U.S.-Russia relations in the post Cold War era

Name

Course

Lecturer

March 31 , 2009

United States-Russian relations in the post Cold War era

The global affairs after the Second World War were dominated by two superpowers with The central drama within the global system was characterized by conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union expressed in the form of capitalism and communism . These two superpowers had at their disposal the greatest armies and artilleries that no any other country could match during this period of time (Donnelly , 1965 . The internal organization of these two superpowers

was radically different with the United States having a democratic polity and a market economy while the Soviet Union having a economy . Each of these nations believed in the superiority of their system and thus attempted to actively promote the replication of these systems in other countries while at the same time hindering the expansion of the other 's system . The competition between the United States and Russia was thus driven by this ideological divide . Put simply , the United States and the Soviet Union were not only rivals because of their greatness in the international system but also because they were two powers with irreconcilable visions concerning how the political , social and economic life should be organized

During the initial stages of the final decade of the twentieth century one side in this bipolar ideologically divided system collapsed and for the first time in the history of the modern...