COLD WAR TH

AWS

NIXON (EARLY 1970S)

Detente: Easing/Thawing of Cold WarStrategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I)Trade agreements/cultural exchange

Watergate

WHY DOES THE USSR COLLAPSE?• Invasion of Afghanistan

weakens USSR• Gorbachev’s reforms

•Glasnost (openness) • Perestroika: restructuring of Soviet economy•Nuclear Treaty

• Communist governments fell in the satellite states (Poland, Hungary, Romainia, Czech, E. Germany)

COLLAPSE IN EAST GERMANY• Berlin Wall (1961)• Wall was a symbol of communist

oppression• Fall of the Wall symbolized failure of

communism and the end of the Cold War• E. German Communist party dissolved

within weeks• 1990: Germany reunited

THE FALL OF THE USSR

Causes

• Leadership of Gorbachev• Glasnost• Perestroika• Economic Problems• Freedom movement in E. Europe

Effects

• Loss of Power• End of Cold War• Economic Hardships• Conflict between prodemocrats and

procommunists• Forming of independent states