The collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc detonated many regional conflicts,
which had been repressed in the bipolar international system. If we look at the structure of the
international system since the second half of the 1980s, we find that a significant change
occurred. In addition, Calleo (2009) mentioned that the economic and social crises in the
Soviet Union led to the formulation of a new foreign policy in 1985, when Gorbachev came
to power. In this period, the ideological character disappeared from Soviet policy, and the
ideas of interdependence and the balance of interests and peaceful solution to international
problems emerged. Moreover, the Soviet Union reduced its economic and military aid to
other countries, with economic interests the basis of cooperation. Brooks and Wohlforth
(2000 p. 11,40,45) limit the parameters of the shift in the Soviet Union to the following
elements:
1. The disappearance of the ideological nature in Soviet policy.
2. Erosion of the federal authority of Soviet Republics.
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4. The growing economic, political and social crisis.
Therefore, the Soviet Union adopted a set of actions that affected its military role beyond
its borders, as follows Ahmed (1992 p. 11-12):
1. Withdrawal of Soviet troops from Cuba and reducing economic aid.
2. Rapprochement with the USA.
3. Withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan.
4. The fall of the Warsaw Pact.
As a result of these changes, the Soviet Union collapsed, with a coincident rise in US
power. The main factors that contributed to the weakening of the structure, and subsequent
collapse of the Soviet Union, which are the foundation of the Soviet Union, which was based
on a single ideology (Marxism). This ideology was based on the prevention of the rest of the
cultures in the Union to exercise their rights and religions. Furthermore, the economic
collapse occurred as a natural result of the excessive building of the Soviet military arsenal at
the expense of food and other basic necessities of its people; the Soviet Union had wanted to
continue building a military machine for a superpower country with a Third World-like
economy (Snyder 2003). The long years of occupation of Afghanistan had damaged the
Soviet economy, as well as the psychological state of its citizens and military personnel. In
addition there are many other factors that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union, such as the
patterns of demographic growth, the globalisation of trade, US pressure and the space race
(Odom 2000 p. 393-394).
With regard to the New Union Treaty, Gorbachev implemented this Treaty, which was
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Soviet Union. The Treaty was called the New Union Treaty and proposed a new entity named
the Union of Sovereign States. This Treaty included the establishment of a federation of
republics with sovereignty, consisting of the previous Soviet Union states. Each of the
Republics was allowed to establish consular relations and direct trade with foreign countries
and the right of any country of the Union to withdraw according to the New Union Treaty.
The Soviet Union referendum of 1991 was to determine the fate of the Union. The
referendum asked one question of its citizens: “Do you consider necessary the preservation
of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a renewed federation of equal sovereign republics in which the rights and freedom of an individual of any nationality will be fully guaranteed?” (Tishkov 1997 p. 50). Nine republics of the fifteen republics participated in the
referendum. The referendum was boycotted by the remaining six republics, which were the
three Baltic republics, Georgia, Moldova and Armenia (Suny 1993).
The economic factors that impacted the federation were the absence of the
competitiveness elements of the Soviet economy and the deterioration of economic power as
a result of the inability of the economy to provide the methods of technological,
organisational and administrative development, which provides the most recent increase in
the rate of development. The decline in the volume of exports of arms and oil and natural gas
in the early 1990s were compounded by the huge military spending, which sapped the Soviet
Union’s financial resources. That the US government estimated that Soviet arms exports averaged about $20 billion annually during 1984-1989, using selling prices in 1991 dollars.
The figure for 1990, in the US estimate declined to $13.3 billion in 1990 and then fell by half
in 1991 to $6.5 billion. the Russian figures for arms exports are $7.8 billion in 1991 and $3
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ability of the state and the inability of the communist regime to achieve superiority, with the
weakness of the status of the Soviet Union as a superpower (Minxin and Pei 2009)
With the weak Soviet Union, the collapse of the Berlin Wall in October 1990 marked the
beginning of the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc (Brennan Jr, et al. 2013 p. 338-339). On the
9 November 1990, NATO and the Warsaw Pact members met in Paris to agree on a joint
declaration officially confirming the end of the Cold War. Indeed, they went further,
confirming that this announcement not only meant the end of an era lasting four decades,
marked by on-going conflicts, security dilemmas, arms races and mistrust, with humans
living under the threat of nuclear war, but a new page in relations between East and West
underpinned by a spirit of cooperation and friendship remote from the years of 1917-1945,
which marked the division of the world, and the start of the Cold War (Hogan 1992).
The logical consequence of Soviet foreign policy is that the old system collapsed and
bipolarity was ended. Thus, the features of the old international balance disappeared, and
gave way to the possibility of one global empire or a multi-pole regime. In addition,
international developments brought new challenges for the UN and its new role as a
cornerstone in an effective system of global collective security, while the Non-Aligned
Movement lost the traditional justification for its existence (Ibid).