefore compelling them to abandon their goals of augmenting their influence all over the world. Concisely, since the USSR was facing an unmatchable arsenal, the USSR leaders had no other option but to reject communism and agree to imperial decentralization. Hence, it collapsed underneath the heaviness of its determinations to keep up. Secondly, the focus is on the conviction that nuclear weapons and their equivalent ability to deliver guaranteed destruction (Rustow 1990). Moreover, the main reason that induced the USSR to surrender was not due to nuclear deterrence. This assertions cannot be trusted and are certainly mistaken. Since, first of all, the assertion that the nuclear weapons prevented violence cannot be authenticated because Moscow on no occasion did it stand on the edge of intentionally launching a large-scale, premeditated strike. Secondly, it is hard to isolate out any independent struggle created by nuclear weapons because they were private with additional factors that may have led to the USSR respect for the regional status quo. Thirdly, it can be argued that the presence of nuclear artilleries prohibited the demilitarization of global relations. Lastly, nuclear states have not constantly prohibited opponents from achieving disputed policy objectives. The power to put an end to USSR did not offer the U.S. the power to govern. The nuclear weapons might have been fundamentally inappropriate in keeping the Cold War from turning out to be hot and in increasing the United States bargaining leverage (Mansbach 2013). Thirdly, the focus will be on whether the alliances in the west compelled USSR submission. The right side realists claim that the extensive alliance network in the West was specifically influential in hastening the submission of the Soviet Union. This belief was embraced by the realists early in the course of the onset of the Cold War and made it an unquestionable article of faith through their frequent restating. This conviction assists to clarify why the U.S. so dynamically constructed a free biosphere colossus seducing associates with arms and aids. At first glimpse, it looks like the west assisted to inhibiting the Cold War to turn hot. However, we cannot convincingly validate that this joint front challenged the changes that its supporters allege. We particularly need to reevaluate the extensively articulated conviction in the West that the Soviet Union was deterred by the Atlantic alliance from expansionism in Europe. However, this assertion although appealing cannot be proven. There is no basis that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was accountable for USSR restraint. This is because, since April 4th, 1949, when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was signed, no world war has existed. Finally, the focus will look at whether the worldwide communism collapsed since its character was inherently flawed. At the heart of the philosophical the activists on the rights believes about why the strategy of the West was successful in killing communism is that the nature of the beast restrained within itself inherent weaknesses that made it susceptible to external pressure. The conceptual roots of the eventual death of communism are accredited to an overabundance of obligations by observers from the left and right. One version upholds that in spite of the alleged entreaties of communism, even the greatest misused would turn out to be less enticed to its system of life because communism runs beside the particle of the human spirit. Underlying all the understandings on the unsuccessful penalties of communist practice is consequently the argument, itself ethical, which the personality of communist doctrine left it unprotected to an unavoidably terminal illness. The defining features of the Cold War and their relevance today The completion of the Cold War resulted in a sudden alteration in the security plans of Western policy makers. In this setting, the discussion of the purpose of nuclear artilleries in the new safety setting played a conspicuous role from the start. The query is whether the ownership of nuclear artilleries was still valuable in the post-Cold War separated the scholars, with some claiming that there were still explanations that validate their existences while others saw the historical situation as a chance of forming a biosphere free from nuclear weapons. In the present day, twenty years since the fall of the Soviet Union the discussion still continues. Nevertheless, there are aspects that point in the direction of a renewed importance of the plan of deterrence in the twenty-first century (Gorbachev 1987). Nuclear deterrence might still be appropriate in the current world, however, so as to do so, its borders have to alter dramatically. Currently, deterrence must be very different from the one that governed the globe in the course of the Cold War. Furthermore, a number of the models established during that period can be relevant in tackling the today’s challenges to worldwide security. Therefore, this part is going to indicate how nuclear deterrence has progressed, and how it is functional in the present world. The word deterrence according to this context is the ability to prevent an attack by an enemy through inducing fear. Therefore, the nuclear strategy is still suitable in the landscape of modern security matters and present approach to nuclear strategy is largely motivated by the concept of deterrence. Therefore, the conspicuous role of deterrence is not an exclusive one: the first approaches, as the Hiroshima and Nagasaki show bombing, treated atomic bombs as simply more powerful forms of their conservative equivalents. Nevertheless, the nuclear device soon turned out to be the absolute weapon and policies envisioning deterrence substituted its application on the battled field. In the present day, these two methods coexist. Ever since the cold war ended, the actual utilization of theater or strategic nuclear weapons have been reinstated on the security agenda; however, nuclear deterrence has not abandoned its prominent role. As a matter of fact regional deterrence and strategic deterrence continue to be the central elements according to the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review Report of the United States. Therefore, up-to-date, nuclear deterrence is a significant part of the official plan of the United States to fight outdated threats and has been adapted to deal with the current new security concerns. This is because nuclear weapons are amongst the most intimidating and powerful weapons that nations can use to arm themselves. However, nuclear deterrence alone is not enough to handle the security issues in the present world, and its use needs to be strengthened with other strategies. Did the collapse of the Soviet Union