Evaluating the Demise of the Soviet Union

Editor's Introduction: The disintegration of the Soviet Union in late December 1991 was one of the most remarkable events of the twentieth century. The Cold War had ended two years earlier, in 1989, with the collapse of East European Communism, but the dissolution of the Soviet Union in late 1991 made clear that the Cold War was truly over and that a new phase of international politics had begun. To be sure, the advent of the post–Cold War era did not mean that the whole nature of the global system had changed. Rivalries and severe tensions between great powers continued to arise after the demise of the Soviet Union (most acutely in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the brutal war that ensued), and numerous states in various parts of the world continued to use military force to pursue their objectives. In other respects as well,...