Great Power Competition: Ghoulies, Beasties & The Second Cold War

Great Power Competition

Ghoulies, Beasties & The Second Cold War

by Mustang

The internal disintegration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) began in 1988 with the growing unrest within its constituent republics.  It ended in 1991 when the three principal Soviet republics (Russia, Ukraine, and Byelorussia) declared that they no longer existed.  Eleven other republics followed suit.  President Mikhail Gorbachev resigned; what remained of the Soviet parliament announced the end of the Soviet Era.  By the time William J. Clinton assumed the presidency, the world had already entered into a new geo-political phase.

In 1990, America’s primary competitors were the Soviet Union and Red China.  In 1991, only red China remained to challenge American leadership.  Russia re-emerged, of course, but for the ten years it took to re-organize, the former Eastern Bloc was relatively quiet.  In February 1993, Islamic fundamentalists bombed the World Trade Center.  Six people died, a thousand were injured, a blind sheik was arrested, and America went back to sleep.