The end of the cold war

The cold war divided the world for over forty years, threatened humanity with
instant destruction, and led to the death of at least 25 million people, most of these
occurring in that highly contested zone that came to be referred to during the cold
war (though less after) as the Third World. Yet in spite of these dangers and costs,
the cold war in its central core areas still managed to create a degree of stability that
the world had not experienced since the early part of the twentieth century. For this
reason many came to view the bipolar order after 1947 as something that was not
merely the expression of a given international reality but something that was
desirable and defensible too. Indeed, realists like Kenneth Waltz almost seemed to
celebrate the superpower relationship on the grounds that a world in which there
were two balancing powers limiting the actions of the other was likely to be a far
more stable world than one in which there were several competing states.
If one feature of the cold war was its bipolar structure, another was its highly
divided character born in the last analysis out of profoundly opposing views about
the best way of organizing society. Yet for all its intensity the cold war was very
much a managed conflict in which both sides recognized the limits of what they
could and could not do. Certainly, policy-makers in East and West appeared to
accept in private—if not in public—that their rival had legitimate security concerns
that the other should recognize. The cold war was thus fought within the framework
of a set of informal rules. This in part helps explain why it remained ‘cold’. Indeed,
howand why the cold war remained ‘cold’ has been the subject of much debate. Few,
however, would dispute the fact that whatever else may have divided the two
superpowers—ideology, economics, and the struggle for global influence—they
were in full agreement about one thing: the overriding need to prevent a nuclear war
that neither could win without destroying the world and themselves. This in the end
is why the superpowers acted with such caution for the greater part of the cold war
era. In fact, given the very real fear of outright nuclear war, the shared aim of the
two superpowers was not to destroy the other—though a few on both sides
occasionally talked in such terms—but rather of containing its ambitions while
avoiding anything that might lead to dangerous escalation (only once in 1962 did the
two come close to a nuclear exchange). This, in turn, helps explain another
important feature of the cold war: its stalemated and hence seemingly permanent
character.
One can thus imagine the enormous shock waves produced by what happened in
Eastern Europe in 1989. The world at the time was already undergoing dramatic
changes, the result in the main of radical new policies introduced by Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev. Many of course hoped that Gorbachev’s several reforms would
make the world a safer and more humane place. Hardly anybody, though, seriously
anticipated the collapse of communism and the coming down of the Berlin Wall.
Moreover, few believed that this revolutionary process could be achieved peacefully.
Such an eventuality had never been envisaged except by a few intellectual loners.
Nor had policy-makers planned for it. It was all rather disturbing, and not just for
those whose difficult job it was now to integrate former enemies back into the West.
Academics too had to come to terms with changes they had not anticipated and a
world they had not thought possible. At least two big questions now faced them.
One revolved around the problematic issue of prediction, or more precisely, why
most of the experts failed to anticipate one of the most important events of the
twentieth century. Here there was much shrugging of the proverbial shoulders but
little by way of serious reflection other than to suggest that prediction was either
impossible or that getting this mere ‘data point’ wrong proved very little about their
different theories. The other question focused on the issue ofcausation. This
discussion produced a large and useful literature. It did not, however, arrive at a
clear conclusion. Thus while most writers accepted that Gorbachev was critical to
what happened to 1989 (not all international events it seemed could be reduced to
structure), they could not agree as to his exact role. A few saw him as being far-
sighted. Some though wondered whether he had ever intended to end the cold war at
all. Nor did analysts come to any firm conclusion about the part played by
Gorbachev’s American counterpart, Ronald Reagan. To many Americans, Reagan’s
early tough policies towards what he termed ‘the evil Empire’ effectively consigned
the USSR into the dustbin of history. Others, however, were less persuaded, arguing
that other, more objective factors—long-term Soviet economic decline, East Euro
pean debt to the West, and the attractive pull of Western capitalism on a moribund
socialist system—played a much more important role in undermining communism.
Finally the end of the cold war generated a lively debate within the academic
discipline of International Relations (IR). Indeed, the events of 1989 played a major
role in shaping many of the discussions within the field during the 1990s, with an
increasingly embattled group of realists continuing to stress the importance of
material factors in compelling the USSR towards the negotiating table, and a rising
generation of constructivists, many of whom had done their original research on the
end of the cold war, insisting that the big transformation of the late 1980s was less
the by-product of a change in the relative capabilities of either the USSR or the USA
and more the result of Gorbachev’s adoption of a set of ideas that undermined the
logic of confrontation. In this way, a major discussion concerning one critical event
in world politics helped to define the great debates that divided scholars of IR in the
years thereafter.
 Box 4.1 The end of an era
‘Gorbachev may have earlier vowed that he would redefine the East-West
relationship. In reality he did much more, and whether as a result of Soviet
economic decline, a shift in ideas, imperial overstretch, or a simple failure to
understand the consequences of his own actions, set off a series of chain
reactions that did not just place the relationship on a new footing but brought it
to an end for ever.’

(Michael Cox (2007),‘Hans J. Morgenthau, Realism and the Rise and Fall of
the Cold War, in Michael C. Williams (ed.), Realism Reconsidered (Oxford:
Oxford University Press): 166)

Key Points

• The cold war was a complex relationship that assumed competition but
remained cold in large part because of the existence of nuclear weapons.
• Most experts assumed the cold war would continue and were surprised
when it came to a peaceful conclusion.
• There is no academic consensus as to why the cold war came to an end
when it did or why it did.
• Theendofthecoldwardivided—and still divides—International Relations
scholars into mainstream realists and ideas-oriented constructivists.