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200 word argument

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A quick break down on what happened and why

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USA vs USSR Fight! The Cold War: Crash Course World History #39

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two social/economic policies that Mikhail hoped would form a more prosperous nation.

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Gorbachev and Clinton had several meetings to resolve their nuclear race

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Gorbachev and Clinton had several meetings to resolve their nuclear race

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CLOSE

MOSCOW - Twenty-five years ago this Christmas Day, the Soviet Union disappeared.

A superpower was suddenly gone and 15 new countries appeared in its place: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Armenia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

"The Soviet Union broke up without a civil war, thank God," says Yevgeny Roizman, 54, a historian and mayor of Yekaterinburg, Russia's third-largest city, which borders Siberia. "But huge empires always go down with a lot of noise. The process is not over. It will be many years before all the damage can be undone."

Indeed, political systems, economies, cultures and military alliances have undergone varying transformations that continue in some countries and have stalled or reversed in others. "Now, it's like the Soviet era is a phantom pain," Roizman adds.

People who remember living under the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - the USSR - have mixed feelings whether those were the good old days or the bad old days.

In Kazan, in central Russia, Alexander Andreev, 64, a retired oil worker, recalls the end of Soviet life as a time of chronic food shortages. His his wife would wake him at 5 a.m. so he could stand outside the store near their home in hopes of buying an item before it ran out. "It was only a few minutes' walk away and it didn't open until 6 a.m. Most days there would be a long line. If I was in the first 10 we would get cottage cheese or sour cream. If not, only milk," he says.

Alexander Andreev in his apartment in Kazan, Russia. (Photo: Kim Hjelmgaard, USA TODAY)

"I cried so much," says Andreev's wife, Tatiana, 65, of this period. "I was worried about the children. We were constantly adding things to the food to make it go further," she says. "Now, within reason, we can buy anything. Different kinds of cars. We can travel. We don't want to go back."

But her husband is a bit nostalgic. While Communism was not a political system he admired, the Soviet Union was a place where there was "real unity" between the people of the different republics. "In this way, (Russian President Vladimir) Putin was right," Andreev says. "The breakup was the worst thing that happened to us."

Collapse of the Soviet Union 25th anniversary. (Photo: USA TODAY)

Here are seven things that have happened since the 1991 breakup:
1. WEALTH GAP GROWS
After 74 years of authoritarian communist rule in which supposedly everyone was equal, Russia is one of the world's most unequal countries, according to a 2016 Credit Suisse global wealth report: 75% of its wealth is controlled by the richest 1%. In 1991, there were no billionaires in Russia. Today, there are 77 with a combined net worth of $283 billion, according to Forbes ' list of richest people.
2. CHANGE IS TRAUMATIC
The transition to new systems was cataclysmic. "It wasn't the collapse of the Soviet Union that was the problem," says Michael McFaul, U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014. "It was the economic dislocation. It created an economic depression that was far harsher than what was experienced in the United States in the 1930s."
3. BALTICS LOOK WEST
The tiny Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have joined the European Union and NATO and adopted a Western liberal democratic order. But they are nervous about their vulnerability to Russian expansion, fearing they would be easiest to swallow up and wondering if U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will uphold NATO members' commitment to defend any other member that is attacked.
4. SATELLITES VEER OFF
Former Soviet-sphere nations in Europe have gone their own way. Poland, free of Soviet dominance, has turned western to become the largest economy in Central Europe. It is now a member of the EU and NATO, along with former Soviet satellites Bulgaria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Romania.
5. REPRESSION PERSISTS
Belarus is one of the world's most repressive regimes, where criticizing the president can lead to a lengthy jail term. Uzbekistan and other ex-Soviet Central Asian "Stans" have enjoyed stable leadership and big oil revenues, but corruption and human rights abuses remain endemic. "It's becoming harder and harder to speak out against these crimes and it is worse now than it's been at any point since Soviet times," says Svetlana Gannushkina, 74, a former Russian lawmaker, now a human rights lawyer. Gannushkina is regularly named as a potential Nobel peace prize winner.

In Russia's predominantly Muslim and restive province of Chechnya, "there is no law, no constitution, only the order of (Chechnya leader) Ramzan Kadyrov," Gannushkina says of Russian President Vladimir Putin's ally. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International say Kadyrov uses public shaming, torture and abductions to keep a tight grip on the province, which waged a guerrilla war for independence against Russia for more than a decade before conceding defeat in 2009.

