External Effects Of The Cold War

The soviet collapse was shaped overwhelmingly by domestic factors. External developments had a largely indirect impact on changes within the USSR, through the cumulative effects of underlying shifts in the international landscape and as a result of strategic moves that opened the Soviet Union to outside influence. Both kinds of developments made a difference by affecting the conditions in which the domestic political game was played out. Only on occasion did external factors intervene in developments more directly by influencing the behavior of key domestic actors. Through a combination of ‘ conditioning’ and ‘intervening’ effects, the international developments associated with the ending of the Cold War made a significant contribution to the process of collapse, and in particular to the speed and relatively peaceful nature of its course.
There were two areas in which underlying developments and strategic moves relating to the international position of the Soviet Union had important conditioning effects on the
To be sure, the arms race squeezed resources available for consumer production. And complaints about Moscow’s management of the economy formed part of nationalist platforms; but, typically, they served as adjuncts to the emotional and political case for independence. The sharp deterioration in the economic state of the country in 1990 to 1991 certainly reduced the capacity of the center to cope with political challenges at the periphery and in Moscow itself. The economic crisis was, however, connected less with international pressure than with the failings of the command economy and the flawed attempts at its reform.