Florian Wastl CWSC 13Feb08

Florian Wastl, 13 February 2008

Florian [email protected]

IR50213 February 2008

Draft – please do not quote or pass on.

Process, not Factors: an Alternative Account of the End of the Cold War

1. Introduction

There can be no doubt that the end of the Cold War was a highly complex event in-

volving the interplay of many factors over the years. And yet, the five common ap-

proaches to explain the end of the Cold War which exist in the discipline largely fail

to take account of this complexity. Instead, they (a) each posit just one discrete factor

which they deem to have been, more than any other, responsible for the end of the

Cold War; and for each approach, this is a different factor, depending on their as-

sumptions about the nature of international politics. They also (b) rely on largely es-

sentialist conceptions of social reality in which preformed entities are thought to de-

termine the nature of social relations. As a result, each approach is able to account

only for those factors which are consistent with ‘its’ preformed entities. Together (a)

and (b) lead to a situation in which the dominant approaches in the discipline are un-

able to provide a unified account of the events which led to the end of the Cold War.

A fuller account of the process is possible only through a ‘disaggregation’1 of events

and explanations.

In this paper, I will seek to apply an approach which focuses not on factors but on the

particular interactions between them. It thereby enables us to analyse the process as a

whole, not merely snapshots of its parts. The Cold War, then, ended not because of

1 Wohlforth, William C., ‘Scholars, Policy Makers, and the End of the Cold War’, in ibid. (ed.), Wit-nesses to the End of the Cold War (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p.283; see below for a full explication of this term.

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any particular factor or factors per se but because of their timely and largely non-lin-

ear interaction and confluence.

2. A Plethora of Factors

The end of the Cold War was the biggest shift in international relations for at least a

generation. It saw the end of a global, bipolar conflict between two socio-economic

systems which had been pitted against each other for some 40 years, with enough fire

power on each side to destroy the world many times over. Many were taken by sur-

prise by the speed and the peaceful nature of this rapidly unfolding event—but most

of all they were surprised that it happened at all. Asked in 1984, not many people—

scholars of International Relations or statesmen—would have suspected the Cold War

was about to end, much less that it would be over by 1990. In fact, the early 1980s

had brought a significant rise in tensions between the two superpowers after a brief

period of thaw in the 1970s. Yet, between March 1985 when Mikhail Gorbachev took

office and October 1990 when Germany was reunified, the Cold War went from being

the defining feature of the international system—permanent in the minds of many—to

becoming no feature at all, irrelevant to the realities of a ‘new world order’2. In the

space of only five and a half years, the world had witnessed the enactment of wide-

ranging domestic reforms in the Soviet Union; the signing of numerous arms control

treaties between the Soviet Union and the United States; the gradual dismantling of

the Soviet socialist economy and of communist ideology among the Soviet leadership;

the revocation of the Brezhnev Doctrine, shortly followed by the end of communism

in Eastern Europe after an avalanche of largely peaceful revolutions; and Soviet ac-

2 Bush Sr., George, on the eve of Operation Desert Storm to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait, 16 January 1991.

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ceptance of German reunification within NATO. The demise of the Soviet Union it-

self followed little over a year later.

The question is why this rapid and unexpected change. Unfortunately, we are unlikely

to be given any straight-forward answer. The end of the Cold War did not just consist

of one single major event but it was made up of a sequence of many ‘smaller’ events

and changes, and their interplay. It involved many actors and, despite the speed of

change, it took years to unfold. This, but also the fact that no one had seen it coming

right until the end, suggests that there must have been a whole plethora of possible

reasons, factors, and causes—and combinations between them—that may have con-

tributed to the ending of the Cold War.

There are currently five dominant approaches in the discipline which seek to explain

the end of the Cold War. If one is to believe their judgement, there are a maximum of

five chief factors which caused the Cold War to end, a different one according to each

approach. Taken together, these were (i) ‘new thinking’, (ii) Soviet terminal decline,

(iii) Soviet domestic politics, i.e. the attempt to renew socialism from within, and the

crucial influences on events by (iv) Mikhail Gorbachev and (v) Ronald Reagan.

Yet, consider how many other possible factors may also have played a role in bring-

ing the Cold War to an end. Consider, for example, the suggestion put forward by

Vladislav Zubok (2005) that the Soviet Union was in fact materially much stronger

vis-à-vis the United States in the 1980s than in the late 1940s, yet had lost much of the

moral sense of purpose it had had shortly after World War II. 3 Zubok argues that, by

the early 1980s, many in the Soviet elites and leadership began to question the ra-

tionale for opposing the United States, as it was becoming clear that the Soviet Union

3 Zubok, Vladislav M., ‘Unwrapping an enigma: Soviet elites, Gorbachev and the end of the Cold War’, in Pons, Silvio and Federico Romero (eds.), Reinterpreting the End of the Cold War: Issues, in-terpretations, periodizations (London/New York: Frank Cass, 2005), pp.158-160

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did not meet many of the expectations that had been vested in it, economic, social, or

moral. “A growing number,” he writes, “looked towards the Western countries, not as

enemies, but as objects of emulation and envy.”4 Zubok argues that Soviet elites, hav-

ing lost their belief in the world-bettering mission of their state, were also losing their

imperial will.

And there is more. The 1975 Helsinki Final Act, according to Nick Bisley (2004),

may have had a similar effect. It not only “provided a means with which people could

measure Soviet action and find it wanting”,5 but more importantly, Bisley writes, by

signing up to some key liberal principles of international relations, “Helsinki planted

the first seed of normalisation among elites, dissidents and eventually the population

as a whole.”6 It was the first acceptance by the Soviets of their normality as a state in

the international system. Bisley argues that the Soviet drive towards normality, and its

eventual completion, ultimately brought the Cold War to a close.7

Or consider the impact of ‘Eurocommunism’ on the increasing social-democratisation

of the Soviet leadership and their reform agenda. Communists in Spain and France,

but particularly those from the strong communist party in Italy, had been critical of

Soviet-style communism for some time. Odd Arne Westad (2005) suggests that, later

on, they may have come to serve as an inspiration for reformers within the CPSU, as

Italian communists were strongly of the view that democratic politics in fact suited

socialism best.8

4 Zubok, ‘Unwrapping an enigma’, pp.158-159; this is not the same as the decline argument which is focused on a disparity in material capabilities and not on disillusioned elites.5 Bisley, Nick, The End of the Cold War and the Causes of Soviet Collapse (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), p.1026 Bisley, End of the Cold War, p.1027 Bisley, End of the Cold War, pp.76, 87, 938 Italian Communists regularly won about 30% of the Italian vote; Westad, Odd Arne, ‘Beginnings of the end: how the Cold War crumbled’, in Pons, Silvio and Federico Romero (eds.), Reinterpreting the End of the Cold War: Issues, interpretations, periodizations (London/New York: Frank Cass, 2005), pp.71-73; see also Lebow, Richard Ned and Janice Gross Stein, ‘Understanding the End of the Cold War as a Non-Linear Confluence’, in Herrmann, Richard K. and Richard Ned Lebow (eds.), Ending the Cold War: Interpretations, Causation, and the Study of International Relations (New York: Palgrave,

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Furthermore, there was Willy Brandt’s ‘Ostpolitik’ of the early 1970s which had

opened more doors in the Soviets’ protective fence than many Eastern regimes had

anticipated, and ultimately, more than they could bear. Westad writes that not only did

