The End of The Cold War
During the mid 1980s, the U.S-Soviet relations significantly improved. Mikhail Gorbachev assumed control of the Soviet Union after the deaths of several former Soviet leaders, and announced a new era of perestroika and glasnost, meaning restructuring and openness respectively. Gorbachev proposed a 50% reduction of nuclear weapons for both the U.S and Soviet Union at the meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland in October 1986. However, the proposal was refused due to disagreements over Reagan's SDI. Instead, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty was signed on December 8, 1987 in Washington, which eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons.
In the late 1980s, after the signing of this treaty, much of the Soviet Union began to declare independence and slowly became free of Soviet influence. One of the most iconic events of the collapse of the Soviet Union was the destruction of the Berlin Wall on November 10, 1989. On December 8, 1991, the Soviet Union dissolved and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) was established. This event marked the end of the 45 year long Cold War.
Read more about this topic: Nuclear Arms Race
Famous quotes containing the words the end of, the end, the, cold and/or war:
“I often wish for the end of the wretched remnant of my life; and that wish is a rational one; but then the innate principle of self-preservation, wisely implanted in our natures, for obvious purposes, opposes that wish, and makes us endeavour to spin out our thread as long as we can, however decayed and rotten it may be.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“your dear face with its fifth hand,
doesn’t it know it’s the end of the war?”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“The novel is the one bright book of life. Books are not life. They are only tremulations on the ether. But the novel as a tremulation can make the whole man alive tremble.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Nobody saves America by sniffing cocaine,
Jiggling yr knees blankeyed in the rain,
When it snows in yr nose you catch cold in yr brain.”
—Allen Ginsberg (b. 1926)
“Christians would show sense if they dispatched these argumentative Scotists and pigheaded Ockhamists and undefeated Albertists along with the whole regiment of Sophists to fight the Turks and Saracens instead of sending those armies of dull-witted soldiers with whom they’ve long been carrying on war with no result.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)