Domino Events

Jaran Harvie
The Changes after the Cold War
 Mikhail Gorbachev from 1985-1991

• Mikhail Gorbachev born March the 2nd, 1931 in Privolnoye, Stravropol Krai and grew up to be a
Russian politician. On March the 11th 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev became premier for the Soviet
Union and would be a person to change the course of the Cold War for the world. Mikhail had
some brilliant ideas on reforms for the Russian civilization, which was becoming shocking from
the stress of various wars and troops. It was a waste to see that most of these ideas thrown to
the side that could have improved living standards and worker productivity. One thing that
Gorbachev was known for, was the perestroika. Or other words known as the ‘economic
reconstruction’ of Russia, where he and a team of economic advisers created new reforms that
didn’t change everything significantly, but just enough. Here is a Quote;
• “Gorbachev: For 45 years we have been managing to avoid a big war. This single fact alone says
that not everything was bad in the past.”
• This man was someone who changed the course of the Cold War, and made the world a safer
and better place. He was also the last man to serve the USSR before it was demolished after
poor becoming bankrupt. He is aged 77.
 Ronald Reagan (1981–1989)

• Ronald Reagan was born on February the 6th 1991, in Tampico, Illinois. Ronald Reagan came
into presidency from 1981 to 1989 and made a major contribution to the world through seeing the
collapse of Communism in the former USSR, and by bringing a peaceful end to the Cold War.
Throughout his time Ronald Reagan stated that communism was “evil”, and this made many non-
communists turn against the people who were diminishing communism. Like when he gave his
“Tear down this wall” speech opposing communists that the Germans were suffering and being
held back from the western Germany which led to the reunification of Germany on October the 3rd,
1990. During his time in government he made taxes to low and government had been spending
high on defence from 1981-1985 which put the national debt from 700 Billion dollars to 3 Trillion
dollars. This is a staggering amount of money, but throughout his presidency this was his most
severe drawback. Ronald Wilson Reagan died on the 5th of June 2004. The United States held a
huge funeral for him for what he had done for his country as the 40th President.
 Geneva, Switzerland Summit
• On November the 21st it was here in Geneva, Switzerland that Ronald Reagan and Mikhail
Gorbachev met for the first time to hold talks on more pressing matters at hand which was to hold
talks between the two nations about international diplomatic relations between each other and of
coarse the armed race. It was after this summit that another 3 would follow which led to the de-
scaling of nuclear weapon stock piles, trade barriers, diplomacy and nuclear treaties. At the end
of the day the main objective was increased Global security and peace between the two leaders.
Reagan thought these summits were held mostly to become friends and relieve tension between
the two powers and to achieve peace so that the world never came to World War 3.
 Berlin Wall Speech
• On June the 12th 1987 during one of Ronald Reagan’s Visit to Berlin, Germany, he made a
speech that challenged the USSR and Mr. Gorbachev to tear down this wall, which was the wall
separating West Berlin from East Berlin in 1987. The Soviet press agency called ‘Tass’ indicated
Reagan as giving an "openly provocative, war-mongering speech.“ Which could have started
World War 3 if they didn’t deal with it in the right ways. Ronald Reagan chose a stance to try to
end the Cold War and to stop communism in some ways. This was a way to indicate that Ronald
Reagan wanted peace between the two civilizations which could only be met if the wall was torn
down and peace agreements were made. The wall was torn down two years later in 1989 and the
USSR was dissolved two years after it.
 Reykjavik, Iceland Summit– Breakthrough in nuclear arms control.

• On October the 11th to the 12th, 1986 at the Reykjavik, Iceland summit. Ronald Reagan and
Mikhail Gorbachev nearly achieved a breakthrough to radically reduce nuclear arms after a
weekend of lengthy negotiations in the Icelandic Capital.

• The Reykjavik Deal that was under discussion included plans to:
- Limit continental weapons to 1,600 delivery vehicles and 6,000 warheads on each side,
- Reduce intermediate-range nuclear forces to 100 warheads, restricting Soviet missile bases to
Asia and US missile bases to the US,
- Eliminate all nuclear missiles within 10 years,
- Progress towards a test ban.

• During the Cold War the scaling of Nuclear weapons and the amount of them made it merely
impossible for the two sides to go to war, this was because they had enough nuclear bombs to
blow up the whole world a few times over.

• The Talks ended in failure after not reaching an agreement over America’s SDI network for
combating foreign missiles.
 Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan

• The Soviet war in Afghanistan went on for a whopping 9 years! Which was a conflict between the
Marxist peoples democratic party of Afghanistan who were supported by the USSR with weapons
and man power, who were against the Mujahideen Resistance who found support in a variety of
sources including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the U.S. The conflict began when Soviet troops
were deployed to Afghanistan on the 7th of August. The Soviet war in Afghanistan was very
costly and put a lot of strain on the Russian economy. The overall cost of the Afghan war which
was going nowhere, the Cold War (Nuclear weapons) and the Berlin Wall which was taking up
money, and deterring the economy and food supplies. The Soviet-Afghan war was not helping
the Soviet Union in anyway. This is why it led to the withdrawal of Russian troops from
Afghanistan on May the 15th 1988. The final completion of the troop withdrawal was on February
the 2nd 1989 when they pulled the last of their troops out of Afghanistan.
 Berlin Wall Comes Down
• The Berlin wall was a wall that stretched over East and West Berlin or from communists to non-
communists, and no person or western product was allowed over the communists border which
made life hard for the people living on the eastern border. The Berlin wall separated east and
west Berlin for 28 years and 1 day, It was constructed on August the 13th, 1961 and situated
between communist East Berlin and the Western democratic society. The wall kept the two
communities apart. The wall was demolished in 1989, and was considered to be one of the
longtime symbols of the Iron Curtain. A reason why the wall came down was because it was
putting to much stress on the Soviet economy with have to do upkeep and to support the troops
situated there to protect the parts from Eastern people trying to get to the Western parts. This
was overall time consuming, costly and for nothing and this is what brought down parts of
communism and the end to the cold War.
 Malta Summit
• The Malta summit was held in a Soviet ship named the Maxim Gorky off Malta’s shores, which
included president George H.W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev who met with each
other in the weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The talks were to discuss the quick changes
inside Europe. It was here that Bush spoke and supported the perestroika and some other
reforms in the Eastern bloc, but it was here that everyone knew that the Cold War was at a whine
down and becoming non-existent for communism was decreasing and the War was nearly over.
 Romania Revolution

• The Romanian Revolution was from December the 16th to the 25th which became a week long
riot, 1989, where on the 22nd of December, Romania's communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu was
overthrown in a violent protest because of the dissatisfied people of Romania who wanted to put
a stop to the communist regime in Romania. It was three days later that Nicolae Ceausescu and
his wife Elena were executed by a firing squad, which was because of his unpopularity with killing
off all his opposition or anyone that opposed him with his secret police and detection by his giant
spy network, which made him an icon and not someone to muck around with. This was the last of
the popular uprising against communist rule in eastern Europe during 1989. Although Romania
was one of the only countries to have overthrow its Communist regime in this manner, it would
have put pressure on other governments that would show them what could happen to them,
demoralizing Communism.
The Changes after the Cold War