Similar questions: COLD WAR AMERICA WIN COMMUUNISUM.
The Soviets lost the cold war because they bankrupted themselves trying to keep up with the US. They were spending as much as 25% of their GNP on the military, and their economic growth rate was near 0%. Plus the Soviets suffered from a sharp fall in currency earnings in the 1980s because of a downward slide in world oil prices.
That coupled with Reagan's escalation of the arms race to include space, as in "star wars", finally broke the Soviet's back and forced them into negotiation with the west. End of the Cold WarMain article: Cold War (1985-1991)By the early 1980s, the Soviet armed forces were the largest in the world by many measures—in terms of the numbers and types of weapons they possessed, in the number of troops in their ranks, and in the sheer size of their military-industrial base.39 However, the quantitative advantages held by the Soviet military often concealed areas where the Eastern bloc dramatically lagged behind the West. This led many U.S. observers to vastly overestimate Soviet power.(LaFeber 2002, 340)By the late years of the Cold War, Moscow had built up a military that consumed as much as twenty-five percent of the Soviet Union's gross national product at the expense of consumer goods and investment in civilian sectors.
(LaFeber 2002, 332) But the size of the Soviet armed forces was not necessarily the result of a simple action-reaction arms race with the United States. (Odom) Instead, Soviet spending on the arms race and other Cold War commitments can be understood as both a cause and effect of the deep-seated structural problems in the Soviet system, which accumulated at least a decade of economic stagnation during the Brezhnev years.(see Economy of the Soviet Union) Soviet investment in the defense sector was not necessarily driven by military necessity, but in large part by the interests of massive party and state bureaucracies dependent on the sector for their own power and privileges. (LaFeber 2002, 335)By the time Mikhail Gorbachev had ascended to power in 1985, the Soviets suffered from an economic growth rate close to zero percent, combined with a sharp fall in hard currency earnings as a result of the downward slide in world oil prices in the 1980s.
(LaFaber 2002, 331-333) (Petroleum exports made up around 60 percent of the Soviet Union's total export earnings.) (LaFeber 2002, 332) To restructure the Soviet economy before it collapsed, Gorbachev announced an agenda of rapid reform. (see perestroika and glasnost) Reform required Gorbachev to redirect the country's resources from costly Cold War military commitments to more profitable areas in the civilian sector. As a result, Gorbachev offered major concessions to the United States on the levels of conventional forces, nuclear weapons, and policy in Eastern Europe.
However, many U.S. Soviet experts and administration officials doubted that Gorbachev was serious about winding down the arms race. (LaFeber, 2002) But the new Soviet leader eventually proved more concerned about reversing the Soviet Union's deteriorating economic condition than fighting the arms race with the West. (Palmowski) The Kremlin made major military and political concessions; in response Reagan agreed to renew talks on economic issues and the scaling-back of the arms race.
The East-West tensions that had reached intense new heights earlier in the decade rapidly subsided through the mid-to-late 1980s. In 1988, the Soviets officially declared that they would no longer intervene in the affairs of allied states in Eastern Europe. In 1989, Soviet forces withdrew from URL1 December 1989, Gorbachev and George H.W. Bush declared the Cold War officially over at a summit meeting in Malta.
40 But by then, the Soviet alliance system was on the brink of collapse, and the Communist leaders of the Warsaw Pact states were losing power. In the USSR itself, Gorbachev tried to reform the party to destroy resistance to his reforms, but, in doing so, ultimately weakened the bonds that held the state and union URL2 February 1990, the Communist Party was forced to surrender its 73-year old monopoly on state power. By December of the next year, the union-state also dissolved, breaking the USSR up into fifteen separate independent states.
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_war#End_of_the_Cold_War .
Economy and public support The west was able to out-spend the Soviets. The Soviets could not support their armies, missiles, and space projects, and still provide food, fuel, education, and housing to their people. We were able to spend so much because we were able to borrow so much.
Countries like Japan invested billions of dollars. Our national debt is financed by promises to pay later. Fewer countries supported the Soviets in this way, and their economy crumbled.
Their citizens stopped supporting the Soviets, and the USSR broke apart. There were many other factors that cause the decline of the Soviets: corruption, super-centralized control, more propaganda than substance, etc. The inability to keep pace economically was the main cause. Manimal's Recommendations The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism Amazon List Price: $29.95 Used from: $5.57 Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5 (based on 13 reviews) The Rise and Fall of the The Soviet Economy: An Economic 1945 - 1991 Amazon List Price: $47.80 Used from: $17.75 The rise and fall of the Soviet Empire .
Because the Russian economy collapsed They simply ran out of money and could no longer maintain their position as a superpower. The system was corrupt and unbelievably inefficient. (Hmmmm..... Could we be headed for the same wake-up call?) trekmuse's Recommendations The Cold War: A New story Amazon List Price: $16.00 Used from: $7.95 Average Customer Rating: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 45 reviews) The Cold War: A story in Documents and Eyewitness Accounts Amazon List Price: $34.95 Used from: $18.66 Broken Empire : After the Fall of the USSR Amazon List Price: $50.00 Used from: $5.45 Average Customer Rating: 4.0 out of 5 (based on 6 reviews) .
" "the cold war and the impacts it had on our foreign affairs?" "whats the economic history of america.
It seemed a good excuse for Japan to start a war.
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.