The initially inconspicuous opening of a border gate of the Iron Curtain between Austria and Hungary in August 1989 then triggered a chain reaction, at the end of which the German Democratic Republic no longer existed and the Eastern Bloc had disintegrated.

The result of the greatest mass exodus since the building of the Berlin Wall and the non-reaction of the Eastern bloc states showed the oppressed population that their governments had lost absolute power.

Subsequently, large numbers of East German refugees attempted to flee through Hungary and the weak reactions showed that the communist leaders lost even more power.

Attitudes had changed enough that US Secretary of State James Baker suggested that the American government would not be opposed to Soviet intervention in Romania, on behalf of the opposition, to prevent bloodshed.

[11] The tidal wave of change culminated with the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, which symbolized the collapse of European Communist governments and graphically ended the Iron Curtain divide of Europe.

The collapse of the Eastern European governments with Gorbachev's tacit consent inadvertently encouraged several Soviet republics to seek greater independence from Moscow's rule.

In an attempt to halt the rapid changes to the system, a group of Soviet hard-liners represented by Vice-president Gennady Yanayev launched a coup overthrowing Gorbachev in August 1991.

After the end of the Revolutions of 1989, Gorbachev and President Bush Sr. met on the neutral island of Malta to discuss the events of the year, the withdrawal of the Soviet military from Eastern Europe, and the future course of their relationship.

Additionally, the United States, still believing the Soviet Union would continue to exist in the long term, began to take steps to create a positive long-term relationship.

The Soviet Union voted in the United Nations Security Council in favor of Resolution 678 authorizing the use of military force against its former Middle Eastern ally.

[14] Several conflicts in third world nations (i.e. Cambodia, Angola, Nicaragua) related to the Cold War would come to an end during this era of cooperation, with both the Soviet Union and the United States working together to pressure their respective proxies to make peace with one another.

[16][17] The United States had established a complex global presence by the 1990s and policymakers felt that some structure to explain the "threats, interests and priories" that guide foreign policy was needed, but there was no agreement on how to proceed.

The goal then of Bush Sr. and Clinton during their terms in office was to develop foreign policy objectives that would support consensus rather than accelerate fragmentation inside America's sphere of influence.

[21] Countries such as the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Slovakia experienced economic reconstruction, growth and fast integration with EU and NATO while some of their eastern neighbors created hybrids of free market oligarchy system, post-communist corrupted administration and dictatorship.

The post–Cold War era saw a period of unprecedented prosperity in the West, especially in the United States, and a wave of democratization throughout Latin America, Africa, and Central, South-East and Eastern Europe.