End of the Cold War - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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End of the Cold War

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End of the Cold War Arms Race Gets Crazy! US President Reagan increases funding for arms (example: Star Wars missile defense system) USSR, going broke, throws ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: End of the Cold War


1
End of the Cold War
2
Arms Race Gets Crazy!
  • US President Reagan increases funding for arms
    (example Star Wars missile defense system)
  • USSR, going broke, throws more into nukes
  • US USSR arms build up again!
  • USSR economically, begins to unravel
  • Could not sustain weapons build up AND make
    consumer goods (centrally planned economy
    communism)

3
1985 - Gorbachev comes to power
  • Gorbachev ushered in an era of reform (change).
  • Once the door to criticism was cracked open, it
    couldnt be cut off again
  • Glasnost (openness)
  • allowed greater free expression and criticism of
    Soviet policies
  • Perestroika (restructuring)
  • Economic reforms (more market based could
    suggest improvements, etc.)

4
  • Gorbachev's reforms led many Soviet citizens to
    demand more freedoms and an immediate move to
    capitalism.
  • Throughout the late 80's Eastern European
    nations had movements against the Communist
    governments. The Soviet Union did not stop them.

Velvet Revolution 1989 Czechoslovakia
5
  • Gorbachev and President
  • George H. Bush held a summit
  • meeting at Malta
  • and negotiated important
  • reductions in intermediate range
  • Nuclear weapons
  • Late in 1991 there was a coup
  • in the Soviet Union. Hardcore
    communist Soviet leaders held
  • Gorbachev hostage.
  • Parliament elects Yeltsin President.
  • Gorbachev resigns as President of the
  • USSR, a country that ceased to exist.

6
74 years
  • 1917, a successful coup toppled Czar Nicholas II
    and established a communist Russia (U.S.S.R).
  • 1991, the communist party collapsed due to a
    failed coup.

7
1989 - Berlin Wall falls
  • The Berlin Wall came down signaling the end of
    the Cold War.
  • Hungary opened its border with Austria, allowing
    East Germans to flee to the West.
  • Massive public demonstrations East Germany and
    Eastern Europe
  • The Berlin Wall fell on November 9.

8
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11
End of the USSR
  • Various Soviet republics protested to be free of
    the system
  • The Soviet and home nations armies were
    unwilling to fire upon citizens any longer
  • The power of the Soviet political elites
    crumbled.
  • 1992 USSR officially ceases to exist.

12
The forty years of the Cold War were costly in
resources.
We spent 3.5 trillion, and for what?
We spent 5.5 trillion dollars on nuclear arms,
and we won!
How much is a trillion dollars?
Michail Gorbachev
George H.W. Bush
A trillion dollars is enough to give each family
in the U.S. 100,000.
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