The possibility of the end of the Cold War for so long seemed out of the question. Because of the definition of the Soviet ideology which stated that war with the capitalist nations of the world was inevitable, peace was paradoxical. The Americans in a sense fostered the Soviet position by executing a policy of containment against the Soviet Union in order to keep it in check and from spreading any further than it had already spread. However, as the world enters 1992, the superpower Soviet Union lies in utter destruction and chaos due to the collapse of its political infrastructure. This collapse came as a direct result of Mikhail Gorbachev's attempt to integrate a Marxist-Leninist society into the world economy without the full knowledge of the consequences of such a move. The oppression of the citizens of the Soviet Union also contributed to its demise. Their freedom found under Gorbachovian reforms lashed out of control striking at all who held power over them, with the exception of those they freely elected. Therefore, the period of detente and entente between the United States and especially the `New Thinking' by Mikhail Gorbachev offer direct insight s as to the unpredicted fate of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. .
The decade of the 1970s consisted of one major foreign policy condition for all nations on the globe, the Cold War. Following its inception after World War Two between the two major world powers, the United States and the Soviet Union, began an ideological race for world domination. Although the Cold War existed prior to the 1970s, it escalated to its highest point under the administrations of Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s and Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s. During this time, the United States pursued an ill-fated policy of detente with the Soviet Union, while the Soviets remained stubbornly aloof and cold. .
In the 1970s the Soviet Union dealt with the outside world from a position of strength.