The Cold War: Epilogue

1. The Cold War Part 6
Epilogue

2.  The Fall of the Empire
 Collapse of the Soviet Union
 The Successor States
 Unrest in the Russian Federation
 Fading Hope for Arms Control
 Europe After the Fall
 France’s Ideal
 Development of the Community
 The European Idea
 The Quest for Security
 Resurgence of Ethnic Conflict

3. Even with the end of the Soviet empire in
Eastern Europe, things were about to get a lot
worse for the USSR. The process that began
with liberalization and the liberation of the
satellites ultimately resulted in the collapse of
the Soviet Union, and much chaos for its
successor states.

4. Even with the recent reforms, the Soviet economy
continued to not only stagnate, but actually declined.
Meanwhile, as political liberalization took place, long
suppressed peoples began to agitate for even more
radical change.

5. Several of the non-Russian republics that made up the
Soviet Union began to agitate for independence, and the
leadership of the USSR began to fear for the future of the
nation.

6. One politician who called for radical reform was Boris
Yeltsin, who in the middle of 1991 would become the
president of the Russian Republic (the largest and most
populous of the constituent republics).

7. To frame it broadly, Gorbachev sought to reform the
communist system, while Yeltsin wanted simply to
abolish it and begin anew. In the summer of 1991 a cabal
of hard-liners attempted a coup to end the recent
reforms, but Yeltsin managed to rally the people and
military to back him and defeat this usurpation.

8. The final death knell came in December of 1991, when
as opposed to a reformed union a new organization of
loosely affiliated nations called the Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS) was formed, joined by 11 of
the 15 old Soviet republics.

9. On Christmas day Gorbachev resigned as President of
the now defunct USSR, and the next day the Soviet
Union, after almost 7 decades of existence, ceased to
exist.

10. It was decided by the CIS that the Russian Federation
would inherit the Soviet Union's seat on the U.N. Security
Council, while also taking charge of the nuclear arsenal.
From here Russia and the U.S. began a series of talks to
further reduce their respective nuclear arsenals, as the
impetus for maintaining such stockpiles was no more.

11. When the borders of
the constituent
republics of the USSR
had been drawn in the
1920's, the principle of
'divide and rule' had
been applied.
Significant minorities
in each of the
republics had ensured
that none could
consolidate and rise
up against Moscow's
rule.

12. Now on their own, the
existence of restive
minorities led to all manner
of problems. In the Caucasus
a convoluted web of ethnic
groups struggled for various
goals.

13. Meanwhile in the old
Central Asian
republics the secular
governments had to
deal with internal
challenges from
Islamists while
contending with
foreign powers such
as Iran and Turkey,
who might try to
utilize their ethno-
linguistic connections
there to expand their
influence.

14. Ultimately however, Iran
and Turkey failed to
make any political gains,
and Russia, in exchange
for backing the secular
leaders of the Central
Asian republics,
effectively established a
hegemony in the region.

15. Another big complication was the some 20 million ethnic
Russians living in the new non-Russian successors, who
were often marginalized by the ethnic majorities of the new
nations. Sentiment in Russia naturally favoured their
countrymen in the Near Abroad, the term increasingly used
in Russia to refer to the states of the old Soviet Union.

16. In the early years of the Russian Federation economic
turmoil and rampant corruption increased popular
discontent greatly. The prestige Yeltsin had won by his
heroic stand against the coup plotters was eroded by the
emergence of this egregious kleptocracy.

17. At the same time, right wing sentiment saw people pine
for the days of Russian power and enraged by the
abuses of Russians in the Near Abroad.

18. As well, internal discontent in constituent parts of the
Russian Federation were a source of trouble. In
Chechnya, one of the 89 constituent parts of the
Federation, insurgents fought to separate, and Russian
troops were unsuccessful in quashing the rebels.

19. But terrorist attacks against
Russian cities and
neighbouring republics in
the late 1990's saw Russian
troops return for a third
time, and under the
direction of Russia's new
President, Vladimir Putin,
the insurgency was crushed
and Russian control restored
in the year 2000.

20. Russian nationalism was
likewise enflamed by
two major issues
involving the United
States: the application of
many former Soviet
republics and allies to
join NATO, and the
desire of the
administration of
President George W.
Bush to develop a
National Missile Defence
System (NMD).

21. Despite the end of the Cold War, simmering
tensions led to difficulties in the field of arms
control. The extension of an indefinite NPT
came with the non-binding provision that the
various nuclear powers commit to the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), an
end to all testing of all nuclear devices.

22. While the U.S. and Russia worked admirably to reduce
their respective stockpiles, as well as striving to police
the old Soviet Union's nuclear forces, American
politicians have as yet to ratify the CTBT.

23. While Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) have seldom
been utilized, the expansion of the nuclear powers to include
India, Pakistan, North Korea, and possibly Israel, U.S.
insistence in creating a NMD system, and difficulties in
verifying the possible development of biological weapons
mean that not only is arms control a contentious issue, but
that WMDs will likely be with us for a long time to come.

24. With the end of the
Cold War and the
division of the
continent into hostile
blocs, a new Europe
was in the making.
This culminated in the
birth of the European
Union and the return
of the old scourge of
ethnic nationalism to
the continent.

25. With the realization that it would suffer from
considerable economic consequences if the EEC
erected a united tariff against non-members,
Britain applied for membership in 1961, along
with Ireland, Denmark, and Norway, and for a
time the prospects of expanding from 6 to 10
members seemed good.

