ABSTRACT
The end of the Cold War impacted upon the Asia-Pacific very differently from Europe. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 followed shortly afterwards by the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 marked the end of communist rule in Europe and indeed the whole system of communism. The division of Europe was no more and the way was open for the expansion of NATO and the widening of the European Union to embrace virtually all the European states up to the borders of Russia. The end of the Cold War in Europe led to a fundamental and systemic transformation as democracy and the market replaced communist rule and the command economy throughout the half of Europe formerly dominated by the Soviet Union.
