ABSTRACT
The Soviet Union’s decision to end its overlordship of a string of states on its western borders brought an effective end to the Cold War. It had found the burden of maintaining a sprawling informal empire stretching from the north German plains to the Khyber Pass in Afghanistan beyond its means. During the 1980s, 30,000 Soviet troops had lost their lives in a vain attempt to implant the communist system in the tribal and emphatically Islamic society of Afghanistan. The ruinously expensive nuclear arms race proved even more destructive to the Soviet system.
