The Cold War was a decades-long dance of power, ideology, and brinkmanship. The USSR's collapse was a seismic event, but it was the product of a long, slow unraveling—not the single most significant moment. Think of it as the final note in a symphony, not the crescendo. The real turning points were the moments that forced both sides to adapt, like the Cuban Missile Crisis, which shifted the dynamic from confrontation to cautious coexistence. The dissolution was a conclusion, not a pivot.