ABSTRACT
The Soviet Union officially disbanded on December 26, 1991, one day after the resignation of Mikhail Gorbachev. The countries that made up the former USSR have been struggling both to govern themselves and to find their places in the world. The palpable threat of nuclear attack by the Soviet Union brought a high degree of cohesion to US foreign and defense policies. In 1979, in the midst of the cold war, the United States initiated a “hot war” against another seemingly implacable foe—inflation. The surprisingly swift transition to lower and more stable inflation rates caused some to declare that inflation was dead. The economy’s pace faltered after the Gulf War, and the nation’s attention was focused on expansion and employment, not inflation. Most economists agree that once inflation is fully anticipated, employers, employees, savers, and borrowers simply adjust the prices at which they are willing to transact with one another to reflect their expectations about the currency’s declining purchasing power.