26. However, Charles de
Gaulle vetoed British
entry, and attempted to
reorient the EEC into a
less federalist structure,
and more along the
lines of cooperating
independent states; a
so-called ‘Europe of
States’.

27. A staunch opponent of federalism, de Gaulle
hoped that in this new Europe France would
effectively lead as Hegemon. While France did
not get its way in this regard, it did succeed in
preventing federalists from enhancing the
supranational character of the EEC, deferring
to Gaullist sentiments of national sovereignty.

28. The fall of de Gaulle in 1969 paved the way for the
expansion of the EEC. In 1972 Britain, Ireland, and
Denmark joined.

29. As trade barriers came down and economies continued
to meld, the long envisioned European Parliament (EP)
was established, though it lacked the powers to
introduce legislations, to enact said legislation, and to
raise revenues through taxation.

30. In the 1980's Greece, Portugal, and Spain joined even as
some became sceptical of the European project after the
economic difficulties of the 1970's.

31. In particular, European
plans to foster closer
economic integration were
derailed by the collapse of
the Bretton Woods system in
the early 1970's and the
world oil crisis refocused
attention elsewhere.

32. In order to stabilize inter-European exchange rates, the
European Monetary System (EMS) was formed, which
moved to establish a narrow zone in which currencies
would remain in relation to one another, and prepare
for the day that an ultimate solution could be put forth:
a single European currency.

33. The integration of Europe entered high gear
with the passing of the Single European Act
(SEA), prompted by the need to compete with
large economic powers like the U.S. and Japan,
and the desire to further enmesh the newly
reunited and powerful Germany into the
European system.

34. The Maastricht Treaty of 1992 ushered in a
new era of political integration to complement
the recent economic movement, setting the goal
of a European currency and defining the
conception of a common European citizenship.

35. The SEA and the Maastricht Treaty had changed the
original conception of the EEC so greatly that the name
was changed in 1993 to reflect this new reality: it
became the European Union (EU). After this, expansion
was swift compared to the decades before.

36. Austria, Sweden, and Finland joined in 1995.

37. Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Estonia, Poland,
Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia, and Malta joined in
2004.

38. With the admission of Romania and Bulgaria in 2007, the
EU had expanded from 12 to 27 nations only 14 years
after its birth.

39. The latest addition came in 2013 with the admission of
Croatia into the Union.

40. While additional
candidates have since
come to the fore, the most
troublesome one has been
Turkey, which has been
in discussions since the
1980's. Due to a number
of issues, Turkey's
application to join the EU
has been long held up,
and it remains doubtful
that it will become a
member anytime soon.

41. Inside the Union itself, despite great progress in recent
decades, attempts to create a European Constitution
have proven most difficult, and the issue of the Euro
currency (only adopted by 17 of the 27 members) has
demonstrated of late the dangers inherent in such a
large and diverse currency union.

42. While Europe had been happy enough to compromise
on currency control, two other hallmarks of national
sovereignty, foreign relations and military forces, were
much more difficult to get a handle on.

43. The reduction of American military power on the
continent after the Cold War led many to realize that
Europe must depend on itself for protection, while the
pathetic showing of all but a few European militaries in
the Gulf War demonstrated the inadequacy of existing
security protocols.

44. By the end of the 1990's the EU involvement in the Kosovo
War (a conflict actually IN Europe!) was likewise an
embarrassing affair, and while since that time the EU has
declared its long planned rapid reaction force to be ready for
global deployment, the possibility of a Pan-European army as
envisioned in the EDC decades ago remains a distant goal.

45. While the re-emergence
of ethnic nationalism
was by and large dealt
with in such a way as to
preserve stability in
Europe, there were two
notable exceptions.

46. Czechoslovakia, after a long history of disputes between
the Czech and Slovak populations, agreed to an
amicable dissolution of their country into the Czech
Republic and Slovakia.

47. This bloodless affair was nicknamed the Velvet Divorce,
after the equally bloodless Velvet Revolution that had
ended communist rule there (evidently Czechs and
Slovaks are eminently reasonable people).

48. Unfortunately for the second
state to dissolve amidst
ethnic recriminations,
Yugoslavia, things were not
bloodless... not at all.

49. After decades of suppression, the Serbian government in
Yugoslavia moved to strengthen the federal government
(which they dominated) at the expense of the constituent
republics.

50. This drove the other republics to move towards
independence, with Macedonia and Slovenia getting
away relatively easily.

51. The republics of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina ended
up battling their own Serb minorities, whom were
heavily backed by the Yugoslav government, which by
that point consisted of only Serbia and Montenegro.

52. While in 1995 the war ended
with the independence of
those two republics (with
Bosnia consisting of a Croat-
Muslim state and a Serb
state), the cost had been
enormous: at least 215,000
people died in the Yugoslav
Wars, and 2.5 million became
refugees, while Bosnia itself
was devastated. Moreover,
the absolute brutality
inflicted by the fighting
factions on each other and
the various civilian
populations left relations
between peoples and nations
poisoned for many years
after.

53. The conflicts had not yet ended however, as the late
1990's saw an autonomous province of Serbia known as
Kosovo and Serbia proper battle over the issue of
Kosovo's independence.

54. Only with NATO intervention was the Serbian military
expelled from the province (where it had been engaged
in pushing as much of the ethnically Albanian
population out of the country as possible).

55. While a declaration of independence by Kosovo in early
2008 was met with mixed responses (to say the least), the
increasing involvement of the EU in stabilizing the
Balkans showed that the European Union was finally
willing and able to shoulder an increasing responsibility
in its proverbial backyard.