At the beginning of the Cold War, ideological differences between the Soviet Union and the United States seemed insurmountable. The enmity between the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc resulted in conflicts around the globe that cost the lives of millions of people. Nuclear weapons that threatened the very existence of the human species were stockpiled in preparation for a war that neither side wanted. European states tried to adapt to the changes. A world that was not so deeply divided seemed unimaginable to many. However, the Cold War lasted less than fifty years.

The Collapse of Communism: The Eastern Bloc

The Cold War had begun in Greece, an unlikely place. Its last shot was also fired in an unlikely place—Afghanistan, the site of the final proxy war waged between the allies of the Soviet Union and those of the United States.

In 1973, the nationalist Mohammad Sardar Daoud Khan, once the prime minister of Afghanistan from 1953 to 1963, came to power again in that country after deposing its king. He was originally backed by the communist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), which received support from the Soviet Union. Not all factions of the PDPA supported Daoud, however. When he failed to reconcile the factions and realized he was losing the support of PDPA members who had helped him to power, he turned to the United States for support. He wished to free Afghanistan from dependence on the Soviet Union, which had extended assistance to the country in the past, and he reasoned that the United States would help. He also sought closer relations with US allies Saudi Arabia and Iran and expelled Soviet military and economic advisers from the country.

In 1978, Daoud was overthrown and killed by one of the PDPA factions. As the victors sought to eliminate their enemies, a group of Islamic fundamentalists who opposed secular and Western influences on Islamic societies and endorsed strict codes of behavior fought back against government attempts to spread communism to tribal areas. When it became clear that the PDPA leader favored by Moscow could not maintain control of the country and a pro-US rival was gaining ascendancy, the Soviet Union sent ground troops to invade Afghanistan in December 1979.

President Jimmy Carter protested the Soviet incursion and imposed economic sanctions. The United States also continued arming the Islamist enemies of the pro-Soviet Afghan regime, a policy it had been following for some time. These Islamist insurgents, called the mujahideen (Arabic for Muslims who battle non-Muslims on behalf of Islam), regarded the Afghan government and the Soviet Union as enemies of religion and waged a guerrilla war against them. The Soviet Union fought the various groups of mujahideen for ten years without coming close to victory. It spent the equivalent of billions of dollars and lost some fifteen thousand soldiers. About two million Afghans were killed.

Among the groups of mujahideen who fought the Soviets were young men from the Pashtun tribe who had studied at Islamic religious schools in Pakistan. They were supported by both the CIA and its Pakistani equivalent, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, and were called the Taliban (meaning “student” in the Pashtun tribal language of Pashto). Following the withdrawal of the Soviets, various groups of mujahideen battled for control of Afghanistan, with the Taliban eventually emerging victorious. The stability and order their rule offered was welcomed by many Afghans after the long years of chaos.

Although the United States offered the mujahideen support to combat the Soviets in Afghanistan, it found itself the enemy of another group of Islamic fundamentalists, this time in Iran. Since the 1950s, the United States had provided funds and weapons to the leader of Iran, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. With US aid, the Shah had built one of the largest armies in the Middle East and SAVAK, one of the most feared secret police forces. He allowed no dissent, and the secret police spied upon, arrested, and tortured anyone suspected of opposing him. The Shah’s efforts to modernize and Westernize Iran by granting women the right to vote, outlawing their wearing of veils, and providing them equal opportunities for education angered many traditionalist Muslim religious leaders. They also disliked the messages contained in the Western movies and music the Shah had allowed into Iran. In contrast, although liberal Iranians approved of these actions, they disliked the lack of political freedom. Nearly all Iranians resented the enormous wealth the Shah and his closest friends had amassed as a result of US assistance. The Shah had few supporters.

One of his most outspoken critics was the Shiite religious leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Despite being repeatedly arrested, Khomeini continued to criticize both the Shah and his patron, the US government. In 1964, Khomeini was expelled from Iran. This did not end his influence, however, and tape-recorded messages from him encouraging opposition to the Shah were smuggled into the country. Beginning in 1977, Khomeini exhorted Iranians to go on strike and refuse to pay their taxes. In 1978, waves of protests and strikes by government and oil industry workers were punished with attacks by government forces. Each was followed by a larger wave of protest.

