The final conclusion made by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to go ahead and follow through with the plan made by the United States to set up new mid-range nuclear weapons across the continent of Europe happened only 10 or so days before the USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan. 

The United States policy towards NATO had meant that they led the alliance in two directions, first the United States had tried to lead NATO towards lowering the hostility between the east and west, second the United States had provided its allies with a good deterrent force and a defense. Eventually it became very difficult to pursue the two principles alongside one another. 

The agreement to station new medium range nuclear missiles in Europe was to give chance to giving consent to the second strategic arms limitation treaty (SALT II) and right afterwards start on progress towards SALT III. But since the quick acceptance of SALT II was becoming a far more unlikely future for Europe, the United States didn’t follow through. The impact of european-based defense systems upon the east-west relationships modernization has frequently been connected to the reliability of the strategic arms limitation talks. The main purpose of SALT II was to create a three year procedure to limit the amount of missiles allowed to be deployed in Europe at a time, which allows time to negotiate control upon the use of the missiles. The missiles were never defined in detail in any nuclear arms control negotiation. They are in a category called “the gray zone”. 

The United States allies would be at risk of serious strategic disadvantages if the United States decided to use their deterrent as trading tokens in arms control talks without giving a substitute. The main issue was the United States principle policy of empowering the alliance, whilst also trying to establish a reduction in hostility via arms control did not appear to apply to the current situation of the world. The United States can also begin to remove doubt from normal NATO insecurity regarding the American defense promise by moving towards working together within the framework of NATO. It is mostly clear that none of the numerous western European country leaders would have agreed to the United States proposal of the stationing of the Euromissiles without the confirmation that the United States was also working hard towards achieving the goal of more arms control at the same time.

In the west Gorbachev enjoyed extensive happiness and goodwill although, over time he became more and more unpopular within the soviet community because of the economy becoming worse over time. The improving foreign relations led to more new brands that were mostly from western Europe and the USA, to Russia. For example, in 1990 the first ever McDonald’s opened in Moscow. Even though Gorbachev did not approve of NATO’s idea of unified Germany, Gorbachev didn’t interfere when the Berlin wall lowered and West Germany merged with the priorly communist Eastern Germany. Because of Gorbachev's constructive ideas by the end of the 1980’s citizens had been happily exchanging books and movies that weren’t allowed before. Perestroika is said to be one of the most prominent causes of the democratic revolutions in 1989 in Eastern Europe, it has also been claimed to play a big part in the end of the cold war and the end of the USSR. 

There are many differences between glasnost and perestroika, some of the most prominent being that glasnost started revolutions in numerous soviet states, whereas perestroika created confusion among the soviet economy. Another difference was that perestroika also managed to relax government control over the economy. And glasnost expanded freedom among the press. Though some soviets would consider the reforms in the late 1980s to be a failure because they led to many democratic revolutions across the region. One of glasnosts biggest impacts on the soviet states residing outside of Russia's borders was that the newly free and open speech led to numerous protests against the Soviet Union in those countries, which led to some eventually converting to a democratic government. In the 1980s the soviet leaders had to make reforms because of three main reasons, the one being that soviet productivity had dropped, another being that soviet living standards were becoming worse, and the final reason was that the soviet military was currently fighting an unpopular war in Afghanistan.