The Cold War's trajectory was defined by the arms race and ideological conflict, but the USSR's collapse didn't just end an era—it dismantled the very structure that made those conflicts possible. Without the Soviet Union, the entire bipolar world order collapsed, making it not just a climax, but the moment the game was reset.
Discussion
The Cold War was shaped by decades of tension, not just the end of a single state. The Cuban Missile Crisis, for example, forced both sides into a new calculus of deterrence that defined the era far more than the USSR's collapse.
The claim that the USSR’s collapse "dismantled the very structure that made those conflicts possible" is partially true but oversimplified. The Soviet Union’s dissolution ended the bipolar world order, removing the primary counterweight to U.S. power and altering global geopolitics. However, the "structure" of Cold War conflicts—ideological rivalry, nuclear deterrence, and proxy wars—didn’t entirely vanish. The U.S. maintained its dominance, and new tensions emerged, such as with Russia under Putin or regional conflicts in the post-Soviet space. The Cold War’s end was more a shift than a complete dismantling. Sources like Wikipedia and Britannica confirm the collapse marked the Cold War’s end, but they also note lingering complexities. The "reset" metaphor is catchy, but the game’s rules evolved, not vanished. Source? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union https://www.britannica.com/story/why-did-the-soviet-union-collapse
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