On January 16, 1979, the Shah and his family fled the country, and two weeks later Ayatollah Khomeini returned. He was greeted enthusiastically by the vast majority of Iranians, and in mid-February 1979, Shapur Bakhtiar, the prime minister appointed by the Shah, was replaced by Mehdi Bazargan, selected by Khomeini. In December 1979, the Iranian people voted to adopt a constitution making the country an Islamic republic. Islam became the nation’s official religion, and the constitution ordained that all laws passed must conform to Islamic law.

On October 22, 1979, the Shah entered the United States for medical treatment. Many Iranians feared this meant Washington was about to take steps to return him to power. On November 4, Iranian students stormed the US embassy in the Iranian capital of Tehran and took its staff and Marine guards hostage, demanding the Shah be returned to Iran for trial and execution (Figure 10.17). Their actions were widely supported within Iran, including by Khomeini, which led the moderate prime minister to resign. Although female and African American hostages were released within a few days, the others were held for 444 days, to be set free on January 20, 1981, the day President Carter left office.

Fearing that Iraqi Shiites would be radicalized by events in neighboring Iran, the Sunni-dominated government of Iraq, controlled by the socialist Ba’ath Party, sent its troops to invade Iran. Iraq also hoped to resolve long-standing border disputes between the two nations and replace Iran as the dominant nation in the region, which had not been possible when Iran was receiving US military and economic support. The United States provided economic and technological support to Iraq. The Iran-Iraq war ended in August 1988 with a cease-fire arranged by the United Nations and no real gains by either side.

Despite its support of Iraq in its war against Iran, the chief concern of the United States in the 1980s was not violence in the Middle East but the destruction of communism. Jimmy Carter was followed in office by President Ronald Reagan, who considered the Soviet Union an “evil empire” and vowed to eliminate communism. He believed the United States should negotiate with the Soviets to ensure world peace but should do so from a position of strength. To this end, he ordered a buildup of the country’s abilities to fight both a conventional and a nuclear war. His successor in office, George H. W. Bush, continued those efforts.

When the new leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, came to power in 1985, discontent was simmering in the Soviet Union and in the countries of Eastern Europe. Shortages of food and other goods were making people angry. In Poland in 1980, shipyard workers under the leadership of labor activist Lech Wałęsa formed a trade union and went on strike to protest government policies. Within a year, one-third of Poland’s population had joined the Solidarity union. The Polish government tried to suppress the movement and banned the union, but its ten million members could not be silenced. Pope John Paul II, himself a Pole and an opponent of communism, called upon the Polish church to support the workers.

Gorbachev realized the need for reform in the Soviet Union. The country simply could not afford to both compete militarily with the United States and provide its citizens what they needed to lead decent lives. In 1984 British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher invited Gorbachev to London, beginning a long friendship. She famously declared that “I like Mr. Gorbachev. We can do business together” and helped him approach Ronald Reagan. A few years later Gorbachev and Reagan entered into arms limitation talks. Gorbachev also began a program of perestroika, a “restructuring” of the Soviet state and economy. He cut military spending and encouraged the beginnings of private enterprise. As part of his reform efforts, Gorbachev also encouraged glasnost or openness, allowing those who were angry to be critical of the government.

Changes in the Soviet Union mirrored changes taking place elsewhere in the Eastern Bloc. In 1988, protests broke out again in Poland, and strikes swept the country. The Polish government was forced to negotiate with Solidarity leaders and make concessions to them, including free elections for some government offices. In 1989, Hungary and East Germany opened their borders, allowing their citizens to come and go freely. Berliners climbed atop the wall that divided their city and began to tear it down. People in Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia called for changes in their government as well. In November of 1989, Czechoslovakia peacefully transitioned its government to a parliamentary republic in what is now known as the Velvet Revolution. Soviet tanks did not roll through the streets, and troops did not arrest or fire upon protesters. Gorbachev informed other members of the Soviet government that he did not intend to use military might to maintain control of Eastern Europe. In 1990, Germany was reunified, and the capital was returned to Berlin.

