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:
“The elephant sneezed
And fell on his knees,
And that was the end of the monk,
the monk, the monk.”
—Unknown. Animal Fair. . .
New Treasury of Children’s Poetry, A; Old Favorites and New Discoveries. Joanna Cole, comp. (1984)
“He did not live, he observed life from a window, and too often was inclined to content himself with no more than what his friends told him they saw when they looked out of a window.... In the end the point of Henry James is neither his artistry nor his seriousness, but his personality, and this was curious and charming and a trifle absurd.”
—W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965)
“Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
“The hand holds no chalk
And each part of the whole falls off
And cannot know it knew, except
Here and there, in cold pockets
Of remembrance, whispers out of time.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“But, after the war was over, just think what came to pass—
A letter, sir; and the two were safe back in the old Bluegrass.
The lad had got across the border, riding Kentucky Belle;
And Kentuck she was thriving, and fat, and hearty, and well;
He cared for her, and kept her, nor touched her with whip or spur:
Ah! we’ve had many horses, but never a horse like her!”
—Constance Fenimore Woolson (1840–1894)