Chechnya's leader Ramzan Kadyrov votes during Russian parliamentary elections, outside Grozny, on Sept. 18. (Photo: AFP/Getty Images)
6.RUSSIAN DEMOCRACY FADES
Russia embraced democracy after the Soviet breakup but has been sliding back toward authoritarianism. Putin, who has called the collapse of the Soviet Union the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century," has undermined civil liberties as he tightens his grip on power. He has jailed critics, imposed restrictions on news and social media, reclaimed Crimea from West-leaning Ukraine, abetted pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, cracked down on foreign non-profit groups and stoked the flames of right-wing nationalism.

After years of neglect, the military has been restored and has taken a lead role in Syria to help President Bashar Assad win a 5-year-old civil war. "Putin thinks the state is legitimate because it is the state," says Alex Kliment, a Russia specialist at Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy. "He has a philosophical belief that popular revolutions against state power are always illegitimate, and always end in tears."
7. RUSSIA TILTS TO TRUMP
Russia has developed one of the world's most sophisticated cyber-warfare networks - one that the CIA believes interfered in America's election to help Donald Trump. The president-elect has dismissed the allegation, but Congress vows to look into it. Whatever the outcome of that investigation, Russia and Trump seem to be on a path toward friendship and international cooperation that would have been inconceivable after Russia reclaimed Crimea in 2014. Trump has spoken positively about Putin and his choice for secretary of State, ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, who has negotiated energy deals with Russia, said he has "a very close relationship" with Putin.

Soviet-era arcade evokes nostalgia

What McDonald's reveals about Russia

Soviet Union collapsed 25 years ago

Soviet Union's sting fades between generations

Gulag survivor remembers 'ordinary' arrest

Follow Kim Hjelmgaard on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2iaY6y2

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25 years later: 7 shockwaves from breakup of Soviet Union

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CLOSE MOSCOW - Twenty-five years ago this Christmas Day, the Soviet Union disappeared. A superpower was suddenly gone and 15 new countries appeared in its place: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Armenia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

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How their fall allowed our rise

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#NoNuclear
#peace #Perestroika
#USpower
#Gorbachev #USSR
#Glasnost #reform
#ukraine #RussianFederation

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The Arms Race between the U.S. and Soviet Union

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The Arms Race between the U.S. and Soviet Union

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A situation that could've been devastating

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Dreadnought Arms Race

With the Industrial Revolution came new weaponry, including vastly improved warships. In the late nineteenth century, France and Russia built powerful armies and challenged the spread of British colonialism. In response, Great Britain shored up its Royal Navy to control the seas.

Britain managed to work out its arms race with France and Russia with two separate treaties. But Germany had also drastically increased its military budget and might, building a large navy to contest Britain's naval dominance in hopes of becoming a world power.

In turn, Britain further expanded the Royal Navy and built more advanced and powerful battlecruisers, including the 1906 HMS Dreadnought, a technically advanced type of warship that set the standard for naval architecture.

Not to be outdone, Germany produced its own fleet of dreadnought-class warships, and the standoff continued with both sides fearing a naval attack from the other and building bigger and better ships.

Germany couldn't keep up, however, and Britain won the so-called Anglo-German Arms Race. The conflict didn't cause World War I, but it did help to increase distrust and tensions between Germany, Britain and other European powers.

Arms Control Efforts Fail

After World War I, many countries showed an interest in arms control. President Woodrow Wilson led the way by making it a key point in his famous 1918 Fourteen Points speech, wherein he laid out his vision for postwar peace.

At the Washington Naval Conference (1921-1922), the United States, Britain and Japan signed a treaty to restrict arms, but in the mid-1930s Japan chose not to renew the agreement. Moreover, Germany violated the Treaty of Versailles and began to rearm.

This started a new arms race in Europe between Germany, France and Britain-and in the Pacific between Japan and the United States-which continued into World War II.

Nuclear Arms Race

Though the United States and the Soviet Union were tentative allies during World War II, their alliance soured after Nazi Germany surrendered in May 1945.

The United States cast a wary eye over the Soviet Union's quest for world dominance as they expanded their power and influence over Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union resented the United States' geopolitical interference and America's own arms buildup.

Further fueling the flame of distrust, the United States didn't tell the Soviet Union they planned to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, although the United States informed them they had created such a bomb.