West German engagement lower fears of a revanchist Germany in Eastern Europe,

thereby lowering the Soviet grip on these countries as a communist bulwark against

the German threat, but it also made Eastern European regimes more accountable in

the eyes of their own people, and regimes were keen, but ultimately not very success-

ful, to limit the contacts Ostpolitik had created.9

Not to mention the election of Polish Pope John Paul II in 1978. Agostino Giovagnoli

(2005) argues that John Paul II’s election was a major cause for concern for the re-

gimes of the Eastern bloc. It was not so much his anti-communism and emphasis on

human rights, which had been shared by his three predecessors, that posed a problem

for the USSR and other communist countries in eastern Europe. Rather, it was that

Karol Wojtyla was of Slavish origin, came from Poland, spoke people’s language, and

had lived under communism himself.10 Thus he was able, as Giovagnoli writes, to of-

fer “an alternative to communism’s explanation of the needs of [eastern European]

populations, an alternative that the communist regimes were ‘ideologically’ unable to

defeat.”11 He spoke for many in the region when he emphasised long-standing con-

tinuities and conceived of Europe as a unitary whole. All this undermined the ideolo-

gical hold of communism and made John Paul II dangerous to the regimes of the So-

viet bloc—and it may ultimately have contributed to the end of the Cold War.

2004), pp.200, 205; and Lévesque, Jacques, ‘The Emancipation of Eastern Europe’, in Herrmann, Richard K. and Richard Ned Lebow (eds.), Ending the Cold War: Interpretations, Causation, and the Study of International Relations (New York: Palgrave, 2004), pp.125-1269 Westad, ‘Beginnings of the end’, pp.69-7110 Giovagnoli, Agostino, ‘Karol Wojtyla and the end of the Cold War’, in Pons, Silvio and Federico Romero (eds.), Reinterpreting the End of the Cold War: Issues, interpretations, periodizations (Lon-don/New York: Frank Cass, 2005), pp.84, 8711 Giovagnoli, ‘Karol Wojtyla’, p.88

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And what of Soviet Third World engagements? The fostering of socialist regimes

around the world, and the installation of new ones wherever possible, was long per-

ceived to be an important part of the global contest between socialism and capitalism.

Yet, as Westad argues, Soviet disenchantments in regard to their Third World com-

mitments may have played a much greater part in effecting the foreign policy reori-

entation of the 1980s than previously believed.12 In the two years between the Soviet

intervention in Afghanistan in 1979 and non-intervention in Poland in 1981, an im-

portant shift may have taken place, as Soviet elites were becoming increasingly disil-

lusioned with the state of affairs in socialist regimes around the world, and were be-

ginning to count the cost of their involvements. This shift could have already set the

path for years to come. “It is not surprising,” Westad finds, “that many who had first

engineered, and then rejected, Soviet interventionism later re-emerged as reformers

during the Gorbachev era.”13

Consider also the potentially important impact of the change in mutual threat percep-

tions on the easing of tensions during the latter years of the Cold War. Robert Jervis

(1996) argues that the Cold War was in large part driven by the existence of conflict-

ing social systems and the threat they posed to each other. As the Soviet leadership’s

increasing social-democratisation and its disillusionment with socialism’s record was

changing Soviet perceptions of the threat posed by capitalism and the West, so

Gorbachev’s public repudiation of ideology radically changed the United States’ per-

ception of the USSR—despite the continued existence of large arsenals of nuclear

weapons on both sides.14 Indeed, Jervis writes “from what Secretary of State Shultz

says, it appears that the United States was more impressed by the renunciation of

12 Westad, ‘Beginnings of the end’, pp.76-7713 Westad, ‘Beginnings of the end’, p.7714 Jervis, Robert, ‘Perception, Misperception, and the End of the Cold War’, in Wohlforth, William C. (ed.), Witnesses to the End of the Cold War (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp.225-231

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ideology in Gorbachev’s UN speech than by the concrete promise to reduce troop

levels in Eastern Europe.”15 This reduction in mutual threat perceptions led to a

change in the terms of engagement between the two sides.

As did personal relations between the two groups of leaders. Fred I. Greenstein (1996)

argues that the frequency of negotiations between the two sides in the period from

1985 to 1989 provided them with an important ‘safety net’ to deal with events or mis-

understandings that might previously have led to a chilling in relations. Often leaders

simply knew each other well enough to give one another the benefit of the doubt.

“The great bulk of the change in superpower relations during the second term of the

Reagan presidency,” writes Greenstein, therefore “took less tangible forms than arms

control agreements and efforts to reduce force levels. In large part it consisted of

transformations in mind-sets, perceptions, and expectations. Where suspicion and an-

imosity had been, guarded trust and goodwill came to be.”16

And the list continues. Much is often made of Reagan’s hard-line policies which are

said to have driven the Soviet Union beyond breaking point and out of business. Yet,

his hard-line approach, according to Greenstein, may also have had a much more

subtle, if not necessarily less effective, impact on the course of events which led to the

end of the Cold War. Through his tough anti-communist stance, Greenstein argues,

Reagan was uniquely placed to negotiate an end to the Cold War. His outspoken op-

position to communism gave many the feeling that he was an extraordinarily safe pair

of hands in his dealings with the Soviets. This made him all but invulnerable to right-

wing attack for seeking an accommodation with the Soviet Union.17 And it was of

some importance that he could engage with Gorbachev as freely as he did. According

15 Jervis, ‘Perception, Misperception, and the End of the Cold War’, pp.225-22616 Greenstein, Fred I., ‘Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the End of the Cold War: What Differ-ence Did They Make?’, in Wohlforth, William C. (ed.), Witnesses to the End of the Cold War (Bal-timore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp.200, 20717 Greenstein, ‘Reagan, Gorbachev, and the End of the Cold War’, pp.215-216

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to Bisley, American “willingness to talk in reasonable and open terms was of crucial

importance to Gorbachev and the changes he was trying to impose. […] The Americ-

ans helped give Gorbachev a very important platform by embracing him as a person

to talk to, to take seriously and, belatedly to believe in.”18

Nor should one forget the more ‘accidental’ developments which took place during

this period, and which may have contributed to ending the Cold War. Robert English

(2005) argues that Chernobyl provided a push for domestic reform by exposing the

corruption and inhumanity of the Stalinist command-administrative system, as it

emerged that the Soviet leadership and, by extension their international counterparts,

had been misled by hardliners from within the regime. Meanwhile, the outpouring of

Western aid and goodwill strengthened internal support for Gorbachev’s foreign

policy stance and sparked a renewed urgency on his part to try to break the deadlock

in US-Soviet relations.19 In short, as Richard Ned Lebow and Janice Gross Stein

(2004) write, “the cover-up of Chernobyl […] drove home the lessons of openness

and international cooperation to Gorbachev and made it easier for him to implement

restructuring.”20

A similar ‘accident’ was provided by young West German interloper Matthias Rust in

May 1987 when he landed a small plane on Red Square. Archie Brown (2004) argues

that Gorbachev used this as an opportunity to purge the military and replace defence

minister Sergey Sokolov with Dmitriy Yazov who was more inclined towards

Gorbachev and his policies than Sokolov.21 This ‘quiet coup’, in the words of Anatoly

