第1个回答 2008-01-10
Cold War: A Brief History
For more than forty years, the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union directly threatened each other with nuclear weapons. This period of time is referred to as The Cold War. This section explores the major events of this period including; the development of the hydrogen bomb, the nuclear arms race, détente, nuclear proliferation and the nuclear world after the end of the Cold War.
U.S.-Soviet relations improved considerably during the middle 1980s. At a dramatic summit meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland, in October 1986, Gorbachev proposed a 50-percent reduction in the nuclear arsenals of each side, and for a time it seemed as though a historic agreement would be reached. The summit ended in failure, owing to differences over SDI. However, on December 8, 1987, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty was signed in Washington, eliminating an entire class of nuclear weapons. The INF Treaty was the first arms-control pact to require an actual reduction in nuclear arsenals rather than merely restricting their proliferation.
As the decade came to an end, much of the Eastern Bloc began to crumble. The Hungarian government took down the barbed wire on its border with Austria and the West. The Soviet Union did nothing in response. Although travel was still not completely free, the Iron Curtain was starting to unravel. On November 10, 1989, one of the most famous symbols of the Cold War came down: the Berlin Wall. By the end of the year, leaders of every Eastern European nation except Bulgaria had been ousted by popular uprisings.
By mid-1990, many of the Soviet republics had declared their independence. Turmoil in the Soviet Union continued, as there were several attempts at overthrowing Gorbachev. On December 8, 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Boris Yeltsin, president of the Russian Republic, formed the Commonwealth of Independent States (C.I.S.). After 45 years, the Cold War was over.
第2个回答 2008-01-10
The Effects of the Cold War
The United States believed that the Soviet Union's expansion threatened the developing nations of the world. So, in 1949 President Truman and Congress approved nearly $400 million for technical development programs in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. The goal of this Point Four Program was to modernize and strengthen developing nations and discourage the growth of communism.
Gorbachev's policy of Glasnost eliminated the strict censorship practiced for hundreds of years. Glasnost stands for openness, and Soviet citizens were now allowed to speak openly about their country's problems. Perestroika, or "restructuring," was Gorbachev's attempt to end the inefficiency and corruption in government.
The United States and other Western nations decided to form alliances against possible Soviet attempts to extend their sphere of influence. In April 1949 the United States signed the North Atlantic Treaty. Members agreed that an attack on one of them would be considered an attack on all of them. The Soviets later formed an opposing alliance known as The Warsaw Pact. Because of the arms race many countries in the world now own nuclear weapons.本回答被提问者采纳