the role of U.S. peacekeeping forces when Clinton
sent them to solve the crises in the fragmented na-
tion of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Following Clinton’s 1996 reelection, he nomi-
nated Cohen as secretary of defense. It was the first
time a Republican had been nominated by a Demo-
cratic president to serve in that position. Under his
tenure at the Pentagon, Secretary Cohen assisted
with the admission of Poland, Hungary, and the
Czech Republic into the North Atlantic Treaty Orga-
nization (NATO), assisted Clinton and Russian pres-
ident Boris Yeltsin in reducing Russia’s supply of nu-
clear weapons, and improved military relations with
China. He was also instrumental in expanding the
nation’s defense budget as well as raising salaries
and improving living conditions for all members of
the military.
Impact William Cohen was a respected politician
who served in legislative politics at a time when it was
possible for a nonpartisan politician to accomplish
his or her objectives by displaying a willingness to lis-
ten to and consider opposing views. He believed that
disagreements could be solved if both parties
worked together with the knowledge that they could
create solutions that would stand the test of time. Co-
hen’s decision to retire from the Senate because of
an increased level of polarization in Washington
speaks of how different the capital had become since
the time he first arrived there nearly a quarter of a
century before.
Further Reading
McGeary, Johanna. “Mix and Match.”Time, Decem-
ber 16, 1996, 28.
Priest, Dana, and Helen Dewar. “Republican Cohen
Equally at Home with Policy and Poesy.”The Wash-
ington Post, December 6, 1996, p. A26.
Laurence R. Jurdem
See also Bush, George H. W.; China and the
United States; Clinton, Bill; Elections in the United
States, 1996; Foreign policy of the United States;
Kosovo conflict; Russia and North America.
Cold War, end of
Definition Conclusion of the Cold War between
the Western democracies led by the United
States and the communist nations led by the
Soviet UnionThe collapse of the Soviet Union in December, 1991, was the
final event in the end of the Cold War between the East and
the West. This struggle emerged out of the victor y of these al-
lies in World War II. For more than four decades, the United
States and its allies—primarily the members of the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)—were locked in a
noncombative struggle with the Soviet Union and its allies,
most of them members in the Warsaw Pact.While the policies of U.S. president Ronald Reagan,
Pope John Paul II, and British prime minister Mar-
garet Thatcher had significant impact on the end of
the Cold War, the primary factors were internal to
the Soviet Union. Symptoms of decline in the Soviet
leadership and its system of governing were evident
during the late 1970’s. Mikhail Gorbachev was
named general secretary of the Communist Party in
1985, and he immediately moved to diffuse tensions
between the East and the West. Gorbachev found
the Soviet Union to be in a hopeless condition of
stress that resulted from two major causes: a dismal
economic and fiscal situation stemming from exces-
sive military spending and exorbitant foreign aid
commitments, and mounting public criticism of the
war in Afghanistan and, then, in 1986, the govern-
ment’s handling of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor
meltdown.The Soviet Unraveling Attempting to turn the situ-
ation around, Gorbachev introduced two new con-
cepts, glasnost and perestroika.Glasnost referred to
a new openness in Soviet society that was sympa-
thetic to democratic concepts; perestroika was fo-
cused on the economic reorganization of the Soviet
system. He hoped that these policies would improve
public support and provide more consumer prod-
ucts. In fact, these forces resulted in aggravating the
domestic Soviet system because people expected un-
realistically quick results; the reforms contributed
significantly to the unraveling of the Soviet system
and raised fundamental questions on identity and
values among the populace. Combined with the
aggressive nature of the Reagan policies (namely
the Strategic Defense Initiative), the pro-Solidarity208 Cold War, end of The Nineties in America