The Aftermath: During the Cold War, the superpowers controlled global decisions, and the ideological contest between them constrained the secretary-general. Today we are living in the midst of a worldwide revolution. With the end of the Cold War, an international system that had politically, economically, and strategically involved every country in the world disappeared almost overnight. As international trade and commerce have rapidly expanded, peoples and places have undergone unprecedented change. The explosion of scientific knowledge has produced remarkable inventions, and human horizons appear limitless. With the communications revolution, image is becoming more influential than fact.
Now that the Soviet Union, with its centralized political and economic system, has ceased to exist, the fifteen newly formed independent countries which emerged in its aftermath are faced with an overwhelming task. They must develop their economies, reorganize their political systems, and, in many cases, settle bitter territorial disputes. A number of wars have developed on the peripheries of the former Soviet Union. Additionally, the entire region is suffering a period of severe economic hardship. However, despite the many hardships facing the region, bold steps are being taken toward democratization, reorganization, and rebuilding in most of the countries of the former Soviet Union.
Here is a clickable map of the former USSR countries with correlating numbers to country info listed below the map.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:USSR_Republics_Numbered_Alphabetically.png
(2003) The Chinese Government revealed few details of its first manned space flight, prior to Wednesday's launch. But the launch of Shenzhou 5 symbolises China's entry to the elite club of space-faring nations at a time when the US is agonising over manned space flight.
According to Douglas Millard, curator of space technology at London's Science Museum, the "ripples" of the Cold War are still passing through us, leaving the old space powers - the US and Russia - in a state of flux.
"We're still riding on the coat tails of the Cold War," he says. "A lot of the old rule books have been thrown away."
There is no doubt that the US is still the heavyweight by far, holding the purse-strings for about 80% of the world space budget and largely financing the International Space Station.
"Big projects like this are a good way for the Chinese leadership to maintain its legitimacy," he says.
The end of the Cold War in 1989 and the subsequent breakup of the Soviet Union changed the global situation fundamentally, leaving the United States as the only superpower. The Cold War justification for foreign military interventions thereby disappeared, but new reasons for such ventures multiplied. In varying scales of magnitude, U.S. armed forces were deployed in Panama (1989), Somalia (1992), Haiti (1994), Bosnia (1995), and Kosovo (1999), the latter including a bombing campaign against Serbia. By far the largest overseas operation was the Gulf War of 1991 against Iraq, which involved more than 500,000 U.S. troops to protect the industrial world's oil supply, but motives for the other interventions varied widely. In Somalia, for example, where no visible U.S. interests were at stake, the goal was to remove the obstacles to feeding a starving population, and in Bosnia and Kosovo it was to prevent the out-break of regional war and prevent mass genocide. Some saw the United States as world policeman, others as global bully, but none could deny the reality of the nation's power and influence virtually everywhere on the globe.
RESOURCES:
www.ibiblio.org/expo/soviet.exhibit/coldwar.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War
www.infoplease.com http://library.thinkquest.org
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