AP®︎ US History: Topic 9.3 Flashcards

The 1989–1991 collapse of Eastern European communism, reunification of Germany, and dissolution of the Soviet Union, ending the bipolar world order

President who pressured the Soviet Union through anticommunist rhetoric, military expansion, overseas intervention, and later arms-control diplomacy with Gorbachev

Reagan's 1983 speech portraying the Soviet Union as morally illegitimate and rejecting moral equivalence between the superpowers

Reagan's 1987 Brandenburg Gate speech challenging Gorbachev to remove the Berlin Wall and end Europe's political division

Major expansion of nuclear and conventional forces, including new missiles, the B-1 bomber, and a larger navy, intended to pressure the USSR and strengthen U.S. bargaining power

Reagan's proposed missile-defense system using advanced and space-based technology to intercept incoming nuclear weapons

Policy of aiding anticommunist governments and insurgents seeking to weaken or overthrow Soviet-backed regimes

Costly 1979–1989 Soviet occupation opposed by U.S.-supported mujahideen, which strained Soviet finances and morale before withdrawal

U.S.-supported armed opponents of Nicaragua's leftist Sandinista government and major beneficiaries of the Reagan Doctrine

Congressional restrictions on U.S. assistance to the Nicaraguan Contras that administration officials secretly attempted to evade

Scandal revealed in 1986 involving secret arms sales to Iran and the diversion of proceeds to the Contras despite congressional restrictions

Direct uses of force including the 1983 Grenada invasion, 1986 bombing of Libya, and Lebanon peacekeeping mission that ended after the Beirut barracks bombing

Long-term inefficiency, weak productivity, shortages, and heavy military costs that left the Soviet economy unable to sustain its commitments

Soviet leader who introduced glasnost and perestroika, negotiated with Reagan, and refused to use force to preserve Eastern European communist regimes

Gorbachev's policy of openness that reduced censorship and allowed criticism of officials, historical abuses, and Communist Party rule

Gorbachev's restructuring policy introducing limited market mechanisms and decentralization without creating a stable replacement for the command economy

Earlier Soviet claim of authority to intervene militarily to preserve communist rule, a policy Gorbachev effectively abandoned in Eastern Europe

Summit diplomacy from Geneva through Reykjavík, Washington, and Moscow that reduced tensions and produced major nuclear arms agreements

1987 U.S.-Soviet treaty eliminating an entire class of ground-launched missiles and establishing on-site inspections

1991 U.S.-Soviet agreement requiring major reductions in both countries' strategic nuclear arsenals

Rapid overthrow of communist governments across Eastern Europe, generally without Soviet military intervention

Independent Polish trade union that won the 1989 partly free elections and helped form the Soviet bloc's first noncommunist-led government

Opening of East German border crossings on November 9, 1989, symbolizing the collapse of communist authority and Europe's division

Largely peaceful 1989 revolution that ended communist rule in Czechoslovakia and brought dissident Václav Havel to the presidency

October 3, 1990, unification in which East Germany joined West Germany, with the reunified nation remaining in NATO.

December 1991 breakup of the USSR into fifteen independent states after reform, nationalism, economic crisis, and the failed August coup

Failed effort by communist hard-liners to remove Gorbachev and reverse reform, which instead weakened the Communist Party and accelerated Soviet dissolution

President of the Russian republic whose visible resistance to the August 1991 coup increased his power and hastened the Soviet Union's collapse

Loose association created by Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus in December 1991 as they agreed that the Soviet Union would cease to exist

President who cautiously managed the Cold War's end, supported German reunification, negotiated arms reductions, and led the Persian Gulf War coalition

Post-Soviet international system in which the United States remained the world's only superpower

Hope that reduced Cold War defense needs would allow military resources to be redirected toward domestic priorities

Iraqi dictator whose 1990 invasion and annexation of Kuwait triggered the U.S.-led Persian Gulf War

1991 U.S.-led, UN-authorized coalition war that expelled Saddam Hussein's Iraqi forces from Kuwait without occupying Baghdad

George H. W. Bush's vision of U.S. leadership through international institutions and multinational coalitions to resist aggression

Use of military or peacekeeping forces to address famine, civil war, ethnic violence, or mass suffering rather than a direct attack on the United States

1992–1994 humanitarian intervention that expanded into efforts to stabilize Somalia before 18 U.S. deaths in Mogadishu weakened public support and prompted withdrawal

President who expanded the Somalia mission and used U.S. and NATO power in Bosnia and Kosovo for stability and humanitarian purposes

1999 NATO air campaign against Yugoslav and Serbian forces, defended as humanitarian protection but conducted without explicit UN Security Council authorization

Forced removal of an ethnic population from a territory, as occurred during the wars in the former Yugoslavia

Post-Cold War expansion of NATO, including Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic in 1999, which strengthened Central European ties to the West but angered Russia

Approach favoring U.S. action through alliances, the United Nations, or broad international coalitions whenever possible

Dispute over whether the sole superpower should actively confront aggression and humanitarian crises or avoid costly, open-ended foreign commitments

Varied groups that fought the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan with U.S. aid generally routed through Pakistan

Post-Yugoslav conflict involving ethnic nationalism and ethnic cleansing that ended in 1995 after NATO air strikes and U.S.-supported diplomacy

1995 peace agreement negotiated with U.S. assistance that ended the Bosnian War