18 Bisley, End of the Cold War, p.10019 English, Robert, ‘Ideas and the end of the Cold War: rethinking intellectual political change’, in Pons, Silvio and Federico Romero (eds.), Reinterpreting the End of the Cold War: Issues, interpreta-tions, periodizations (London/New York: Frank Cass, 2005), pp.128-12920 Lebow and Gross Stein, ‘End of the Cold War as a Non-Linear Confluence’, p.20721 Brown, Archie, ‘Gorbachev and the End of the Cold War’, in Herrmann, Richard K. and Richard Ned Lebow (eds.), Ending the Cold War: Interpretations, Causation, and the Study of International Relations (New York: Palgrave, 2004), p.44; Lebow and Gross Stein, ‘End of the Cold War as a Non-Linear Confluence’, pp.198, 207

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Dobrynin, 22 chairman of the CPSU’s International Department at the time, enabled

Gorbachev to deflect powerful opposition to his plans for disarmament and other pro-

posed changes. Rust’s flight to Red Square may, therefore, have been an important

factor in facilitating those processes which eventually led to the end of the Cold

War.23

Finally, we must not forget time and process as a potential factor. The end of the Cold

War was a long, drawn-out process, not a set event, and conditions at the outset were

very different from those further along in this process. Neither of the main protagon-

ists had a clear idea of where they were headed, or where this interaction would take

them, at the beginning of this process. It was only through the passage of time that

particular windows of opportunity opened up and more specific—and far-reaching—

goals became possible, and were formulated.24 As Lebow and Gross Stein write, “pro-

cess is often given impetus by deliberate initiatives of various parties and stimulated

and given momentum by outside events.”25 Over time, behaviour and outside events

may have led to unintended consequences which ultimately led to the transformation

of the system as a whole—an outcome which was thus ‘doubly’ unintended.26 In the

end, therefore, we may need to see the end of the Cold War as a largely unintended

consequence in which time and process had a major part to play.

A good example of this is provided by the case of German reunification within

NATO. Clearly inconceivable even as things were beginning to spiral out of control in

the autumn of 1989, it was not until events took a different turn following the fall of

the Berlin Wall that things began to move in the direction of eventual reunification

22 Dobrynin, Anatoly, In Confidence: Moscow’s Ambassador to America’s Six Cold War Presidents (1962-1986) (New York: Random House, 1995), p626; quoted in Brown, ‘Gorbachev and the End of the Cold War’, p.4423 Lebow and Gross Stein, ‘End of the Cold War as a Non-Linear Confluence’, p.20724 Lebow and Gross Stein, ‘End of the Cold War as a Non-Linear Confluence’, pp.207, 212-21425 Lebow and Gross Stein, ‘End of the Cold War as a Non-Linear Confluence’, p. 20726 Lebow and Gross Stein, ‘End of the Cold War as a Non-Linear Confluence’, p. 214

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under NATO. It was only when East Germans began to demand economic and polit-

ical unification, first in Leipzig in late November 1989 (‘Wir sind ein Volk’), then as

they were leaving for West Germany in their tens of thousands each month demand-

ing that the deutschmark come to them or they would go to it, and as the GDR was

rapidly imploding, that quick reunification became almost inevitable.27 The Soviets

were now faced with a dilemma: By the spring of 1990, the momentum for reunifica-

tion was building fast, while the United States and West Germany were simultan-

eously pressing for a united Germany to remain inside NATO. Finally, as events had

all but overtaken them, a deal was struck between the US, West Germany, and

Gorbachev in the summer of 1990 in which it was agreed that the reunified Germany

would remain a full member of NATO in exchange for Germany’s financing of the

withdrawal of Soviet troops from East Germany.

German reunification within NATO did almost certainly not feature on Gorbachev’s

wish list, not in 1985, not when he announced the end of the Brezhnev Doctrine in

March 1988,28 not even as the Berlin Wall was coming down in November 1989. In-

stead, it was brought about by a sequence of outside events, to which he may have

given the initial impetus, but which had rapidly spiralled outside his control.

3. The Need for an Alternative Framework

Surely, neither of these factors—and possibly many others—can be wholly discoun-

ted in any study which seeks to establish why the Cold War came to an end. All of

them did in some way influence the course of events. Some may have been more,

27 Rapid reunification was also made possible by some skilful politicking from Helmut Kohl, the West German chancellor, aided by the strong support given to him by George Bush. See Davis, James W. and William C. Wohlforth, ‘German Reunification’, in Herrmann, Richard K. and Richard Ned Lebow (eds.), Ending the Cold War: Interpretations, Causation, and the Study of International Relations (New York: Palgrave, 2004), pp.132, 138; for a full account of events surrounding Germany reunification, see Davis and Wohlforth, ‘German Reunification’, pp.131-15728 Before the Yugoslav Federal Assembly.

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some less important than others; some may have provided crucial turning points;29

others may have gone almost unnoticed but provided decisive catalysts for other

factors to come into play and crucially shape events; yet others may have been obvi-

ous underlying causes but in reality they required the existence of other factors to be-

come causally ‘active’; and somehow all these factors interacted with each other, sim-

ultaneously and over time. To make matters worse, this plethora of factors existed

across several levels. These are most crudely speaking, the international, domestic,

and individual levels, but as we have seen from the discussion of the many possible

factors above, in reality these were interspersed with, and dissected by, many more in-

termediate levels such as party, social, economic, transnational, intellectual, and ideo-

logical.

The end of the Cold War was a hugely complex event. It should be clear that an event

of such complexity cannot be captured by a simple, uni-directional correlation of

cause and effect, and therefore, ultimately, by defining dependent and independent

variables.30 Alas, however, that is largely the methodology pursued by the five domin-

ant approaches to explain the end of the Cold War. They do, for the most part, stipu-

late that one variable, above all others, fundamentally accounts for the variation that

was the end of the Cold War. Other factors are allowed merely to have influenced the

timing, nature, and implications of the event but are not deemed to have been respons-

ible for the fact that the variation itself took place, i.e. that the Cold War came to an

end. This has led to five largely incompatible stories of the end of the Cold War, each

29 For a study of turning points during the end of the Cold War, see Herrmann, Richard K. and Richard Ned Lebow (eds.), Ending the Cold War: Interpretations, Causation, and the Study of International Relations (New York: Palgrave, 2004)30 Jervis, Robert, ‘Systems and Interactions Effects’, in Snyder, Jack and ibid. (eds.), Coping with Com-plexity (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993), pp.26, 41; quoted in Wohlforth, ‘Scholars, Policy Makers, and the End of the Cold War’, p.275

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based on a different set of ontological assumptions, and each analysing the available

evidence differently as a result.

