HIST103: World History (1600–Present)

The Cold War, it has been said, was won by capitalist democracy and free trade, providing goods and services better than the Soviet system. On the other hand, some of the ideals of Marxist thought, such as universal employment, welfare, and equality, have tended to be neglected because they were associated with the system that failed. Marxism set out to create a Utopian society but, without checks and balances on power, ended in a totalitarian state.

Among those who claim credit for ending the Cold War are Pope John Paul II and Sun Myung Moon. Both resolutely opposed the Soviet system, as did such Cold War warriors as Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. The Catholic Church, Sun Myung Moon's Unification movement, and other religious agencies kept up a barrage of pro-democracy and pro-civil liberties propaganda that contributed to the people's desire, in the end, for such freedoms their leaders had denied them.

Of these, the most comprehensive and far-ranging response to communism was that of Sun Myung Moon. His efforts included the constant mobilization and extreme levels of sacrifice by his religious followers toward this end. Further, it entailed the investment of untold resources into creating and maintaining major institutions at all levels of society devoted to opposing and challenging communism. Perhaps most important, however, was the work of his community under his direction at the philosophical and ideological level. Unification thought provided the foundation for a rigorous philosophical challenge to dialectical and historical materialism, penetratingly rendered, developed, and relentlessly disseminated by Unification philosophers.

Ultimately, the Soviet system collapsed from within, unable to provide the goods and services necessary to sustain its people or to make welfare payments to the elderly. Soviet youth felt betrayed by their revolutionary grandparents, who had promised a better society than in the capitalist West.

During the Cold War, both sides had unrealistic stereotypes of the other, which aggravated tensions. In the United States, Senator Joseph McCarthy promoted paranoia about communism through the House Committee on Un-American Activities. It targeted almost any person whose ideas and sympathies were thought to be left of center.

In its foreign policy, the United States propped up dictators and armed insurgents, however brutal they wielded their personal power, as long as they were anti-communist. They thus aided Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire, the Contras in Nicaragua, and the Taliban in Afghanistan, among others. The Soviet Union did the same thing with its foreign policy, propping up dictatorial regimes that opposed the West. The Vietnam War and its conclusion reflected this policy. The Soviet Union's intervention in Afghanistan a decade later was widely referred to as the Soviet Union's Vietnam.

While both U.S. and Soviet intervention remained focused on one another, many conflicts and economic disasters went unaddressed. The United Nations Security Council suffered frequent deadlock since the United States and the Soviet Union could each veto any resolution. The Soviet representative, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov (1890-1986), was known as "Mr. Veto" because he often vetoed applications for membership of the UN. This was in part retaliation for U.S. opposition to membership of the various Soviet republics, which were considered puppet states.

On September 11, 1990, U.S. President George H. W. Bush spoke of the start of a new age following the end of the Cold War, warning that dictators could no longer "count on East-West confrontation to stymie concerted United Nations action against aggression" since a "new partnership of nations" had begun. In this new world order, he said, aggression would not be tolerated, and all the "nations of the world, East and West, North and South, can prosper and live in harmony." He intimated that without compromising U.S. security, the defense budget could also be reduced. The end of what was often called the bipolar age (with two world powers) has been seen as an opportunity to strengthen the United Nations.

Bush set a goal of international cooperation not only to achieve peace but also to make the world a much better place – "A world where the rule of law supplants the rule of the jungle. A world in which nations recognize the shared responsibility for freedom and justice. A world where the strong respect the rights of the weak."

The end of the Cold War provided both new opportunities and dangers. Civil wars and terrorism have created a new era of international anarchy and instability in the power vacuum left by the Cold War. From the genocides in Rwanda and Sudan to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have witnessed both failure of peacekeeping by the United Nations and the inability of the United States, as the lone superpower, to keep world order. A nobler and better use of power is required for future world order.