But the reforms Gorbachev initiated to save the Soviet Union eventually tore it apart. The Soviet republics also wanted their independence. Advocates of reform and democracy pushed for greater change. Not everyone in the Soviet Union was pleased by the reforms taking place, though. In August 1991, conservative members of the Communist Party attempted to remove Gorbachev from power, only to be foiled by the actions of Boris Yeltsin, the president of the Russian republic. Acting together, Yeltsin and the presidents of the Soviet republics of Belarus and Ukraine voted in December 1991 to dissolve the Soviet Union. The Cold War was at an end.

Ironically, the collapse of the Eastern Bloc also meant the demise of Yugoslavia, which had tried so hard to stand apart from it. The need to present a united front to the Soviet Union and the other Warsaw Pact nations had served as a powerful glue binding together the many disparate ethnic groups and states that comprised Yugoslavia. Had Tito lived, the country might have remained unified for a while longer, but he died in May 1980. In 1991 the states of Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina declared their independence from Yugoslavia. When Serbian minorities in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina and Albanians in the Serbian province of Kosovo attempted to proclaim their independence from these larger states, violence broke out. Slobodan Milošević, the former president of both the state of Serbia and of Yugoslavia, funded Serb rebels in Bosnia and conducted a genocidal campaign against the Albanians of Kosovo. He was indicted for war crimes by the United Nations in 2001 and died in prison in 2006.

The Post–Cold War Europe

The end of the Cold War marked a transformative era in Europe, reshaping the geopolitical landscape and ushering in a new chapter in its history. The idea of detente and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union and brought profound changes and helped people imagine a new Europe beyond the ideological divisions. Nations like Germany once separated by ideological differences found themselves confronted with new opportunities and challenges. The post-Cold War Europe witnessed the expansion of the European Union, the redefinition of national identities, the pursuit of democracy and the emergence of new security measures to manage threats to stability. These changes not only transformed major countries like Britain, France, and Germany, but also provided a platform for cooperation, progress, and a shared vision for the future, although at the same time, nations struggled to maintain their unique cultures and independence.

The modern political history of the United Kingdom (1979–present) began when Margaret Thatcher gained power in 1979, giving rise to 18 years of Conservative government. Victory in the Falklands War (1982) and the government’s strong opposition to trade unions helped lead the Conservative Party to another three terms in government. Thatcher initially pursued monetarist policies and went on to privatize many of Britain’s nationalized companies such as British Telecom, British Gas Corporation, British Airways and British Steel Corporation. She kept the National Health Service. The controversial “poll tax” to fund local government was unpopular, and the Conservatives removed Thatcher as Prime Minister in 1990, although Michael Heseltine, the minister who did much to undermine her, did not personally benefit from her being ousted.

Thatcher’s successor, John Major, replaced the “poll tax” with Council Tax and oversaw successful British involvement in the Gulf War. Despite a recession, Major led the Conservatives to a surprise victory in 1992. The events of Black Wednesday in 1992, party disunity over the European Union and several scandals involving Conservative politicians all led to the Labour Party winning a landslide election victory under Tony Blair in 1997. Labour had shifted its policies from the political left closer to the center, under the slogan of ‘New Labour’. The Bank of England was given independence over monetary policy and Scotland and Wales were given a devolved Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly respectively, whilst London wide local government was also re-established in the form of an Assembly and Mayor. The Good Friday Agreement was negotiated in 1997 in an effort to end The Troubles in Northern Ireland, with a devolved, power-sharing Northern Ireland Assembly being established in 1998.

Blair led Britain into the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars before leaving office in 2007, when he was succeeded by his Chancellor, Gordon Brown. A global recession in 2008–10 led to Labour’s defeat in the 2010 election. It was replaced by a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government, headed by David Cameron, that pursued a series of public spending cuts with the intention of reducing the budget deficit. In 2016, the UK voted in an advisory referendum to leave the European Union, which led to Cameron’s resignation. Cameron was succeeded by his Home Secretary, Theresa May.

