In 1983 US soldiers landed in Grenada to stop an attempt communist takeover. In 1983 the USA also spent $300,000 million on defense.
In 1984 the eastern block countries boycotted the Olympic Games which were held in America
In 1987 Reagan and Gorbachev signed the INF treaty which was also called the intermediate nuclear forces treaty.
Gorbachev
Gorbachev was around when the cold war ended in the late 1980’s to early 1990’s. Gorbachev believed in perestroika which meant economic restructuring. The cold war ended because the USSR ran out of money. By 1989 the Soviet Union was bankrupt. This was because of the cost of the arms race, the war in Afghanistan, the red army, the space race, the failings of the communist economic system and the cost of COMECON which was a massive drain on the Soviet Union’s resources.
The government couldn’t afford to pay the wages of the red army and this meant that without the red army they could not stay in control of countries in the eastern bloc. Gorbachev also knew that in order to survive the USSR needed to cut back on spending so this meant that the soviet unions massive defense spending would have to be dramatically cut back. He also knew that he would need to gain investment and new technology from the west.
Another important thing was Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost which meant a new sense of openness. The powers of the secret police were restricted and criticisms of the government were allowed. Gorbachev was not prepared to use force to maintain communist control over the countries in the eastern bloc and to him the prospect of bloodshed was unacceptable.
In 1989 all countries in the eastern block which had been occupied by the red army since WWII gained independence. In 1989 the Berlin wall was also torn down and this was the biggest symbol of the collapse of the cold war.
On the third of December Bush and Gorbachev declared the cold war over.
In 1991 the United States and the Soviet Union signed an agreement which made them reduce their stockpiles of nuclear warheads by about a third. START was signed in Moscow by Bush and Gorbachev. The pens they used to sign the treaty were made out of melted down SS-20 and Pershing II missiles.