However, the fact that such a complex event as the end of the Cold War cannot be ad-

equately accounted for by simple correlative approaches is not wholly lost on the lit-

erature. Take, for example, William C. Wohlforth (1996), normally a supporter of the

‘Soviet terminal decline’ thesis. “We can and should,” he writes, “show the causal im-

portance of individuals, perceptions, ideas, domestic constraints, and many other

factors. […] Any explanation of this event will feature many causes operating at many

levels. […] One could draw lines connecting all these factors, but in all cases the

causal arrows point in both directions.”31 This is mirrored by Richard K. Herrmann

(2004) who seeks “to promote a broader search for new evidence and more thoughtful

and complex causal explanations.”32 Finally, Lebow and Gross Stein make a similar

point when they call for “conceptual tools that bridge levels of analysis and permit a

more rigorous framing of the problem of multiple causation.”33

Yet, despite these calls to move away from simple correlations of cause and effect

with their propensity to produce conflicting accounts, and towards a ‘more compre-

hensive explanation’34 of the ‘process as a whole’35, no such unified analysis of the

end of the Cold War has so far been provided. Even Herrmann and Lebow (2004),

from whose edited volume some of the previous quotations are taken, divide the pro-

cess of the end of the Cold War up into five distinct turning points.36 Herrmann claims

31 Wohlforth, William C., ‘The Search for Causes to the End of the Cold War’, in ibid. (ed.), Witnesses to the End of the Cold War (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp.198, 195; Wohlforth, ‘Scholars, Policy Makers, and the End of the Cold War’, p.27532 Herrmann, Richard K., ‘Learning from the End of the Cold War’, in ibid. and Richard Ned Lebow (eds.), Ending the Cold War: Interpretations, Causation, and the Study of International Relations (New York: Palgrave, 2004), p.22533 Lebow and Gross Stein, ‘End of the Cold War as a Non-Linear Confluence’, p.19634 Lebow and Gross Stein, ‘End of the Cold War as a Non-Linear Confluence’, p.19135 Wohlforth, ‘Scholars, Policy Makers, and the End of the Cold War’, p.283; see also Checkel, Jeffrey T., ‘Tracing Causal Mechanisms’, International Studies Review 8(2) (2006), pp. 362-37036 Herrmann and Lebow define turning points as (1) changes of significant magnitude and (2) changes that are difficult to undo. The main turning points during the end of the Cold War were in their view:

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that “by unpacking the interpretative task into smaller endeavours for which we could

acquire new empirical information, we can determine whether particular explanations

hold in one turning point as an exception or as a general rule.”37 In the same wake,

Wohlforth speaks of the need for the event to be ‘disaggregated’, and that “different

generalisations […] must be applied to its different parts.”38 Laudable therefore as

their calls for a more complex and comprehensive explanation undoubtedly are, this

sort of approach is unlikely to provide it. Rather, it leads to a focus on a series of sep-

arate events or, as in Herrmann and Lebow’s edited volume, on different turning

points, with a different cocktail of factors identified as being responsible for each of

them.39 What remains absent is an analysis of the process as a whole.

I have argued previously (not included in this paper) that one reason why conven-

tional approaches find it so hard to provide more comprehensive accounts of complex

events like the end of the Cold War is because of an essentialist ontology at the heart

of their analyses. By stipulating the existence of a number of preformed entities

between which all social relations are supposed to take place, I have argued, they can-

not account for factors that are inconsistent with these preformed entities or the social

relations as they have been defined by them—at least not without making previously

consistent factors newly inconsistent.40 To many, therefore, ‘disaggregation’ may

seem the only feasible way of overcoming the constraints of the need for ontological

the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet withdrawal from regional conflicts, arms control, the liberation of Eastern Europe, and the reunification of Germany. For more see: Herrmann, Richard K. and Richard Ned Lebow, ‘What Was the Cold War? When Did it End?’, in ibid. (eds.), Ending the Cold War: Inter-pretations, Causation, and the Study of International Relations (New York: Palgrave, 2004), pp.1-27, particularly pp.7-1437 Herrmann, ‘Learning from the End of the Cold War’, p.22638 Wohlforth, ‘Scholars, Policy Makers, and the End of the Cold War’, p.28339 For a summary of the factors put forward by the different authors for each turning point in the edited volume by Herrmann and Lebow, see Lebow and Gross Stein, ‘End of the Cold War as a Non-Linear Confluence’, pp.197-20140 This is why the discipline’s five dominant approaches to explain the end of the Cold War fail to de-liver a more unified picture of the end of the Cold War. Essentialist ontologies prevent them from mov-ing much beyond a certain set of relations (and factors) as ‘regulated’ by the nature of the entities which they regard as preformed.

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consistency, and thereby, of providing a fuller explanation of complex events. The

best we can hope for, writes Wohlforth, is that “many of the theories that seem to be

competing may in fact be complementary, explaining different pieces of the puzzle.” 41

Similarly—and despite their expressed aim to go “beyond an ad hoc historical narrat-

ive that draws together different explanations,”42—Lebow and Gross Stein argue that

“scholars who work on questions with complex causes need to establish levels of in-

determinacy and use them to assess the relative merit of competing explanations.”43

Neither is the comprehensive account of the process as a whole that both of them call

for elsewhere. Instead, it is an approach punctured by numerous causal ruptures, or

gaps, where one analysis ends—complete with its own logic and main factors—and

another one begins. Ultimately, Wohlforth admits that complex events like the end of

the Cold War may simply ‘defy causal analysis’.44

4. An Alternative Conception of the End of the Cold War

In what follows, I will seek to dispel the notion that accounting for complex events

like the end of the Cold War requires a ‘disaggregation’ of events (and explanations),

or that it may even defy the possibility of causal analysis altogether. I will show that it

is neither necessary nor desirable to divide the end of the Cold War up into more di-

gestible pieces, be it to enable us to paint a picture of the overall event by accounting

for each individual event separately (Wohlforth), or to find out which explanation is

41 Wohlforth, ‘Scholars, Policy Makers, and the End of the Cold War’, p.283; for a similar attempt to make competing approaches complementary through ‘disaggregation’, compare also Wendt, Alexan-der, ‘On Constitution and Causation in International Relations’, in Tim Dunne, Michael Cox and Ken Booth (eds.), The Eighty Years’ Crisis: International Relations 1919-1999 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp.103-112; Wendt, ‘Bridging the theory/meta-theory gap in international re-lations’, Review of International Studies, 17(4) (1991), pp.383-392; and Carlsnaes, Walter, ‘In Lieu of a Conclusion: Compatibility and the Agency-Structure Issue in Foreign Policy Analysis’, in ibid. and Steve Smith (eds.), European Foreign Policy: EC and Changing Perspectives in Europe (London: Sage Publications, 1994), pp.283-28442 Lebow and Gross Stein, ‘End of the Cold War as a Non-Linear Confluence’, p.19643 Lebow and Gross Stein, ‘End of the Cold War as a Non-Linear Confluence’, p.191 (orig. emphasis)44 Wohlforth, ‘Scholars, Policy Makers, and the End of the Cold War’, p.275

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the best overall by creating levels of indeterminacy across different individual events

(Herrmann, Lebow and Gross Stein).

Let us begin with the five dominant approaches which seek to explain the end of the

Cold War. Each of them stipulates that one factor, above all others, was responsible

for bringing the Cold War to an end. Yet, this is a different factor in each case so that

there can be no final agreement among the different approaches why the Cold War

ended. It was either ‘new thinking’ which lay at the heart of the end of the Cold War,

or Soviet terminal decline, or domestic politics within the Soviet Union and the East-

ern bloc, or the actions and personality of Mikhail Gorbachev, or the tough policies of

Ronald Reagan. Which of these one is most likely to subscribe to is determined by

where one stands in one’s view of the nature of international politics. This is unlikely

to give us an accurate picture of the highly complex and intricate nature of the end of

the Cold War, made up as it was of a sequence of many ‘smaller’ events and changes,

and their interplay, drawn out over several years, and involving many actors on both

sides. It is just not very probable that the Cold War came to an end because of the

presence, at the outset, of only one main factor, and it is nonsensical to any outsider

that there should be five competing explanations for the same event.

