Toward a New World Order

The competition and increasing awareness on democratic rights did force the Soviets to stand back and make some major policy changes in 1980s. The Soviet Premier of the time Gorbachev tried to set some political and social reforms in the soviet society in order to ease the pressure and help Soviets to continue to survive in the international arena. Moreover, the Soviets did not only make shifts in their internal policies but also in their foreign policy understanding as well. For instance withdrawal from Afghanistan, signing of various nuclear deterrence agreements with multi parties including the US are some of the key changes that occurred in the 1980s. However, the reforms of Gorbachev did not prevent the Soviets to stop its collapse and eventually after a series of events in 1991 the Soviet Union formally announced its dissolution[7].

The democratization, economic liberalization, and eventual collapse of the Soviet Union is commonly attributed to Mikhail Gorbachev's Perestroika and Glasnost reforms during the period of 1985-1991. This purpose of these reforms is still a trenchant question as the countries of the old Soviet Union, particular Russia, are being pressured to further liberalize their economies.

Moreover, while things were getting out of control in the Soviet Union, one nation that can illustrate how the Soviet Union finally collapsed is Russia. Things were like as it is when Mikhail Gorbachev came to power following the death of Konstantin Cherenko in 1985. Gorbachev used the policy of Glasnot, or “openness to freedom of

The cold war made a significant change to Eastern Europe. After WWII the Soviet Union wanted to spread their ideologies of communism and in order for them to do that, they

The Revolutions of 1989 during the late 20th century were events which resulted in the end of power under Communism throughout Eastern and Central Europe and parts of Asia. Several nations such as Poland, Ukraine, and East Germany abandoned a communist government and control of the Soviet Union. It was a period where the global superpower was slowing its pace in global dominance. Several reasons being that under a communist system people were persecuted for religious worship and had to face authoritarian rule by typically a dictatorship or a particular dominant party due to repression. The other reason also being poverty within the populations.

The many long-term internal causes of the collapse of the Soviet Union centralized around weaknesses in their economy. They had an inflexible central planning system, the inability to modernize, and the inefficiency in their agriculture production. Sometime around the 1970's the computer and automation revolution had emerged. This revolution took over the West, but practically missed the Soviet Union, except in the military sector (Baylis & Smith, 2001.) Gorbachev's goal in economic restructuring was to create a separation between the economic and the political. The major changes began with the legalization of private farming and business co-operatives, and the allowing of foreign company ownership over Soviet enterprises (Baylis &Smith, 2001) All of Gorbachev's ideas on economic restructuring backfired on him since the price levels were inconsistent, and a sense of social confusion about the future of their state was created.

Instead, he wanted the Communist leaders to gain the support of the people. Mikhail Gorbachev’s policies of perestroika meaning restructuring and glasnost meaning transparency called for people of these nations to reform. This meant that the Soviet Union had abandoned the policy of military intervention in support of communist regimes. In August 1991, Gorbachev's struggle with the old political elite in the communist party, the armed forces, and the military-industrial complex culminated. When the Soviets came to terms that the Iron Curtain was no longer the USSR and Gorbachev were over.

After the Second World War, the Soviet Union spread their political ideology among the countries of East Central Europe. Instantly, Josef Stalin spread Stalinization across each of the countries to assert Soviet control. He created totalitarian governments with limited freedoms for its citizens. Following the death of Stalin, the new leader of the Soviet Union, Nika Khrushchev, began changing the repressive policies of Stalin, opening the doors to the countries of East Central Europe to challenge the rule of the Soviets. Using the Soviet Thaw as an opportunity to reform the system of government, many countries including Hungary and Czechoslovakia had uprisings against Soviet Rule. The Hungarian Revolution and the Prague Spring were