To help discourage Soviet communist expansion, the United States built more atomic weaponry. But in 1949, the Soviets tested their own atomic bomb, and the Cold War nuclear arms race was on.

The United States responded in 1952 by testing the highly destructive hydrogen "superbomb," and the Soviet Union followed suit in 1953. Four years later, both countries tested their first intercontinental ballistic missiles and the arms race rose to a terrifying new level.

Cold War Arms Race Heads to Space

The Soviet's launch of the first Sputnik satellite on October 4, 1957, stunned and concerned the United States and the rest of the world, as it took the Cold War arms race soon became the Space Race.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower tried to tone down the rhetoric over the success of the launch, while he streamed federal funds into the U.S. space program to prevent being left behind.

After a series of mishaps and failures, the United States successfully launched its first satellite into space on January 31, 1958, and the Space Race continued as both countries researched new technology to create more powerful weapons and surveillance technologies.

Missile Gap

Throughout the 1950s, the United States became convinced that the Soviet Union had better missile capability that, if launched, could not be defended against. This theory, known as the Missile Gap, was eventually disproved by the CIA but not before causing grave concern to U.S. officials.

Many politicians used the Missile Gap as a talking point in the 1960 presidential election. Yet, in fact, U.S. missile power was superior to that of the Soviet Union at the time. Over the next three decades, however, both countries grew their arsenals to well over 10,000 warheads.

Cuban Missile Crisis

The Cold War arms race came to a tipping point in 1962 after the John F. Kennedy administration's failed attempt to overthrow Cuba's premier Fidel Castro, and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev implemented a secret agreement to place Soviet warheads in Cuba to deter future coup attempts.

After U.S. intelligence observed missile bases under construction in Cuba, they enforced a blockade on the country and demanded the Soviet Union demolish the bases and remove any nuclear weapons. The tense Cuban Missile Crisis standoff ensued and came to a head as Kennedy and Khrushchev exchanged letters and made demands.

The crisis ended peacefully; however, both sides and the American public had fearfully braced for nuclear war and began to question the need for weapons that guaranteed "mutually assured destruction."

Arms Races Continue

The Cold War ended in 1991 following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Berlin Wall. But years earlier, in 1987, the United States and the Soviet Union had signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) to limit the scope and reach of all types of missiles.

Other treaties such as the START 1 treaty in 1991 and the New START treaty in 2011 aimed to further reduce both nations' ballistic weapons capabilities.

The United States withdrew from the INF treaty in 2019, however, believing that Russia was non-compliant. Though the Cold War between the United States and Russia is over, many argue the arms race is not.

Other countries have beefed up their military might and are in a modern-day arms race or poised to enter one, including India and Pakistan, North Korea and South Korea, and Iran and China.

Sources

Herman, Steve. US Leaves INF Treaty, Says Russia 'Solely Responsible.' VOA.
Hundley, Tom. Pakistan and India: The Real Nuclear Challenge. Pulitzer Center.
Sputnik, 1957. U.S. Department of State: Office of the Historian.
The Reader's Companion to American History. Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

Fact Check

We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.

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Arms Race: Definition, Cold War & Nuclear Arms - HISTORY

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An arms race occurs when countries increase their military resources to gain superiority over one another, such as the U.S. and Soviet Union in the Cold War.

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Briefly summarizing the entire fall

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Contents

1. The Origins and Evolution of the Soviet State

2. Mikhail Gorbachev's Glasnost and Perestroika

3. The Revolutions of 1989 and the Fall of the Soviet Union

On Christmas Day 1991, the Soviet flag flew over the Kremlin in Moscow for the last time. Representatives from Soviet republics (Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) had already announced that they would no longer be part of the Soviet Union. Instead, they declared they would establish a Commonwealth of Independent States. Because the three Baltic republics (Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia) had already declared their independence from the USSR, only one of its 15 republics, Kazakhstan, remained. The once-mighty Soviet Union had fallen, largely due to the great number of radical reforms that Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev had implemented during his six years as the leader of the USSR. However, Gorbachev was disappointed in the dissolution of his nation and resigned from his job on December 25. It was a peaceful end to a long, terrifying and sometimes bloody epoch in world history.

The Origins and Evolution of the Soviet State

In 1917 revolutionary Bolsheviks overthrew the Russian czar and four socialist republics were established. In 1922, Russia proper joined its far-flung republics to form Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The first leader of this Soviet state was the Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin.

