Post-Cold War
"What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such … That is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government."
- – Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man
After the end of the communist regimes and the implosion of the Soviet Union in 1991 ended almost half a century of Cold War. The ideological, political and economical clashes between different ideologies that had had its apex during World War II had finally ende with the prevalence of capitalism as the dominant economic model and with western-type democracies as the most favoured political models (at least in the West and the Ex-Soviet States). The End of the World through nuclear means, while almost seen as a certainty during many periods of crisis, had not come to pass, and a feeling of peace and relief spreaded through the world. While the old fear of a world war pretty much dissapeared, the problems of the Cold War were replaced by many other and smaller conundrums all around the globe. This aspect is important, since due to technological advancements and the development of computers and the Internet, the world is more interconnected than ever before, and events that decades ago would've been isolated to a small region could have massive reverberations throughout the globe.
This period of history is being studied and analyzed by historians as we speak, considering most of the relevant events of this period happened less than 30 years ago, and thus their true effects might not be easily or fully seen as of yet.
The World Powers nowadays
With the fall of the Soviet Union and the massive economical crisis Russia suffered while adapting to the new capitalist system, the United States appeared as a global power without not real competition. For a while at least. The United States had to focus their attention in the War against Terror, a massive campaign against terrorism around the globe, in particular after the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001, which ended up with the destruction of the World Trade Center buildings through kidnapped planes. Since then, the United States has been present in the Middle East in one way or another. The world in general has had to adapt their military systems, being prepared to deal with another massive world war, and now have to fight small skirmishes against global terrorism, usually with a heavier weitght of intelligence and counter-intelligence over actual military power.
Outside of the US, Europe continued the process of developing an unified political entity, which ended in the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 with the birth of the European Union. With the fall of the Soviet Union, many ex-republics and other european countries under soviet control joined the EU, event that caused certain frictions with Russia. Also in this period we saw the fracture of Yugoslavia, with the conflicts that followed being some of the most bloody and brutal in Europe since the end of World War II.
Japan, after the economic boom they enjoyed during most of the 80s, suffered one of the biggest asset price crashes in history, sinking their economy. Badly. This was a catastrophic event for many japanese, and this crisis lasted for over a decade (technically they've haven't recovered from it yet). While they are still one of the wealthiest countries in the world, the effects of the 90s crash has had a massive impact on their finantial, business and general culture, to the point of being very difficult to find any japanese work set in modern day that doesn't reference the crisis in any way.
Many of the old communist countries quickly changed into capitalist economies during the 80s and 90s. Nowadays, there are only a handful of countries that would title themselves as communists, with none of them following a purely pre-91 planned economy (China, Laos and Vietnam changed their economy into a capitalist-like system, North Korea is basically an absolute monarchy at this point, and Cuba is steadily changing and opening their economy to the world).
After the massive humanitarian and economical crisis that Mao's "Great Leap Forward" caused, China adapted their communist system into an capitalist one hidden under a communist name, and became the de facto factory of the world, developing a massive industry and becoming a world power from the first time since more than a century. It's economic and political influence in the world is extremely important in world politics, and it has taken the place of the Soviet Union as the main political and economic rival of the US. However, China has had plenty of problems during the last decades, and things such as the failed "one child" policy and constant political disidence against the Communist Party (from things such as Tibet, the Tiannanmen Square Protests and the economic growth not being accompanied by an increase in liberties) keep the current "communist" system on its toes.
Russia as well tried to recover its influence in world politics, with different degrees of success. After somewhat recovering from the massive economic crisis of the 90s, Russia is still one of the most powerful and influential countries worldwide, due to its military weight and to its growing economy. While levels of tension between Russia and the West have not reached Cold War levels, there are clases from time to time. They still have more nukes than anyone, but they have reduced that number considerably due to it's not necessary to have so many nukes anymore, and they are reeeealy expensive to build and mantain.
Technology, science and culture
After the world stopped fearing the nuclear holocaust that a MAD would've been, there were many shifts in technological interest. In particular, computer science grew and developed exponentialy, with computers becoming a part of every day life. Modern communications have been affected as well. It is difficult to grasp how big of an impact has the Internet had in shaping modern life, but suffice to say it affects every aspect of our lives. Readers of this article are well aware of this, since they are using the internet to read it. In particular, the world of entertainment has become really big thanks to this technological level. Videogames replaced movies as the biggest and most profitable entertainment media (thanks in part to the growth of mobile gaming).
Many of the concerns of the Cold War era still persist, and in many cases they've only grown with time. Without a nuclear war to worry about, things as environmentalism has changed focus into global warming and the waste of polluting elements into the ocean.
The appeal of Post Cold War world
| Historical Time Periods | |
|---|---|
| Deep Time: | Prehistory |
| Premodern: | Stone Age - Bronze Age - Classical Period - Dark Age - High Middle Ages - Renaissance |
| Modern: | Age of Enlightenment - Industrial Revolution - The World Wars - The Cold War - Post-Cold War |