mark the End of History? Through observing the flow of events in the past decades, it is difficult to avoid the feeling that something fundamental has occurred in the world’s history. In the previous years, an overflow of articles honoring the end of the Cold War and the idea that peace appears to be returning in numerous regions all over the world. In addition, the fall of the USSR has radically altered the political and economic environment of the globe. There is no further conflict of interest which conquered the post-World War similar to how the Cold War did. Therefore, what has been observed is not merely the conclusion of a Cold War era or the transitory of a specific era of post-war history, but it’s the end of history. This implies that it’s the completion point of ideological manhood development and the universalization of Western liberal social equality as the last form of human government. This does not mean that there will not be other events that will come to fill the foreign affairs pages, but there are robust reasons for trusting that it is the model that will rule this material biosphere in the long run. So as to be able to comprehend this better, certain theoretical issues regarding the nature of historical transformation must be considered (Fukuyama 1989). The idea of the end of history is not a new one. It is recognized to be linked to Karl Marx, who was a propagator, he alleged that the route of historical progress was a focused one that is determined by the interplay of material forces and would only come to a conclusion with the attainment of a communist ideal that would at last resolve all prior inconsistencies. Nevertheless, the notion of history as a dialectical process with an end, middle, and a beginning was borrowed by Marx from Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who was his great German precursor. Hegel understood that history ended in an unconditional moment, a moment when an ending, coherent form of the state and society turn out to be victorious like the Cold War. In addition, he believed that the conflicts that drive history are present firstly in the realm of mankind consciousness because the consciousness will definitely re-create the material biosphere in its own image. The real query now is how the USSR has integrated the consciousness of the homogenous worldwide state. Therefore, to state that history came to an end in 1806 means that mankind’s philosophical development came to an end in the ideals of the American or French Revolutions. Concisely, given the military strength and size of the USSR, its influence will endure to haunt us and slow our consciousness that we are already on the other flank of history. Therefore, we can say that the downfall of the USSR has caused an astounding transformation by looking at the underlying trends in the sphere of ideology and consciousness (Smith-Sivertsen 2011). Events in Iran and Afghanistan in 1979 and their teachings about cold war In 1979, the destinies of Afghanistan and Iran were irreversibly altered. In Iran, a revolution conquered the kingdom in the country while, in Afghanistan, the country was conquered by the Soviet Union. The decision to conquer Afghanistan was due to the intertwined set of interests and concerns for Moscow. The political disaster in the country threatened the existence of Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) system, and concurrently gave growth to Islamism and the possibility for encroachment by the Western (Halliday 2003). Therefore, the soviets needed to select a military methodology for Afghanistan. Events in Afghanistan and Iran in 1979 have taught us excruciating but essential lessons concerning the restrictions of military power. In both occurrences, it has turned out to be clear that in spite of $2.6 trillion spent on the American security ever since World War II, the United States does not have worldwide military spread. This shows us how super powers foolishly choose to involve themselves in military escapades in nations of minimal strategic significance, just to find out that they cannot effortlessly extract themselves from the field of war once they have preferred to intervene. For instance, the Soviet attack of Afghanistan attested to be a disastrous slipup on behalf of the Kremlin and they ended receiving a shameful retreat in 1979 with the Red Army’s. We also learn that although this countries are not that big, super powers somehow find themselves using them as gateways to achieve the desired results of the super powers. The main aim of the United States was to prevent the extreme influence of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan (Young & Kent 2013). Precisely, this meant rebuffing the USSR, which is a foothold in the country from which to unveil violent activities in the region. The United States wished the shah to remain as the president of Iran since there was a cold war between them and the USSR, and Iran was a prospective for the spread of soviet communism. However, the Iranians were against the president and planned an overthrow and after it was successful they stormed the United States embassy and took Americans into hostage for a period of 444 days. After the death of shah, the anger and distrust between Iran and United states has never ended (Bill 1984). Conclusion Concisely, from the above discussion it is evident that the collapse of the USSR marked the end of the cold war. Moreover, this downfall can be termed as an end of history since by looking at the underlying trends in the sphere of ideology and consciousness, it has caused shocking transformation to the political and economic sectors. Finally, the rivalries between the Middle East countries and the United States that exist today was as a result of distrust and anger they developed during the Cold War era. Reference list Bill, J. A. 1984. Resurgent Islam in the Persian Gulf. Foreign Affairs, 108-127. Fukuyama, F. 1989. The end of history?. The national interest, 3-18. Gorbachev, M. 1987. Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the. World, 1948-1991. Halliday, F. 2003. Islam and the myth of confrontation: religion and politics in the Middle East. IB Tauris. Kegley Jr, C. W. 1994. How Did the Cold War Die? Principles for an Autopsy. Mershon International Studies Review, 11-41. Mansbach, R. W., & Taylor, K. L. 2013. Introduction to global politics. Routledge. Smith-Sivertsen, H. 2011. The Dissolution of the Soviet Union: Agency, Performance or Legitimacy?. 20 Years Since the Fall of the Berlin Wall: Transitions, State Break-up and Democratic Politics in Central Europe and Germany, 141. Rustow, D. A. 1990. Democracy: A Global Revolution?. Foreign Affairs, 69(4), 75-91. Young, J. W., & Kent, J. 2013. International relations since 1945. Oxford University Press. Read More