By the early 1970s, the Soviet Union was at the pinnacle of its power. The period is remembered by rising living standards, peace, and prosperity. As the decade progressed however, problems began to mount. Economic stagnation, military defeats, and emerging nationalism would soon result in the end of the Soviet Union and communist regimes in Eastern Europe. One military conquest led by Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev was the Soviet war in Afghanistan, which lasted from 1979 to 1989. In 1978, two Marxist-Leninist political factions, the People’s (Khalq) Party and the Banner (Parcham) Party, took control of power in Afghanistan. Nur Mohammad Taraki became the president and prime minister of Afghanistan and Hafizullah Amin was named deputy prime …show more content…
Those who supported the decision to invade did so because they felt that losing Afghanistan was unaffordable. This perspective is supported by David N. Gibbs, who argues that Soviet motives for invasion of Afghanistan reflected defensive rather than offensive objectives. Although Afghanistan played a minor role throughout most of the Cold War, it was still considered crucial because it bordered the Soviet Union (Gibbs). The close proximity led to apprehension and paranoia among Soviet officials, who feared that the United States might gain a political foothold in the area (Gibbs). More specifically, the Soviet Union aimed to limit and sever extremist ties within the Afghan Communist party, who were threatening stability on the Soviet border (Gibbs). Thus the geographic proximity between the two nations rendered close ties, and from 1954 onward, the USSR became Afghanistan’s main supplier of economic and military support (Gibbs). At the same time, however, Afghanistan remained relatively autonomous with regard to domestic affairs (Gibbs). Afghan officials did not initially view the Soviet Union as an intimidating entity or even consider Communism as a potential threat to the Afghan regime (Gibbs). The situation in the last year of the 1970s was dramatically different in Kabul. After President Taraki was murdered at the hands of Prime Minister Amin, the Kremlin became increasingly paranoid about where Amin’s loyalties lay (Braithwaite). They believed that Amin could possibly have been recruited by the CIA when he was student in the United States, and that he had plans to turn his back to the Soviet Union and direct Afghan policy toward the state’s archenemy, the United States (Braithwaite). On
The major factor that led to the true end of the Cold War was the ongoing personal and diplomatic relationship between Presidents George H. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev. This resulted in the reduction of the Russian military and favorable arms agreements. Key indicators of the substance behind this relationship were the Soviet troop withdrawals from Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan, and Hungary (lifting the Hungarian/Austrian “Iron Curtain” along the border). Subsequently the opening of the Berl...
... rule came to an end in a number of Eastern European countries, including Poland, Hungary, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia (Kennedy 1034). In addition, East Germany began to allow its people to pass freely to West Berlin through the Berlin Wall, and the East Germans soon began to tear the wall down. Germany was reunified in 1990, when East Germany united with West Germany (Walker 388). In 1991, the Soviet Communist Party lost control of the Soviet government. Later that year, the Soviet Union was dissolved, and the republics that made up the nation became independent states. Russia was by far the largest of these states. In 1992, Russian President Boris Yeltsin and U.S. President George Bush formally declared that their countries did not regard each other as potential enemies (Walker). These events marked the end of the Cold War and of communist threat as we know it.
The worst case scenario for the United States in the late 70s and early 80s was the threat of the Soviet invasion of Iran and subsequent control of the Saudi Oil fields. The best that could be done to counter a possible Soviet invasion would have been the deployment of parts of the 82nd Airborne Division to the Zagros Mountains of Iran, which would take at least a week with reinforcements arriving much later. This was not acceptable to the Carter Administration, which decided on another course of action - to actively support the anti-Soviet Mujahideen “freedom - fighters” in Afghanistan and help protect the Middle Eastern oil fields. This American involvement in the Soviet Afghan war has led to the emergence of Al-Qaeda and the September 11th attacks.
In fact, around 1975, the Soviet Union began to enter a period of economic stagnation because of long-playing huge imbalance between light industry and heavy industry even if the crisis of oil in 1973 helped Soviet Union increase the proportion of light industry by imports. Additionally, by later 1980s, the price of petroleum declined and the demand of grains increased so that the Soviet Union had to borrow money from Western banks to purchase the grains to distribute to people for maintaining the economy. Besides, during the military race, although Soviet Union’s military budget was 1/3 of that of the United State, it still had achieved parity with the United States in military power as at least 50 percent of the industrial output of the Soviet Union was going to the military according to Western intelligence sources and the government cut down the the expense of investment in the rest of the economy. Meanwhile, owing to the Stalinist system, people in Soviet lack the incentives for productivity. Consequently, insurmountable crisis in agriculture and other light industry issues appeared, which caused a visible decline in the rate of growth and then its complete stagnation. Thus, Soviet Union had malformed economic system to curb the development of Soviet Union, which at last led to the collapse of the
... most importantly Soviet armies withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989. All of these helped to break the Soviet Union. Reagan had successfully pushed back the Red Tide (Kissinger 773-774). The Reagan administration achieved these successes by putting into practice what became known as the Reagan Doctrine: that the United States would help anticommunist counterinsurgencies wrest their respective countries out of the Soviet sphere of influence.
In conclusion, there were six long-term causes that were apparent during the preceding decades of the 1991 collapse. On the surface in the 1970s the Soviet Union seemed to be doing ok, but the underlying factors eventually played a large factor in the eventual demise of the Communist regime and the fall of the Soviet Union. In the year 1975 the Soviet Union’s power peaked and after that it was only downhill for the Soviet Union until it collapsed in 1991.
