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Period: to
Reagan's Military Buildup
Includes two strategic weapons inherited from the Carter Administration: the MX ICBM and Trident II SLBM. It established a a 600 ship navy. It included funds for the strategic defense initiative (SDI) in which the Kremlin dreaded as a possible threat to the retaliatory capacituy of its long range missle force -
Gorbachev's sincerity in slowing the arms race
Summer of'85, Gorbachev announced in the summer of 1985 a temporary moratorium on nuclear testing and challenging the United States to follow suit. In July he replaced Soviet Andrei Gromyko with reformist leader Eduard Sgevardnadze -
INF treaty
Gorby accepted Reagans zero option plan whereby all Soviet SS-20 intermediate-range missles in Europe to be dismantled in exchange for the removal of the pershing IIs and GLCMs that NATO had deployed. The two leaders agreed in principle to a 50 percent reduction in all ballistic missles within 5 years and to their total abolition within ten. -
Glasnost effects
In june 1988, the old rubber stamp Supreme Soviet was replaced by a new congress of People's Deupties, two thirds of whose members would be chosen through direct election while the remaining third would be selected by official organisations. -
Gorbachev's speech
In contrast to Khrushev's speech in 1960 where he pride the triumph of socialism over capitalism, Gorbachevs pseech her announced in the UN that international relations would now be free of ideology. He further announced the reduction in the soviet military presence in Eastern Europe -
Solidarity wins Polish elections
Across the Iron Curtain, 1st time a noncommunist party wins govt elections -
fall of Berlin Wall, Nov 1989
Marked the end of the Cold War as defined by a division in Europe -
Social problems in the USSR
By the beginning of the 1990s of the country's gross national producthad declined by 2 per cent, the govt foreign debt skyrocketed and both the national budget deficit and the foreign trade deficit widened. Endemic corruption became rampantand extended to all levels of society. -
Yeltsins campaign political system
Yeltsin launched a vigorous campaig on behalf of the full democratisation of the Soviet politicla system ,the establishment of a market economy, and the recognition of a greater autonmy for the soviet republics
