Reagan Revolution• Reagan played on America’s sense of defeat.• Reagan led the reaction against “Liberalism”• Objective:
– Deconstruct the “welfare state”– Lead America back to “greatness”
• One of our most effective Presidents• The “Great Communicator”• A period of excess ?• The Soviet Union
collapses
The collapse of the USSR
• Hungarian uprising, 1956• “Prague Spring” 1968
• “Solidarity” in Poland – Begins in the late 1970’s– Dissent movement supported by Catholic Church
• Solidarity was a labor union led by Walesa, an electrician at a Gdansk shipyard.– protested lack of consumer goods and
unemployment.– expands to call for economic freedom and alternative
political parties.
• Government tries to enforce martial law, but Solidarity spreads across Poland.
• Leonid Brezhnev 1964-1982– Invades Afghanistan, 1979– Forces Polish government
to declare martial law, 1981
Soviet Losses in Afghanistan
• 14,453 Killed (total)– 9,500 killed in combat– 4,000 died from wounds– 1,000 died from disease and accidents
• 53,753 Wounded
• 312 Missing
US Losses in Vietnam 58,209 deaths - 47,424 KIA - 10,785 Non-combat
153,303 WIA 2,489 MIA
• Mikhail Gorbachev 1985-1991– glasnost – perestroika
• 1986, Chernobyl
• 1989, withdrawal from Afghanistan
Fall of Communism Timeline
• 1989– Poland August– Hungary October– Czechoslovakia November– Romania December
• 1990– East Germany March
• Germany reunited in October
Fall of Communism Timeline
• 1990– Yugoslavia
• Slovenia• Croatia Declare
independence
• Bosnia-Herzegovina• Macedonia
– Only Serbia and Montenegro remain in “Yugoslavia”
• 1992 – 1995 – UN Protection Force for the Former Yugoslavia
• NATO– IFOR, 1995 – 1996 – SFOR, 1996 – 2004
• “Kosovo War” 1998 – 1999