United States History II
Mrs. Jacqualyn J.
Newman
Stroudsburg High
School
March 17, 1997
TOPIC:The End of
the Cold War
Thesis Statement:
What role did the United States play in the ending of the Cold War
The cold war was a post-World War II struggle
between the United States and its
allies and the
group of nations led by the Soviet Union. Direct military conflict did not
occur between the
two superpowers, but intense economic and diplomatic struggles
erupted.
Different interests led to mutual suspicion and hostility in a rising
philosophy. The
United States
played a major role in the ending of the cold war. It has been said that
President Ronald
Reagan ended the cold war with his strategic defense policies.
In the year1949, Germany was divided by the
victors of World War II and they
occupied
different zones. The western regions united to form a Federal republic and the
Soviet eastern
region became communist East Germany. The cold war had begun. Berlin,
the former
capital of Germany was divided into East Berlin and West Berlin but was
located deep
inside the soviet controlled zone.1
Then, in 1961, the Soviet government built a
wall which separated the two halves
of the city. It
was not until the 1980s that cold war tensions eased through the glasnost
(openness to
public debate) polices of soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Finally, in
November 1989,
the wall crumbled under the hands of the Germans and the cold war
ended.2
The downfall of the cold war started when
Ronald Reagan came into office in
1981. Reagan had
two main priorities. He wanted to cut taxes and increase defense
spending. He felt
that the United States of America should take a confrontational
approach towards
Russia.3
Mikhail Gorbachev was the leader of Russia in
1985. He wanted to improve the
Russian economy.
He also wanted to improve relations with the United States. He used
his glasnost
(openness to public debate) policy and perestroika (restructuring) to help the
Russian economy.4
Both leaders wanted a "margin of
safety". Reagan took a tough stand against
Russia and it's
allies. The soviets could clearly see that when Reagan said he wanted a
"margin of
safety", he meant that the United States should be superior to Russia.
Moscow
would not let
this happen. They wanted equality.5
Reagan also believed that military power and
respect for America abroad were
inseparable from
economic strength. However, Reagan's defense policy resulted in the
doubling of the
debt of the United States. He used the money for new strategic programs
and for expensive
conventional programs such as expanding the navy from four hundred
to six hundred
ships. Reagan also received increases for
the CIA and other intelligence
agencies so they
could aid anti-Russian forces in Afghanistan and other Third-World
countries.6
Reagan's administration did not have strong or
consistent policies towards Russia.
It was divided
between people who favored careful negotiations and people who strongly
opposed efforts
to deal with "the enemy." The negotiators were centered in the State
department. It
included George Schultz, Richard Burt, and Secretary of State Alexander
Haig. The other
side included Caspar Weinberger, Richard Perle and Senator Henry
Jackson.7
Soviets became frightened by the United States'
policies. They were going to
negotiate with
Reagan at first but because of military buildup, lack of interest in arms
control, Soviets
were afraid Reagan would attack the nation. Soviets kept the KGB
(Russia's version
of the Federal Bureau of Investigation) on alerted from 1981 to 1983 just
in case.8
A Russian military plane had shot down a South
Korean civilian airliner that was
flying over
Soviet territory. The plane was traveling from Anchorage, Alaska to Seoul
2
Korea. Sixty-one
Americans were killed on the flight. When the United States heard
about this;
Reagan was furious. He denounced that the "Korean airline massacre"
was a
"crime
against humanity" for which "there was absolutely no justification
legal or moral..."
9
Soviets said that they thought it was a spy
plane and when they inquired who it
was, they received
no answer. That is why they shot it down. This crisis gave more tension
to the cold war
situation. 10
On September 23, 1985, Andropov, the Soviet
leader at the time, issued "one of
the most strong
anti-American statements since the Stalin Era".12 He accused the United
States of
pursuing a militarist course that is designed to achieve "dominant
positions in the
world without
reckoning with the interests of the other states and peoples".11
Soviet leaders thought that the United States' response to the airliner
incident
combined with the
continuing lack of progress on arms control, was proof that they should
not improve
relations with the United States. That December, they withdrew from the
arms control
negotiations in Geneva. For this reason negotiations that would end the cold
war were
halted.12
Reagan proposed a program called
"Strategic Defense Initiative (Also known as
"Star
Wars")." The program was where an experimental rocket was launched
off a remote
island and
intercepted an incoming ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) warhead that
was about one
hundred miles above earth. This was a demonstration of the Pentagon's
ability to solve
the problems of ballistic-missile defense.13
What if free people could live secure in
the knowledge that
their security did not rest upon the
threat of instant United
States retaliation to deter Soviet
attack; that we could
intercept and destroy strategic ballistic
missiles before they
reached our own soil and that of our
allies? 14
3
(President Reagan commenting on
"Star Wars")
It was Reagan's support for "Star
Wars" that enabled Gorbachev to take the
initiative soon
after coming to power in spring of 1985. Most Western Europeans derided
"Star
Wars" as "a pointless escalation in the arms race" and Gorbachev
thought this way
also. Gorbachev
denounced "Star Wars" and tried to show that Russia was a peaceful
nation. He
reduced the number of 22-20 missiles aimed at Western Europe and also
announced a
moratorium on underground nuclear testing.
Russia also offered to make
deep cuts in it's
missiles if the United States would stop researching "Star Wars."
