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24 - An ‘incredibly swift transition’: reflections on the end of the Cold War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2010

By
Adam Roberts
Edited by
Melvyn P. Leffler  and
Odd Arne Westad
Melvyn P. Leffler
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
Odd Arne Westad
Affiliation:
London School of Economics and Political Science
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Summary

The end was dramatic, decisive, and remarkably peaceful: a rapid succession of extraordinary events, symbolised above all by the opening of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and the end of the USSR in December 1991. It provokes the question: what factors caused this conclusion of the long-drawn-out and fateful rivalry of the Cold War; and how did interpretations of these events impinge on international relations in the post-Cold War era?

Since these events, some beguilingly simple answers have been offered, always linked with simple policy prescriptions. This tendency, while by no means unique to the United States, has been particularly prevalent there. Some have seen the wave of democratisation around the world, of which the end of the Soviet empire was an important part, as leading towards a secure future thanks to the beneficent workings of the democratic peace. Some have seen the end of the Cold War as a triumph of American values and might, leading to the conclusion that US power could be freely used as an instrument for world-historical change. Some, having previously seen the Cold War as the problem of international relations, believed that its ending must mean that the future of world order would be completely different from its past. Such views exerted a pull on policy-makers after the end of the Cold War and shaped their actions.

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Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of the Cold War , pp. 513 - 534
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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