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Removing Obstacles to Globalization As the three-world order crumbled, Second World options disintegrated leaving new ties to integrate the world.
Cold war hostilities greatly limited global exchange. Countries caught between the superpowers fell into chaos and war. The arms race led to enormous expenditures for weaponry that eventually bankrupted the Soviet Union and greatly raised U.S. debt. Economic challenges from outside their respective blocs and dissatisfaction from within eroded confidence. The Soviet bloc collapsed, revealing terrible shortages, lagging health care, and political lies. Gorbechev’s efforts to reform the Soviet system undermined party control. It fell to Yeltsin to dismantle and privatize the vast Soviet system. Some states ceased to exist, such as East Germany. Others broke apart, such as Yugoslavia. For the majority, the breakup of the Soviet Union meant political and economic stagnation. Unable to absorb to subtle technological changes, like the computer, in an information age meant that communism could not sustain itself.
Africa and the End of White Rule In the 1970s, few remnants of Africa’s colonial experience continued to exist. The collapse of the Portuguese colonies ended all formal imperialist holdings, but some states continued to be dominated by white governments. When Rhodesia’s white government buckled in 1979, South Africa’s white leaders remained alone. In 1994, due to the failure of increasingly harsh measures against Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress and fears of becoming even more of a pariah nation, South Africa’s de Klerk organized free elections that swept white leaders out of power. Despite progress, most African states struggled to build their economies, to avoid falling too deep into cold war political rivalries, and to integrate various peoples within their states. Ethnic and local rivalries, however, beset such efforts ensuring that neither peace nor stability could be guaranteed even after the end of the cold war. >> Continue to the next part of the Summary: Unleashing Globalization
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