This chapter traces developments in the energy sector from the systemic crisis under Gorbachev, through Russia’s difficult start after the collapse of the Soviet Union, to the consolidation of Russia under Putin.

This chapter analyzes the Reagan administrations realist and Cold War foreign policy approach and the realist/idealist approach of the George H.W. Bush administration as the Cold War was ending.

The chapter addresses examples of learning from external failure, firstly ascertaining Chinese learning from the collapse of the Soviet Union. It then addresses case learning from three revolutions: the Orange Revolution and Euromaidan in Ukraine and the Arab Spring from across the North African and Middle East region. The three protests led to learning on the part of Belarus and Russia in particular. The Orange Revolution directly contributed to preventive counter-revolutions in Belarus and Russia. The collapse of authoritarian regimes across the Middle East and North Africa led to rapid learning from Belarus and Russia. The Euromaidan saw clear learning from Belarus and Russia, but also from Moldova. However, evidence of Moldovan learning is limited, and the chapter highlights that external learning is limited regarding Moldova and Ukraine.

Yearnings for political change – dormant for decades, suppressed by coercion and perceptions of unattainability – can suddenly appear realizable with the emergence of new stimuli and facilitating conditions. For a Fourth Wave of Democratization, which ended Communist rule in Europe, the Gorbachev-led fundamental change of the Soviet political system and of Soviet foreign policy was the crucial facilitator. There was a circular flow of influence, which began but did not end in Moscow, in which a liberalization that evolved into democratization in the Soviet Union acted as a stimulus to pressure from below in East-Central Europe. But the attainment of decommunization and national independence in those countries emboldened the most disaffected nations within the Soviet multinational state. The transformation of the Soviet political system was consciously sought by Gorbachev, but the fragility of the state in conditions of political pluralism became evident. The USSR was not in crisis in 1985 but fundamental reform led to crisis by 1990–91. Gorbachev’s embrace of political pluralism plus Yeltsin’s paradoxical demand for Russian independence from the Union led to the Soviet breakup. Even apparently consolidated political orders, America’s included, are potentially fragile, as Trump’s attempted subversion of US democracy, with Republican Congressional backing, has underlined.

This chapter recounts Mikhail Gorbachev’s vision for the post-Cold War world order, focusing in particular on the disarmament negotiations and the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. The chapter argues that Gorbachev’s foreign policy was underpinned by the ambition to recapture moral leadership in the world (which, for the Soviet leader, was closely linked to the legitimacy of the Soviet project, and indeed to his own political legitimacy). This ambition was clearly discernible in his approach to disarmament. The vision of a nuclear-free world (as presented by the General Secretary in 1986) was instrumental to the broader agenda of global leadership, which, Gorbachev felt, the Soviet Union had long abandoned. The same agenda animated his approach to the war in Afghanistan: Leaving Afghanistan was important for moral reasons, as a practical manifestation of the new spirit Gorbachev purported to represent. The exit was delayed, however, when the Soviet leader realized that quitting the war carried its own implications for Moscow’s global standing, and, in particular, undercut Soviet credibility in the third world. By recentering the Cold War endgame on Gorbachev’s global ambitions, the paper seeks to contextualize the General Secretary’s approach to foreign policy within the broader tradition of Soviet political leadership during and after the Cold War.

Continuity in Russian strategy reflects a set of enduring predilections indicative of strategic culture preferences, and habitual responses to persistent, or recurring challenges. While individual leaders and their ideas matter, the pursuit of a geopolitical space where Russian interests predominate has remained central to Russian thinking, along with a quest for status, and influence as a Great Power. The strategy for pursuing these goals, and for dealing with other leading powers like the United States, has proven sticky. Contemporary Russian strategy reprises the offensive approach which defined much of the Soviet Union’s consensus, investing in the military means for direct competition and leveraging indirect approaches to sustain a contest against a much stronger opponent in the international system. Russian grand strategy has proven evolutionary: While it grapples with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the post-Cold War world, there is greater continuity than change in the calculus and ambitions that define Russian decision-making.

Chapter four emphasizes the GDR’s position as an ecological link between east and west as well as an environmental hazard to its neighbors. Moving geographically from west to east, this chapter traces the entangled evolution of policies among the GDR and its neighbors in addition to protest within the GDR. Growing dismay over transboundary pollution redoubled West German efforts to negotiate with the GDR. Moreover, frustration over pollution and the classification of data in the GDR come from both official channels and Church-based circles. Resentment over worsening conditions emerged across the country and from an array of individuals. Lastly, environmental protest reawakened in Poland as the communist party embraced Soviet reforms after 1985, making it an obvious node for activism in the Soviet bloc. These phenomena put pressure on the GDR. Denunciations of pollution heightened a sense of crisis that defied political divisions and revealed ecological interdependence.

Examines George H. W. Bush’s efforts to establish a new world order and reliance on traditional Cold War strategies and alliances. Assesses Bush Sr.’s successes (e.g. German reunification) and failures (in Yugoslavia and Iraq). Documents beginning of post-Cold War US wars of Muslim liberation, a pattern continued by the presdients that followed him.