سؤال قراءة ستيب محلول — الإشارة والمرجعية (تدريب 7952)

The US response to the End of the Cold War 1) When Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union (USSR) in 1985, no one predicted that the end of Cold War was only six years away 2) It all began in Poland in June 1989. A non-communist party did well in the general election and people were celebrating in the streets. Everyone expected Gorbachev to send the army in, but he did nothing at all. European communist governments under the Soviet influence started to fall one by one. In autumn 1989, East Germans were knocking down the Berlin Wall. Then communist governments fell in Hungary, Czechoslovakia and in Romania the people put the president in prison. 3) Demands for freedom soon spread to the Soviet Union and Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania announced their freedom from Soviet control. In December 1991. Russia itself followed these three and declared independence. The USSR was finished. Gorbachev was a president without a country. 4) Americans were shocked but pleased at these changes. Republicans were quick to argue that it was their actions that won the Cold War. They believed their spending policies during the 1980s and 1990s forced the Soviets to spend too much money on expensive equipment and weapons for its army. However, Professor Parker of Harvard University argues that it was a joint effort, started 25 years earlier by the Democrats when Harry Truman was president. 5) Other history professors pointed out that no one really won the Cold War. The United States spent enormous amounts of money building up their army for a war with the Soviet Union. This war never came. However, thousands of American lives were lost in unnecessary wars in Korea and Vietnam 6) Most Americans found it difficult to get used to the idea of no Cold War. Since 1945, Americans were born into a Cold War culture. They were used to thinking about the Soviet Union as a dangerous enemy with a large Army and nuclear weapons. Now the enemy was beaten, but the world remained dangerous. In many ways, facing one large enemy was simpler than the current situation where danger is unknown and comes from many small terrorist groups.