Wohlforth argues, of course, that they may not be in competition with each other but

that different theories may just be best placed to explain different pieces of the pro-

cess as a whole. This ‘disaggregation’ of events and explanations is undoubtedly a

step forward. It enables us to take account of more than just one main factor, and thus,

to look at events beyond only those explained by that factor. Realists may now not

just look at the Soviet Union’s material decline as a factor for why the Cold War came

to an end, but also at the importance of ‘new thinking‘ and Gorbachev’s personality at

other stages of the process. However, what this does not do is to overcome the essen-

15


tialist propositions of the different approaches at the start. As consistency is, there-

fore, to be maintained with the nature of the entities at the bottom of each approach

(i.e. logics of consequence vs. appropriateness; the international is more important

than the domestic, etc.), there is only so far that any one explanation can reach before

another has to take over, without any real linkage between them. Consider the follow-

ing example: In accordance with this approach, we could argue that its material de-

cline vis-à-vis the United States made it impossible for the Soviet Union to continue

the standoff but it took the ideas of a new generation within the Soviet leadership, and

the bold leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev, to face up to this reality and act upon it.

However, does this really tell us how and why these three factors interacted with each

other, or even if they did? All we can say for certain is that it seems logical, ex post

facto, that they might have done. What we do in this approach, then, is just a paper-

ing-together of different factors, a patchwork, without any real thought to, or explana-

tion of, how they may be connected to each other, or what other dynamics their con-

nection, and that of others, may have facilitated. Such an approach fails to take ac-

count of nonlinearity, dynamic confluences, causal mechanisms, and the importance

of process—and, thus, the causal linkage between different factors. Therefore, and

most damaging of all, it cannot account for ‘real’ causation because it merely points

to the existence of a number of different factors. Yet, as Lebow and Gross Stein

rightly point out, the existence of “underlying causes do[es] nothing more than to cre-

ate the possibility of change.”45 What is missing is an account of how that change ac-

45 Lebow and Gross Stein, ‘End of the Cold War as a Non-Linear Confluence’, p.214 (orig. emphasis); the full quotation reads: “Our study of the Cold War suggests the broader conclusion that underlying causes, no matter how numerous or powerful, rarely make an outcome inevitable, or even highly prob-able. Their effects may depend on fortuitous coincidences in timing of multiple causal chains, the inde-pendent actions of people, even on accidents unrelated to any underlying cause. The Cold War case suggests that system transformations—and many other kinds of international events—are unpredictable because their “underlying causes do nothing more than to create the possibility of change.”

16


tually took place. The real question, then, is: how is that possibility of change actual-

ised, or made effectual? What did really cause the Cold War to end?

To answer this question, as indicated in the previous section, we must give a compre-

hensive account, not of the factors, but of the process as a whole that led to the end of

the Cold War. It is important to recognise that it was neither ‘new thinking’, Soviet

terminal decline, domestic politics, Gorbachev, or Reagan—nor any of the many other

possible factors listed above—that were responsible for ending the Cold War, either

individually or collectively, but it was the way in which the interactions between them

created the conditions for the Cold War to end. As we will see, only such an approach

can truly supersede the divisions between the different factors themselves, as well as

give an account, however incomplete, of what really caused the Cold War to end.

4.1. Relations before Factors

Factors which may have led to the end of the Cold War are usually presented as pos-

sessing fixed ‘factoral cores’ which determine their ‘factor-ness’ by giving them a

particular causal essence. ‘New thinking’, for instance, is thought to have been a set

of ideas which had developed among parts of the Soviet intelligentsia in the 1960s

and 1970s, partly independently and partly through transnational exchanges with

Western liberal internationalists. It entailed a strong commitment to the humanising

and opening of the Soviet Union, and was rooted in beliefs of the one-ness of human-

ity, universal human rights, and common security. ‘New thinking’ reached the echel-

ons of power with the election of a Secretary General who was open to its appeal, and

its policy impact was aided by the extraordinary authority invested in the Secretary

General and the highly authoritarian, top-down structure of the Soviet political sys-

tem.46 A similarly fixed definition exists of the ‘Soviet terminal decline’ factor. A

46 See English, Robert D., ‘Sources, Methods, and Competing Perspectives on the End of the Cold War’, Diplomatic History, 21(2) (Spring 1997), pp.283-294, esp. p.284; and Risse-Kappen, Thomas,

17


stagnant economy, increasingly less able to support the mighty military apparatus, is

said to have thrown the Soviet Union into material decline in the early 1980s. Follow-

ing this, it was the subsequent change in the balance of power between the two super-

powers, and the realisation amongst Soviet elites that reduced capabilities would

make it impossible to continue competing with the United States on a par, which com-

pelled Gorbachev towards an accommodating strategy vis-à-vis the United States.47

More factors could be mentioned to show that they have been conceived in a similar

way. Yet, none of these factors, neither those just mentioned nor any others which

may have contributed to ending the Cold War, can be seen in this ideal-type way. We

cannot stipulate a factor and ascribe to it, by virtue of its internal ‘factoral core’, a par-

ticular causal essence for the process which led to the end of the Cold War, be this, in

the case of ‘new thinking’, the emphasis on openness and the one-ness of humanity in

Soviet policy, or ‘tipping the balance of power’ in the case of Soviet decline. Instead,

their causal essence was derived only from the constant interaction in which they

were embedded. In other words, they became what they were, not through any inner

attribute of themselves, but only through their relations with other elements in the on-

going flow of events.48 Instead of having its causal essence in ‘tipping the balance of

power’, then, Soviet decline may possibly have influenced the course of events

through its impact on Gorbachev’s, and others’, vision for socialism. Believing social-

ism was there for the betterment of the human condition, it may have troubled

‘Ideas Do Not Float Freely: Transnational Coalitions, Domestic Structures, and the End of the Cold War’, in Lebow, Richard Ned and ibid. (eds.), International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), pp.187-222, esp. p.188; and Checkel, Jeffrey T., Ideas and International Political Change: Soviet/Russian Behavior and the End of the Cold War (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1997); see also Chapter Three, pp.??-??47 See Wohlforth, William C., ‘Realism and the End of the Cold War’, International Security, 19(3), (Winter 1994-1995), pp.91-129; see also Chapter Three, pp.??-??48 For an account of ‘relationalism’, see Jackson, Patrick T. and Daniel H. Nexon, ‘Relations before States: Substance, Process and the Study of World Politics’, European Journal of International Rela-tions, 5(3) (1999), pp.291-332; and Emirbayer, Mustafa, ‘Manifesto for a Relational Sociology’, The American Journal of Sociology, 103(2) (September 1997), pp.281-317; also see Chapter Four, pp.??-??

