The End Of The Cold War Essay

, Research Paper

How and why did the Cold War end?

The period of the Cold war was a very awkward time. Nobody really knew what was going to happen. Some were frightened and some didn t even pay attention to it. Communist and democratic relations in the late 1980s were not going too well. The United States and the world stood back and watched uprisings from both sides that eventually led to the fall of many communist governments.

During the beginning of the end of the cold war, Reagan was in office. All in all he wanted to stop the fighting period. Some people thought that the way he went about it was a bit awkward. At this time all superpower nations were trying to be bigger and better than the other. This meant that a lot of money was being spent just to stay on top. Much research was done technology wise and a lot of money was put to military use. When Reagan spent more money to increase the power of the United States military, The USSR took it personally. Soon enough Russia was almost bone dry in the funds category and they knew peace must be made.

When Reagan s term ended, George Bush took office. He began to make relations between the two governments better. He started negotiations and peace talks with the Soviets. The first of which was held in Malta. It was the Summit meeting of 1989 between Bush and Gorbachev. Bush then made a state of the union message in which he stated he would cut US troops in Europe to 195,000. The next agreement was made on September 12 it was called the Treaty of the first Settlement and gave respect to Germany.

President Bush and the heads of state of 21 other countries then signed the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces. It was also known as the CFE Treaty. This document was signed on November 19, 1990 it took place at a three-day long summit meeting. This particular treaty was said to have been one of the most complex and ambitious arms agreements ever concluded. It covered thousands of tanks, aircraft and artillery pieces deployed by NATO and the countries of the former Warsaw Pact from the Atlantic to the Ural Mountains.

Then, on July 31, 1991, the United States reached its last major arms agreement with the Soviet Union when Presidents Bush and Gorbachev signed the long-negotiated Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in Moscow, which included cuts of 30 to 40 percent in to both sides. They also agreed to eliminate all multiple-warhead missiles by the year 2003. Together, these agreements would reduce the number of nuclear warheads by two-thirds, from around 21,000 to approximately 6500. This being done, the cold war was concluded