IH end of cold war

By chuhuiz
  • Period: to

    Brechnev's Regime

    Expanded soviet's military budget from 13 million rubles to around 20 bilion rubles,increased 20%-40% of country's GDP --> in order to compete against the US in nuclear arms race.

  • Brechnev Doctrine

    (only need know Nov 1968)
    Stated that no country is allowed to leave the warsaw pact --> huge amount of funds were diverted to maintain
  • Period: to

    Reagan's military buildup (1982-1986 ignore dd/mm)

    1.5 trillion funds, building of weapon systems such as MX ICBM and the Trident II SLBM, funds were also included for the Strategic Defense Initiative

  • 1985 Gorbachev came into power (ignore dd/mm)

    introduced Glassnost and Perestoika and introduced a new foreign policy- "New Thinking" *** showed Gorby's willingness to end the cold war by taking a whole new approach to foreign policy

  • Gorbachev replacement of soviet minister (ignore dd)

    replaced a hardliner minister with reformist *** showed Gorby's willingness to end the cold war by taking a whole new approach to foreign policy

  • Reykjavik Summit (ignore dd)

    Gorbachev made sweeping concessions during this summit, he accepted Reagan's 'zero-option' plan whereby all soviet ss-20 intermediate range missiles in europe would be dismantled in exchange for the removal of the Pershing IIs and GLCMs that NATO recently employed. He even proposed the abolishment of all nuclear weapons within 10 years. *** this showed Gorby's willingness to end the nuclear arms race ***** possible turning pt

  • Intermediate range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) (ignore dd)

    Gorbachev was obliged to swallow a drastically asymmetrical reduction of theatre nuclear weapons, where there was the destruction of 1836 soviet missiles compared to 867 American missiles. ***first time elimination of nuclear arms compared to teh SALT treaties in 1973 and 1979 which only aimed ot reduce the number of nuclear arms ***showed the change in Gorby's attitude compared to his predecessors

  • Gorby's UN speech (ignore dd)

    he announced that international relations would be 'free of ideology' and he also endorsed the principle of 'freedom of choice', he further announced a reduction in soviet military power in EE. ( army reduced to half a million men, substantial cuts in tanks, artillery pieces and combat aircrafts) ***signifies the end of the cw arms race confirmed by the Conventional Armed Forces (CFE) Treaty in Nov 1990.

  • solidarity wins polish elections

    solidarity was the first free trade union in a communist state, bolstered anti-communism and nationalism feelings in EE

  • Fall of Berlin Wall (ignore dd)

    marked the end of cw as defined by a division ini Europe
  • Period: to

    Soviet economy worsened in the 1990s (ignore dates below)

  • Lithuania declared independence (ignore dd)

  • Latvia and Estonia announced intention to secede (ignore dd)

  • (drafting of) the Union Treaty (ignore dd)

    in order to prevent the seccession of the Republics, Gorbachev decided to draft this which would mean more autonomy for the soviet republics but they wills till be under soviets control, hence averting the collapse of USSR. --> but baltic states wanted nothing to do with this, whereas others had reservations.
    *** trigger to carry out the Aug 1991 coup as the hardliners saw it as unacceptable sacrifice of contral authority & further evidence that Gorby's policies were undermining their dominance

  • Conventional Armed Forces in Europe treaty (CFE) (ignore dd)

    helped confirmed the end of cw in terms of arms race

  • August 1991 coup (ignore dd)

    this directly led to the fall of USSR