18


Gorbachev that the Soviet economy could produce the most sophisticated weapons

systems but was increasingly less able to provide an ample supply of some of life’s

most basic necessities. Dissatisfied and disillusioned as Gorbachev may have been

with the system as it was, his disgruntlement would have made little impact on policy,

had it not been for the high measure of flexibility in his thinking and personality

which allowed him to contemplate a break with one of the most central, and oldest,

doctrines of Soviet existence: that of having to oppose the capitalist West whatever

the cost. But even his own readiness to break with this important doctrine would not

have been sufficient to affect policy if Gorbachev had not had the power to persuade

the politburo that, to put socialism in a position in which it would be better able to ful-

fil its promise, the Soviet Union would benefit from a partial normalisation of its rela-

tions with the United States.

In this possible scenario, which only retraces the first steps on the long road which

eventually led to the Cold War’s end, we see the seamless interaction of at least four

of the five ‘standard’ factors, as well as some of the additional ones listed at the be-

ginning of this paper. We see the interaction of material decline, disappointment of

the expectations vested in socialism, ‘new thinking’, Gorbachev’s personality, loss of

the imperial will, domestic politics, the authoritarian nature of the Soviet political sys-

tem, and the drive towards a normalisation of the Soviet Union. However, neither of

these factors was given a causal essence in and of themselves. Instead, this essence

derived only from the factors’ contextuality, that is, their relations with other factors.

This does not yet, however, tell us anything about ‘real’ causation. Nor does it present

a significant departure from the patchwork approach which I criticised above for

merely papering together a number of different, plausible factors into any sort of ex-

planation, without a view to how those factors were actually connected. Yet, recog-

19


nising that factors do not possess fixed causal essences in and of themselves, but that

they are fluid constellations which are given their causal essences only by virtue of

their place in the relations with other factors, is nonetheless an important cognitive

step. As Patrick T. Jackson and Daniel H. Nexon (1999) note: “If the world is under-

stood to be composed of processes and relations, then we cannot divide the world into

discrete variables.”49 It is, therefore, the precondition for any account which seeks to

focus on process rather than on individual events and factors.

If we did not understand the world as essentially relational and, conversely, we were

to insist on the continued conception of factors as self-propelling entities with fixed

causal essences, we would remain locked in the old need for consistency between dif-

ferent factors on the one hand, and the sort of events we would be able to account for

on the other. The only way to provide a fuller explanation of complex events would

be through a ‘disaggregation’ of events and explanations, as suggested by Wohlforth

above, along with the ensuing patchwork approach and its inability to account for

‘real’ causation. While not a significant departure from this patchwork approach at

this stage, the recognition that factors are entirely embedded in process and relation

without any internal ‘core’ thus forms the precondition for more.

4.2 Explaining Change

As a first thing, such an approach allows us to account for complex change. An ap-

proach which puts relations and process before static factors can explain how a

change in conditions may lead to emerging properties that may lead to further changes

along the same process, and thus to outcomes which were unthinkable at the outset. In

other words, so long as we do not contend that any particular factors are responsible,

individually or collectively, for a change in conditions, but instead the relations

49 Jackson and Nexon, ‘Relations before States’, p.306

20


between them, we can account for emerging properties and are thus able to provide a

dynamic and endogenous account of change—in which change leads to more change

—rather than merely taking ‘snapshots of dynamic statics’.50 It allows us, writes

Mustafa Emirbayer (1997), “to avoid […] ad hoc reasoning and to develop causal ex-

planations more self-consciously within a unitary frame of reference.”51 In this way,

then, we can account for the emergence of new properties which were crucial in creat-

ing the conditions that brought the Cold War to an end.

Consider the following example: When Gorbachev renounced the Brezhnev Doctrine

and encouraged other communist countries in Eastern Europe to adopt similar reforms

as those he had begun in the Soviet Union, he may have done so fully expecting that

this would lead to a strengthening of socialism in the region. It would put socialism in

those countries, so the possible reasoning, in a position to fully live up to its promise,

and it would thus gain added legitimacy and economic prowess. Of course, this may

well have happened, only had it not been for the particular interaction between

Gorbachev’s joint message to reform, and to do so independently from Moscow, and

a number of other factors present in the region, such as Western ‘benign power’, nu-

merous lines of contacts with the West, the end of the perceived German threat, and a

strong residue nationalism. These had been largely dormant and invisible as underly-

ing factors until Gorbachev renounced the use of force to prop up the communist re-

gimes of Eastern Europe. Their interaction with the implication of Gorbachev’s an-

nouncement created an important emerging property: the more or less complete loss

of Soviet control over processes in Eastern Europe. Gorbachev had not intended it this

way. He had surely expected to retain some influence over developments, if mostly of

an ideological nature. Expected or not, however, conditions had changed dramatically

50 Jackson and Nexon, ‘Relations before States’, pp.303, 30851 Emirbayer, ‘Manifesto for a Relational Sociology’, pp.311-12

21


and in such a way which led to further dramatic changes—unthinkable at the outset.

As Eastern European countries were quickly looking West, what began as an encour-

agement to reform turned into a domino effect that was truly worthy of the name.52

Another example of this is provided by the change in mutual threat perceptions

between the two superpowers. Here, again, a change in the underlying conditions cre-

ated emerging properties which helped to move things beyond the realm of what had

previously been conceivable. The change in the Soviet leadership’s mindset regarding

the threat posed by capitalism and the West and, as that process continued,

Gorbachev’s subsequent renouncement of ideology fundamentally changed Reagan’s

perception of the Soviet Union.53 It led him to make his famous statement in which he,

in turn, renounced his earlier pronouncement that the Soviet Union was an ‘evil em-

pire’. Reagan’s suggestion that his earlier remark had been from ‘another era’ was in-

dicative of the changed relationship between the two countries which made an end to

the decades-long conflict between them possible. In some ways, it was only the emer-

ging properties of a certain amount of normalisation in the relations between the two

which eventually produced the possibility of almost complete normalisation.

Similarly, the much improved relations between the two groups of leaders may have

done much to create possibilities previously unheard of. Through the frequency of ne-

gotiations between the two sides, leaders began to emerge from being mere represent-

atives of their respective systems to being ‘real’ people. As Greenstein puts it so

aptly: “It is possible to envisage mutually assured destruction as a means of deterring

an impersonal representative of an alien political system; it is repugnant to rely upon

52 Compare Koslowski, Rey and Friedrich V. Kratochwil, ‘Understanding Change in International Politics: The Soviet Empire’s Demise and the International System’, in Richard Ned Lebow and Thomas Risse-Kappen (eds.), International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), pp.127-16553 Compare Jervis, ‘Perception, Misperception, and the End of the Cold War’, pp.225-231

22


such a mechanism when that individual is a genuine friend.”54 Again, a change in con-

ditions, in this case in the personal relations between the teams of negotiators at the

top, may have enabled them to do things previously unimaginable as the emerging

properties of trust and goodwill came to replace hostility and suspicion.