The most powerful communist country in history, the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics, also known as the Soviet Union. Although being the biggest country the world has come to know, the country’s domestic struggles led to its downfall. Others suggest the Union’s desperation to outperform the United States of America in military and space flight led to excessive spending and in the end, stagnation. Moreover after decades of repressive communist rule, domestic attitudes towards the governments went to their all-time lows and led to the population’s unrest. Economic and political issues failed to get prioritized and continued to get ignored. Mikhal Gorbachev, the last leader of the USSR, introduced his plans, attempting to change the flaws of their government while keeping the same fundamentals of Communism. In the end, his plans backfired and the population used its new found freedom of speech, given to them by Gorbachev, against the communist government.
The cold war was failed by the Soviet Union for many reasons, including the sudden collapse of communism (Baylis & Smith, 2001.) This sudden collapse of communism was brought on ultimately by internal factors. The soviet unions president Gorbachev’s reforms: glasnost (openness) and perestroika (political reconstructering) ultimately caused the collapse of the Soviet Empire. Gorbachev’s basics for glasnost were the promotion of principles of freedom to criticize; the loosening of controls on media and publishing; and the freedom of worship. His essentials of perestroika were, a new legislature; creation of an executive presidency; ending of the ‘leading role’ of the communist party; allowing state enterprises to sell part of their product on the open market; lastly, allowing foreign companies to own Soviet enterprises (Baylis & Smith, 2001.) Gorbachev believed his reforms would benefit his country, but the Soviet Union was ultimately held together by the soviet tradition he was trying to change. The Soviet Union was none the less held together by “…powerful central institutions, pressure for ideological conformity, and the threat of force.
However, on Christmas 1979, Soviet Union paratroopers landed in Kabal, the capital of Afghanistan. The country was already at the grip of war and its monarchy was decreasing in power. The Prime Minister of Afghanistan, Hazifullah Amin, wanted to add more Western culture into the country and relieve the country of its Muslim tradition. A majority of the country was angered by this because Muslim belief was common. Soon enough, Afghan residents would react by joining the Mujahdeen, a guerrilla force composed of Muslims.
The end of the Cold War was one of the most unexpected and important events in geopolitics in the 20th century. The end of the Cold War can be defined as the end of the bipolar power struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union, which had existed since the end of the World War II. The conclusion of the Cold War can be attributed to Gorbachev’s series of liberalizations in the 1980s, which exposed the underlying economic problems in the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc states that had developed in the 1960s and 70s and prevented the USSR from being able to compete with the US as a superpower. Nevertheless, Reagan’s policies of a renewed offensive against communism, Gorbachev’s rejection of the Brezhnev doctrine and the many nationalities
It also marked the end of cold war between the Soviet Union and United States leading to reformed political, economic and military alliances worldwide. Upon its formation, outcome of Bolshevick Revolution of 1917, Soviet Union adopted Socialism later transforming to Communism. The main objective for Socialism and eventual Communism was to create a unified state based on centralized economic and political system. This ideology later transformed into totalitarian state. The underestimation of resistance from non-Russian ethnic groups (which was more than 50% of total population), and failure of the communism system to meet economic needs of the people were some of the reasons which to led to the decline of the USSR economy and arms competition with United States. Despite the Government’s effort to instill the ideology of communism to its people, it never took firm roots and Government ended up losing the grip of the people. With the political and economic stagnations caused by the communism, there was no choice but to change the way of doing things leading to dissolution of USSR in December 1991. The fifteen newly formed countries had overwhelming tasks of developing the economy, reorganizing the political systems, and settling the territorial disputes created earlier. There has been wars in the boundaries of the former
When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan on December 1979, the goal was to help Afghan communist forces set up a communist government. The Soviet Union felt Afghanistan had key resources and a foothold in the Middle East to spread communist ideas. The result would be a war that the Soviet Union wishes it never got involved in and likened to their “Vietnam War”, meaning winning a number of battles but not the war like what happened to the U.S. in Vietnam. The background of the war, outcome of the war, and impact on the United States are key to understanding the Soviet-Afghan War.
The Soviet Union, which was once a world superpower in the 19th century, saw itself in chaos going into the 20th century. These chaoses were marked by the new ideas brought in by the new leaders who had eventually emerged into power. Almost every aspect of the Soviet Union crumbled during this period, both politically and socially, as well as the economy. There were underlying reasons for the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and eventually Eastern Europe. The economy is the most significant aspect of every government.
Canada has played a vital role in international relations for the majority of its 144 year history since the signing of Confederation in 1867. Canada first participated in World War I, then World War II in 1939-1945. Following World War II, Canada was also involved in the Korean War. Canada has been primarily a peacekeeping nation. There are many questions people ask when a high income country goes to help a lower income nation such as Afghanistan. What are Canada’s motives for helping out Afghanistan? Who will benefit from Canada going to war in Afghanistan? These are some of the questions many people have. While Canada has many domestic problems of its own such as homelessness, poverty and increasing national debt, why should Canada get involved with a problem that is across the globe? Are the costs of going to war out weight the political benefits? Modernity, modernization theory and gender stratification are some key concepts that are related to Canada going to war in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan’s importance with respect to the cultural impact of globalization is increasing as the war in Afghanistan draws down. Afghanistan sits on the edge of the unknown. Once the United States leaves it will be left to create its own destiny. The eyes of the world will be on Afghanistan to see who it allies with, who it trades with and how it conducts itself.