Gorbachev
arranged a summit meeting in Geneva with Ronald Reagan which is where
they had talks
about "Star Wars." Little progress was made on arms control and
Reagan
was held
responsible.15
Gorbachev and Reagan also met in Reykjavik.
Gorbachev challenged Reagan to try
to negotiate a
comprehensive arms control agreement that weekend. Gorbachev offered a
few significant
ideas. He agreed in principle to the 1981 United States proposal to
eliminate medium
range missiles from Europe and suggested that there be a fifty-percent
cut in strategic
weapons for the next five years.16
Then, Reagan proposed that they destroy all
ballistic missiles for the next ten years
and Gorbachev
responded by suggesting they abolish all nuclear missiles. Reagan agreed
but then
Gorbachev made it clear the any further research of SDI (Strategic Defense
Initiative)
should only be done in the laboratory. Reagan then said that this restriction
would
"kill" SDI. When Gorbachev refused to move his position, Reagan left.
Reagan was
forced to choose
between "Star Wars" and a deal that would end Soviet nuclear threat
through
disarmament, Reagan's basic partialism and distrust of Russia won.17
In February, Gorbachev offered to separate the
European intermediate range
missile issue
from strategic and space weapons issues and said that he supported the long
4
standing United
States proposal to remove all Soviet and United States intermediate range
missiles from
Europe. Reagan responded positively to Gorbachev's speech and he resumed
talks with
Gorbachev .18
The modern world has become much too
small and fragile for
wars and policy of force. It cannot be
saved and preserved if
the thinking and actions built up over
the centuries on the
acceptability and permissibility of wars
and armed conflicts
are not shed after all...[If the arms
race continues] The
situation in the world may assume such a
character that
it will no longer depend on the
intelligence or will of
political leaders. It may become captive
to technology,
to technocratic logic. 19
Mikhail Gorbachev
Reagan agreed with Gorbachev and the United States
signed a nuclear arms treaty
eliminating all
the intermediate-range missiles stationed in Europe. This was the first ever
agreement that
eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons. American officials were sent
to Russia to make
sure that any violations were detected.20
In his speech to the United Nations on December
8, 1988, Gorbachev announced
the withdrawal of
fifty-thousand Soviet troops in Eastern Europe. The withdrawn forces
were tanks and
units with bridging equipment. The West conceded that the Eastern
section had
stronger non-nuclear forces and that to move toward equilibrium in Europe
required deeper
reductions on the Eastern side than the Western side.21
The Soviet Communist Party agreed to let Poland
have a democratic election on
June 5 1989. In
the elections, Solidarity (a labor union) won a landslide victory. Despite
5
Solidarity's win
Communists still regained control of the Parliament. The reason was that
election rules
guaranteed it a majority of seats. However Solidarity won almost all the
seats it was
allowed to compete for. This Polish election that allowed the opposition to
share power with
the Communist Party was a major part of
the historic movement for
political reform
in the Soviet Union.22
On November 11, 1989, the Berlin Wall came
down. This marked the end of the
cold war. East
Germany has announced that all border restrictions were lifted. President
Bush wanted to
"seize every chance" to promote democracy in Eastern Europe Secretary
of State James Baker
called the lifting of the German travel restrictions "the most dramatic
event in
East-West relations" since World War II.23
George Bush had comments on the Berlin Wall
also. He went to Mainz, Germany
where he said a
few words.
For 40 years, the seeds of democracy in Eastern
Europe lay dormant,
buried under the frozen tundra of the Cold War.
And for 40 years the
world has waited for the Cold War to end. And
decade after decade,
time after time, the flowering human spirit
withered from the chill of conflict
and oppression. And again the world waited. But
the passion for freedom
cannot be denied forever. The world has waited
long enough. The time is
right. Let Europe be whole and free. 24
George Bush
The United States of America played a huge role
in the ending of the cold war.
Though we made
relations worse, we also helped end it. Reagan's "Star Wars" policies
made Russians
very nervous.
6
1 Walter Lippman, The Cold War: A Study in U.S.
Foreign Policy (New York:
Harper &
Brothers Publishers, 1947) 48-52.
2 Charles S. Maier, ed., The Cold War in
Europe: Era of a divided Continent (New
York: Markus
Wiener Publishing, Inc., 1991) 27.
3 Ralph
B. Levering, The Cold War (Illinois: Harlan Davidson, INC.,1988) 169.
4 Levering, 169
5 Levering, 169
6 John
Young, Cold War Europe 1945-1989 (New York: Edward Allen, 1991)
26.
7 Levering, 171-2
8 Levering 173
9 "The End of the Cold War"
http://usa.coldwar.server.gov/index/coldwar/ 2 Feb.
1997
10 http://usa.coldwar.server.gov/index/coldwar/
11 Young, 28
12 Young, 28
13 Tom Morganthou, "Reagan's cold war
'sting'?", Newsweek 32 August 1993:
32
14 Levering, 180
15"Ending the Cold War", Foreign
Affairs Spring 1988: 24-25
16 Young, 28
17 Young, 29
18 Young, 29
19 Levering, 187-188
20"Ending the Cold War", 27
21 "Ending the Cold War", 28
22Brinkley, Alan An Uneasy Peace 1988-, Vol. 10 of 20th Century
America, 10 vols.
(New York: Grolier 1995):22
23Brinkley, 30
24"George Bush addresses Europe"
http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/burke/ 13
March 1997.
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