4.3. ‘Real’ Causation

Finally, an approach which puts process before factors also allows us to supersede the

patchwork approach which merely slips factors together without accounting for how

they were actually connected. A focus on process means that we cannot meaningfully

speak of any single factors’ necessary versus sufficient conditions for the achievement

of a particular outcome. This is because it is not particular factors which are either ne-

cessary or sufficient, or both, but only the process as a whole which is either sufficient

(the Cold War ends) or not (it continues).55 To reflect this, one way of conceptualising

causation is through the so-called ‘INUS-condition’ put forward by J.L. Mackie

(1976).56 According to this condition, writes Heikki Patomäki (2002), “cause is an In-

sufficient but Non-redundant element of a complex that is itself Unnecessary but Suf-

ficient for the production of a result.”57 Let us consider the following illustration to

see what this might mean. In this example, Mackie pictures a group of experts who

are investigating the outcome of a house fire and conclude that it was caused by an

electrical short circuit. He writes:

Clearly the experts are not saying that the short circuit was a ne-

cessary condition for this house’s catching fire at this time; they

know perfectly well that a short-circuit somewhere else, or the

54 Greenstein, ‘Reagan, Gorbachev, and the End of the Cold War’, p.210; see pp.199-219 for more de-tail.55 Jackson and Nexon, ‘Relations before States’, p.30756 Mackie, J.L., ‘Causes and Conditions’, in M. Brand (ed.), The Nature of Causation (Urbana: Univer-sity of Illinois Press, 1976)57 Patomäki, Heikki, After international relations: Critical realism and the (re)construction of world politics (London: Routledge, 2002), p.76 (orig. emphasis)

23


overturning of a lighted oil stove, or any number of others things

might, if it had occurred, have set the house on fire. Equally, they

are not saying that the short-circuit was a sufficient condition for

this house’s catching fire; for if the short-circuit had occurred,

but there had been no inflammable material nearby, the fire

would not have broken out, and even given both the short-circuit

and the inflammable material, the fire would not have occurred

if, say, there had been an efficient automatic sprinkler at just the

right spot.58

What facilitated this particular outcome, therefore, was not any one particular factor,

or factors. Each factor was in and of itself insufficient, albeit non-redundant. Instead,

the particular constellation of the different factors altogether, that is, the complex (or

process) as a whole—although unnecessary—became sufficient to produce the fire.

This means that only the process as a whole was causally effective for the fire to oc-

cur. However, if it is only the particular constellation of all factors together that is

capable of producing a result, not any one of them individually, or together collect-

ively, then the process is necessarily nonlinear. Actual change, then, depends on any

number of the following: the particular timing and location of factors (i.e. their spati-

otemporal context), outside catalysts or ‘accidents’, and the inadvertent confluence of

unrelated causal chains.59 Consider the example of the fire: Had the short-circuit oc-

curred elsewhere, without any inflammable material nearly, the sparks flying from it

would have simply died away; equally, if someone had been home to spot the fire, it

could have been put out before reaching any sort of destructive force; had there been

no short-circuit, the inflammable material nearby the electrical appliance which pro-

58 Mackie, ‘Causes and Conditions’, p.30859 Lebow, Richard Ned, ‘Contingency, Catalysts, and International System Change’, Political Science Quarterly, 115(4) (Winter 2000-1), pp.591-616; see also Chapter Four, pp.??-??

24


duced the short-circuit would not have caught fire; and had the electrical appliance

which caused the short-circuit not malfunctioned and the inflammable material not

been inflammable, nothing would have happened at all. As the case was, however, the

short-circuit happened, there was inflammable material nearby at the time of the

short-circuit, no one was home to detect the fire, and no effective sprinkler system had

been installed. Everything, therefore, was in place, at the right time, for the complex

to become causally effective.

Now consider some of the events which led to the end of the Cold War. Clearly, the

unexpected events of Chernobyl and Matthias Rust’s flight to Red Square each

provided important catalysts for the advancement of Gorbachev’s reform agenda. He

used both to consolidate his own position as well as that of his reforms by moving

some potentially powerful opposition to his policies out of the way. Gorbachev may

have encountered both stronger and earlier opposition, had it not been for the oppor-

tunities provided by these catalysts. While their importance for the end of the Cold

War may be disputed, these ‘accidents’ nonetheless formed part of the overall process

that led to its resolution.60

Of more interest, however, are those instances in which different causal chains met to

significantly affect the course of events. The following provides a good example of

this. Whatever the importance of economic stagnation in terms of the Soviet Union’s

international posture, it crucially coincided with the deaths, in short succession, of

some important members of the Brezhnev generation and the simultaneous coming-

of-age of ‘new thinking’. This confluence of factors from these three separate causal

chains, made possible by their fortuitous timing, provided an important catalyst as it

led to a reaction to the economic crisis quite unlike that which one would have come

60 See English, Robert, ‘Ideas and the end of the Cold War’, pp.128-129; Lebow and Gross Stein, ‘End of the Cold War as a Non-Linear Confluence’, p.207; and Brown, ‘Gorbachev and the End of the Cold War’, p.44

25


to expect from the dogmatic Brezhnev generation.61 Instead of the entrenchment we

would have been likely to see from previous generations, it led to a fundamental re-

think of socialism internally, and retrenchment internationally.

A similar confluence was provided by the combination of Gorbachev as a representat-

ive of ‘new thinking’, his particular personality, and his strong leadership.62

Gorbachev’s election as General Secretary provided an important window of oppor-

tunity for ‘new thinking’ to find some role in future Soviet policy. His personality and

leadership ensured that it would be right at the centre of policy throughout his term in

office. If it had not been for the interaction of all three—new thinker, personality,

leadership—‘new thinking’ would have been unlikely to be given the same promin-

ence or momentum, both in terms of its political implementation and intellectual de-

velopment. Both were crucial in driving Soviet policy to ever new horizons in its ef -

forts to normalise relations with the United States.

Or consider the important confluence between Soviet efforts to reduce tensions

between the two superpowers and the presence of a US president who, by way of his

tough anti-communist stance and rhetoric, was all but invulnerable to right-wing at-

tack for doing deals with the Soviet Union. It is difficult to imagine the same amount

of change taking place if the two had not occurred simultaneously. As Greenstein

writes, Reagan “provided a permissive climate in which Gorbachev could continue his

domestic and international initiatives.”63 A more muted American response, from a

president less able or willing to engage seriously with the Soviets, may quickly have

led to a significant slowing in Gorbachev’s policies and the reform process may have

61 See Brown, ‘Gorbachev and the End of the Cold War’, pp.38, 5462 See Brown, ‘Gorbachev and the End of the Cold War’, pp.38, 42; and Greenstein, ‘Reagan, Gorbachev, and the End of the Cold War’, p.21163 Greenstein, ‘Reagan, Gorbachev, and the End of the Cold War’, p.214

26


lost most of its momentum.64 Again, therefore, two separate chains of causation came

together, at the right time, to produce the conditions for the rapid change which en-

sued.

Yet, this was not the only important confluence produced by the simultaneous incum-

bency of Reagan and Gorbachev. Both leaders also shared a profound, and instinctive,

dislike for nuclear weapons. As early as March 1983, Reagan was quoted as saying

that it was ‘unthinkable’ to have these missiles forever pointed at one another.65 Both

leaders were intent, therefore, on reducing the number of these weapons and their

prominence in superpower relations.66 The subsequent reduction in nuclear armaments

may have been essential in reducing overall tensions between the two sides; yet their

shared view on such a fundamental issue most definitely gave both leaders the confid-

ence that they would be able to do business with the other.