The thing that started it all; Iraq invaded Kuwait after saying they would not attack any country which then began the American conflict in the Middle East. After Iraq invaded Kuwait, taking power over the current state, George H. W. Bush addressed an audience on August 8, 1990 to talk about how the United States was going to react to the Iraqi Army. Bush said America would take a stance and move the Iraqi Army out of Kuwait, to help Kuwait but also the world as a whole. He then went to say this could affect oil prices and that would affect the global economy more than just the United States. The audience that George H. W. Bush is aiming for is the middle to upper class U.S. citizens, appealing to older individuals who are more established because they are more politically minded. His use of more intellectual words in his speech appeals to the education level of this class. The purpose of this speech was to inform the audience what was about to happen with America’s involvement in the Middle East. In this speech, George H. W. Bush effectively uses rhetorical appeals to justify the USA’s involvement in the Iraqi war and show his angle of vision.

And things started to change for Poland starting from 1988. It was the communist government itself which initiated the talks and discussions, which allowed Solidarity's participation in the 1989 elections. And its candidates' victory gave rise to the first of the succession of transitions from communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe by marking the birth of the Third Polish Republic. In 1990, Jaruzelski resigned as the President of the Republic of Poland and, after the December 1990 elections, was succeeded by

‘”The result of long-term pressures” or a “series of accidents?”’ Which of these phrases more accurately describes the Eastern European revolutions of 1989?’

The current international system is fragmenting rapidly since the end of the Cold War. A lot of regions in the world are still trying to find the balance of power in the international system, which the U.S. often intervenes to provide its brand of “global leadership”. Some countries like China are emerging as a global power since a few years ago. Subsequently, this will lead to a major threat to the U.S. status as a global major power. The rise of power by China in the international scene signifies the unpredictable nature of the international system. I would argue that the three most critical challenges for the U.S. arising out of this environment are the future world globalization that will cause a conflict between its domestic and foreign policy, the rise of China as a global power, and the ever globalization of terrorism. I believe that the U.S. should be pragmatic in handling its foreign policy and handle each situation independently without a fix doctrine in order to minimize the unintended consequences produced by the globalization of the world.

As Giselle found herself devising a plan to find her mom, she realized those twelve years of her life without her mom strengthened her and her father, Jon, up. In fact, her father decided to move and start a business career and ventured out in the ‘business world’ and thought that it was time to seek out for a new place, Sutter’s Fort, California. Giselle really didn’t care, she blamed her father for the dispute between Jon and her mother. In Giselle’s eyes, it looked like Jon was purposely trying to annoy her even more, as they were traveling, cholera took a toll on a lot of people, which Giselle thought was abhorrent. She never gave cholera a lot of thought. However, Giselle was thankful how they lived in California before, so a lot of

The Cold War was a state of political hostility characterized by threats, propaganda and other measures short of open warfare, as defined by Google Dictionary. These 1989 Cold War Revolutions largely impacted the world and for many regions, opened up an opportunity to express a new perspective towards the challenges that were taking place throughout these countries. Poland, the Philippines, Chile, South Africa, Ukraine and China were all apart of these non-violent overthrows of various dictatorships. Each region endured various types of discrimination and exploitation throughout the Cold Wars end. Whether it was economic exploitation, political discrimination, or the violation of human and civil rights, non-violent revolutions rose throughout Eastern Europe. The book, 1989 Democratic Revolutions at the Cold War’s End, written by Padriac Kenney, analyzes these overthrows and discusses the outcomes for each region. For Poland, more specifically, these non-violent strikes began when they first came under the control of the Soviet Union in 1948. However, their resistance began in 1944, when the Soviet Union had just began liberating Polish territory. Starting off with an armed resistance from 1944 to 1947 and ending with the Solidarity movement in 1989, Poland finally had control of the government from the Communists. With a brutal start, Polish oppositionists realized there was a better, non-violent way to go. The rise of the Solidarity

The events that eventually led to the successful revolution in 1989 got their start in the “Prague Spring” in 1968. There was a brief period of political reform in Czechoslovakia in 1968, when Alexander Dubcek was elected to be the First Secretary of Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. Many of Dubcek’s reforms were trying to give more rights to the citizens as well as relaxing government censorship.