Did you know? In 1988, Time magazine selected Mikhail Gorbachev to be its "Man of the Year" for his work toward ending the Cold War. The next year, it named him its "Man of the Decade." In 1990, Gorbachev won the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Soviet Union was supposed to be "a society of true democracy," but in many ways it was no less repressive than the czarist autocracy that preceded it. It was ruled by a single party-the Communist Party-that demanded the allegiance of every Russian citizen. After 1924, when the dictator Joseph Stalin came to power, the state exercised totalitarian control over the economy, administering all industrial activity and establishing collective farms. It also controlled every aspect of political and social life. People who argued against Stalin's policies were arrested and sent to labor camps or executed.

After Stalin's death in 1953, Soviet leaders denounced his brutal policies but maintained the Community Party's power. They focused in particular on the Cold War with Western powers, engaging in a costly and destructive "arms race" with the United States while exercising military force to suppress anticommunism and extend its hegemony in Eastern Europe.

Mikhail Gorbachev's Glasnost and Perestroika

In March 1985, a longtime Communist Party politician named Mikhail Gorbachev assumed the leadership of the USSR He inherited a stagnant economy and a political structure that made reform all but impossible.

Gorbachev introduced two sets of policies that he hoped would help the USSR become a more prosperous, productive nation. The first of these was known as glasnost, or political openness. Glasnost eliminated traces of Stalinist repression, like the banning of books and the omnipresent secret police, and gave new freedoms to Soviet citizens. Political prisoners were released. Newspapers could print criticisms of the government. For the first time, parties other than the Communist Party could participate in elections.

The second set of reforms was known as perestroika, or economic restructuring. The best way to revive the Soviet economy, Gorbachev thought, was to loosen the government's grip on it. He believed that private initiative would lead to innovation, so individuals and cooperatives were allowed to own businesses for the first time since the 1920s. Workers were given the right to strike for better wages and conditions. Gorbachev also encouraged foreign investment in Soviet enterprises.

However, these reforms were slow to bear fruit. Perestroika had torpedoed the "command economy" that had kept the Soviet state afloat, but the market economy took time to mature. (In his farewell address, Gorbachev summed up the problem: "The old system collapsed before the new one had time to begin working.") Rationing, shortages and endless queuing for scarce goods seemed to be the only results of Gorbachev's policies. As a result, people grew more and more frustrated with his government.

The Revolutions of 1989 and the Fall of the Soviet Union

Gorbachev believed that a better Soviet economy depended on better relationships with the rest of the world, especially the United States. Even as President Reagan called the USSR the "Evil Empire" and launched a massive military buildup, Gorbachev vowed to bow out of the arms race. He announced that he would withdraw Soviet troops from Afghanistan, where they had been fighting a war since 1979, and he reduced the Soviet military presence in the Warsaw Pact nations of Eastern Europe.

This policy of nonintervention had important consequences for the Soviet Union-but first, it caused the Eastern European alliances to, as Gorbachev put it, "crumble like a dry saltine cracker in just a few months." The first revolution of 1989 took place in Poland, where the non-Communist trade unionists in the Solidarity movement bargained with the Communist government for freer elections in which they enjoyed great success. This, in turn, sparked peaceful revolutions across Eastern Europe. The Berlin Wall fell in November; that same month, the "velvet revolution" in Czechoslovakia overthrew that country's Communist government. (In December, however, violence reigned: A firing squad executed Romania's Communist dictator, Nicolae Ceaucescu, and his wife.)

This atmosphere of possibility soon enveloped the Soviet Union itself. Frustration with the bad economy combined with Gorbachev's hands-off approach to Soviet satellites to inspire a series of independence movements in the republics on the USSR's fringes. One by one, the Baltic states (Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia) declared their independence from Moscow. Then, in early December, the Republic of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine broke away from the USSR and created the Commonwealth of Independent States. Weeks later, they were followed by eight of the nine remaining republics. ( Georgia joined two years later.) At last, the mighty Soviet Union had fallen.

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The Origins and Evolution of the Soviet State Mikhail Gorbachev's Glasnost and Perestroika The Revolutions of 1989 and the Fall of the Soviet Union On Christmas Day 1991, the Soviet flag flew over the Kremlin in Moscow for the last time.