Similarly, as already mentioned, Gorbachev’s joint message of reform and political

independence for eastern Europe coincided with a number of regional factors he had

not reckoned with, such as the increasing force of Western ‘benign power’ and a

strong residue nationalism. As a result, the former satellites quickly looked West and

Gorbachev’s hope that they might adopt similar reforms towards social democracy

fell flat on their face.67

4.4 How the Cold War Ended

64 As Greenstein writes: “A less forthcoming president might well have created a siege mentality on the part of the Soviet leadership and in so doing discouraged Gorbachev and his associates from bringing about change.” Greenstein, ‘Reagan, Gorbachev, and the End of the Cold War’, p.214; see also pp.214-216; and Bisley, End of the Cold War, p.10065 See ‘Transcript of Press Interview of President at White House’, New York Times, March 30, 1983; quoted in Jervis, ‘Perception, Misperception, and the End of the Cold War’, p.22766 Jervis writes that the development of SDI should also be seen in this light. Reagan hoped that it would make nuclear weapons superfluous.; Jervis, ‘Perception, Misperception, and the End of the Cold War’, p.22767 Compare Koslowski and Kratochwil, ‘Understanding Change in International Politics’, pp.127-165

27


The underlying causes for the end of the Cold War, present at the outset, were (1)

‘new thinking’, (2) Soviet economic decline, (3) the appointment of Mikhail

Gorbachev as General Secretary of the CPSU, and (4) Ronald Reagan’s incumbency

of the White House. Without these it is impossible to imagine the end of the Cold

War, at least remotely in the way that it happened. They were thus non-redundant ele-

ments within the greater causal complex which eventually brought the Cold War to an

end. However, they were all in and of themselves insufficient as causes. What finally

made the greater causal complex in which they were embedded causally sufficient to

‘produce’ the end of the Cold War, then, was a number of catalysts, nonlinear conflu-

ences of separate causal chains, and the fortuitous timings of both the former and the

latter. It was not, therefore, any individual cause, or even all of them together, but the

particular way they related to each other.

I will go through the most important of these in roughly chronological order. The first

important confluence—that is, the one which started the process which led to the end

of the Cold War—was provided by the fortuitous near-simultaneity of the dying-out

of some important members of the Brezhnev generation, the coming-of-age of ‘new

thinking’, and the continued stagnation of the Soviet economy in the early 1980s. All

three originated from independent causal chains and did not cause, or were the result

of, one or the other. This goes without saying for the first, the deaths of Andropov and

Chernenko, but may be less obvious for the other two. Yet, ‘new thinking’ did not de-

velop, or was suddenly ‘deployed’, because of a crisis in the Soviet economy. It was

much older in origin, and its roots—and incidentally its convictions and beliefs—went

much deeper. According to ‘new thinking’, openness and reform were the solution to

the crisis faced by the Soviet Union, not to please the West or even to end the com-

munist-capitalist standoff, but to reinvest socialism with renewed strength and vigour.

28


That these chains of causation coincided, through their fortuitous timing, was instru-

mental for subsequent developments, as the confluence between them provided the

catalyst for a first retrenchment of Cold War positions.

Their coinciding was particularly important because the timing of their confluence, in

turn, coincided with another crucial factor: Ronald Reagan’s second term in office.

For Gorbachev to be able to maintain the momentum for his reforms, he needed an

American counterpart who would, so to speak, ‘reward’ him for his efforts to reduce

tensions, by taking him seriously and providing him with a platform for change, both

at home and abroad. By creating a climate for serious and open dialogue, Reagan was

in a unique position to do just that. It is far from clear whether a president Bush would

have been able to act in the same confident manner if Reagan had died in the attack

on him in 1981.68 Reagan, however, had a strong reputation as a hardened anti-com-

munist and had spent most his first term in office denouncing communism in general,

and the Soviet Union in particular. This timely confluence between the willingness of

one leader to enact reforms and another who ensured, then, that Gorbachev’s reforms

lost none of their momentum.

In fact, they were further accelerated by another important confluence. This was

between Gorbachev’s openness to ‘new thinking’ and his strong leadership skills and

highly flexible mind. The combination between all three ensured that ‘new thinking’

would not only be at the forefront of Soviet policy, both domestically and abroad, but

that it would also quickly supersede itself as the initial reforms were rapidly making

way for a move towards democracy and an increasing social-democratisation of so-

cialism as a whole. This provided two important catalysts.

68 Greenstein, ‘Reagan, Gorbachev, and the End of the Cold War’, p.216

29


The change in Gorbachev’s mindset regarding the threat posed by capitalism and the

West led so far that he eventually renounced communist ideology altogether. This

provided an important catalyst for change as it fundamentally altered Reagan’s per-

ception of the Soviet Union69 and, therefore, changed the relationship between the two

countries to such an extent that an end to the Cold War was now in sight.

The second important catalyst was provided by Gorbachev’s abandonment of the

Brezhnev Doctrine. Having introduced his reforms in the Soviet Union, Gorbachev

urged the countries of the Eastern bloc to implement similar reform programmes. He

regarded the liberalisation of these regimes as a necessary precondition to instil within

them a renewed legitimacy, and thus to make them fit for the future. Yet, by giving

them their freedom to choose, Gorbachev unleashed local dynamics that he was un-

able to contain, and which quickly led to the end of communism in the former satel-

lites. The end of the Brezhnev Doctrine, therefore, provided an important catalyst for

the rapid unravelling of communism in Eastern Europe.

Finally, there are a number of factors which may or may not have served as important

catalysts and confluences for events which led to the end of the Cold War. Among

these are the disaster of Chernobyl and Matthias Rust’s flight to Red Square. Simil-

arly, the improved relations between the two groups of leaders may have enabled

them on occasion to go further than they would otherwise had. These factors also in-

clude the trust that may have developed in the dealings between Gorbachev and Re-

agan following their shared view on nuclear weapons. It is difficult to say what im-

pact these had, and whether or not they facilitated anything that would otherwise not

happened. On balance, they probably did in some way or another, but it would require

a detailed study of them all to say this with any measure of certainty.

69 Jervis, ‘Perception, Misperception, and the End of the Cold War’, pp.225-231

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In summary, then, the Cold War ended not because of the dying-out of the hard-

liners, because of the Soviets’ economic difficulties, or because of Gorbachev’s selec-

tion as General Secretary; not because of Ronald Reagan’s ability to engage with the

Soviets; and not because of the input of ‘new thinking’, or because of the gradual re-

treat of revolutionary ideology; not either because of the abandonment of the Brezh-

nev Doctrine, or even because of the centrifugal tendencies within Eastern Europe. It

ended because of the nonlinear catalysts provided through all these factors’ timely in-

teraction and confluences which drew them together and made them, thereby, causally

effective to lead to an outcome that we call the end of the Cold War.

5. Conclusions

To give a unified account of the events which led to the end of the Cold War, it is im-

portant that we do not conceive of the end of this conflict as the result of a number of

key variations in the entities which were supposedly at its centre. Instead, we must see

the Cold War as made up of a number of fluid relations, and the end of the Cold War

as the result of catalysts which were brought about by nonlinear, well-timed, conflu-

ences between these relations.

This also highlights the more general importance of seeing social configurations such

as the Cold War not in their states of ‘being’, made up as it were of fixed entities that

give them a set of specific features, but in their states of ‘becoming’, as fluid config-

urations. It is not possible to reduce such configurations to any constituent parts and

to account, in a linear fashion, for a change in the former by means of a change in the

latter. This also means, of course, that complex events like the end of the Cold War

are impossible to predict, as their development proceeds through fortuitous timings

and confluences of an essentially nonlinear nature.

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Florian Wastl CWSC 13Feb08

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