Why The West Won The Cold War

The West won the Cold War. Discuss.

The Cold War dominated International Relations for nearly 50 years with the biggest power struggle seen in international politics between the USA and the Soviet Union “as liberalism contended…with an updated Marxism that threatened to lead to the ultimate apocalypse of nuclear war” (Fukuyama, 1989 p.3) With the Cold war dominating international relations for nearly 50 years; the importance of understanding what led to its unpredictable demise remains a relevant topic for debate. The emergence of the USA as the central defining democratic power in the early 20th century aided to its inclusion to the pre-categorized idea of the West that purely consisted of European nations (Bonnett, 2004).Thus categorization

Consequently, the Soviet Union’s economic disadvantage pressured Gorbachev to pursue a policy of negotiation with the US which culminated in the INF treaty in December 1987 compromising of a virtual surrender by the Soviets and marked their exit from the Cold War (Malia, 1994 p.414). SDI highlighted the economic and technical backwardness of the USSR’s central economic system and was therefore a principle factor in triggering negotiations as Gorbachev believed that he could not afford to engage in a new space arms race. SDI heightened Gorbachev’s need for reforming the Soviet Union by presenting his country with a threat they could not match unless the economy was overhauled. The general secretary wanted a reprieve from the expensive and increasingly unstable Cold War so he could focus on revitalizing the USSR’s domestic economy. They were technologically too backward and increase the economic burden on the population anymore could be catastrophic for the regime. Reagans’ stubbornness over SDI at Geneva and Reykjavik brought Gorbachev to the point where he was willing to unilaterally withdraw from the Cold War. In short SDI heightened Gorbachev’s perceived need for reforming the Soviet Union by presenting his country with a threat they could not match unless the economy was overhauled. If he did not the

The democratic principles introduced through Gorbachev’s policy of Perestroika paved the way for a pro-capitalist party to gain control of Russia and replace the communist regime with a Western Capitalist model, thus eliminating the biggest ideological threat to the West. Glasnost introduced the liberal ideals of freedom of thought and individual expression to soviet society which placed critics of the communist regime in charge of much of the Soviet mass media. Economic reform began to create serious dislocations in 1988-89 and when leading soviet economists were asked to propose solutions they recommended capitalist solutions of rapid marketization and privatization of the economy (Kotz and Weir, 1997 p.131). A major part of the party-state elite of the soviet system itself began to abandon its allegiance to soviet socialism gravitating toward western style capitalism (Kotz and Weir 1997 p.131). Out of this process there emerged a movement the pro-capitalist coalition, drawing support from the intelligentsia, economists, private business owners and a growing section of the party state elite (Kotz and Weir, 1997 p.131). Boettke (1993, pp.5-6) makes the point that mature Soviet-style socialism did not conform to the textbook model of socialism. Based on this it could be