May engaged in a policy to take the country out of the European Union through her flagship Brexit withdrawal agreement. When this deal failed to pass through the House of Commons three times, May resigned. The subsequent Conservative leadership election was won by former Foreign Secretary and Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, who became Prime Minister in July 2019. A Conservative landslide victory in the general election five months later allowed for a majority government and the UK’s withdrawal from the EU in January 2020. Amid numerous scandals and a government crisis, Johnson resigned in September 2022 and after another interlude of scandal, Rishi Sunak became the first Prime Minister to be appointed during the reign of King Charles III and the first prime minister of immigrant (Indian) descent.

France also experienced a nationalist surge after the Cold War. During the Cold War, French President Charles De Gaulle pursued a policy of “national independence” towards the Western and Eastern blocs. To this end, he withdrew from NATO’s military-integrated command (while remaining in the NATO alliance itself), launched a nuclear development program and made France the fourth nuclear power. He restored cordial Franco-German relations to create a European counterweight between the American and Soviet spheres of influence. However, he opposed any development of a supranational Europe, favoring a Europe of sovereign nations.

In the post-Gaullist era, France remained one of the most developed economies in the world but faced several economic crises that resulted in high unemployment rates and increasing public debt. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, France has been at the forefront of the development of a supranational European Union, notably by signing the Maastricht Treaty (which created the European Union) in 1992, establishing the Eurozone in 1999 and signing the Lisbon Treaty in 2007. France has also gradually but fully reintegrated into NATO and has since participated in most NATO-sponsored wars. During the 1970s France faced an economic crisis and allowed new immigrants (mostly from the Maghreb) to permanently settle in France with their families and acquire French citizenship. Simultaneously France renounced the assimilation of immigrants, where they were expected to adhere to French traditional values and cultural norms. They were encouraged to retain their distinctive cultures and traditions and required merely to integrate.

Since the 1995 Paris Métro and RER bombings, France has been sporadically targeted by Islamist organizations, notably the Charlie Hebdo attack in January 2015 which provoked the largest public rallies in French history, gathering 4.4 million people, the November 2015 Paris attacks which resulted in 130 deaths, the deadliest attack on French soil since World War II and the deadliest in the European Union since the Madrid train bombings in 2004, as well as the 2016 Nice truck attack, which caused 87 deaths during Bastille Day celebrations. Opération Chammal, France’s military efforts to contain ISIS, killed over 1,000 ISIS troops between 2014 and 2015.

German reunification in October 1990 was welcomed as a sign of the end of the Cold War, but also met with some concern that Germany could once again dominate the continent. United Germany was considered the enlarged continuation of West Germany so it retained its memberships in international organizations. Based on the Berlin/Bonn Act (1994), Berlin again became the capital of Germany, while Bonn obtained the unique status of a Bundesstadt (federal city) retaining some federal ministries. The relocation of the government was completed in 1999, and modernization of the East German economy was scheduled to last until 2019.

Since reunification, Germany has taken a more active role in the European Union, signing the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 and the Lisbon Treaty in 2007, and co-founding the Eurozone.[108] Germany sent a peacekeeping force to secure stability in the Balkans and sent German troops to Afghanistan as part of a NATO effort to provide security in that country after the ousting of the Taliban.

In the 2005 elections, Angela Merkel became the first female chancellor. In 2009 the German government approved a €50 billion stimulus plan. Among the major German political projects of the early 21st century are the advancement of European integration, the energy transition (Energiewende) for a sustainable energy supply, the debt brake for balanced budgets, measures to increase the fertility rate (pronatalism), and high-tech strategies for the transition of the German economy, summarized as Industry 4.0. During the 2015 European migrant crisis, the country took in over a million refugees and migrants.

The political history of countries like the United Kingdom, France, and Germany experienced its own distinct trajectories, marked by significant events, leaders, and policies that have further shaped the European context. As Europe moves forward, it will continue to navigate its complex history, address current challenges, and strive for a united and prosperous future. There has been a significant shift in Europe’s geopolitical landscape as the Cold War threats have subsided and new security challenges have arisen. While the reunification of Germany and the expansion of the European Union has brought prosperity and peace to many, it has also reinforced tensions with Russia. The crisis in the Balkans and the Yugoslav wars have shown that national identity is still an important factor in continental history. Looking ahead, Brexit and the war in Ukraine have raised questions about the future of Europe and its identity.