Influence of Soviet Union on International Relations With the West - Case Study Example

The legacy of these forces and events includes a physical re-shaping of Europe, through the emergence of new players and the refiguring of entire European areas, and a return to ideological polarization, with extreme nationalism in some instances leading to armed conflicts and even genocide, (some of which still colors international relations between states today). A more significant aspect of the events of 1989 and 1991 is that it deprived some Eastern European States of choices, which were clearly either already available to independent countries or were foreshadowed, as illustrated by the example of Yugoslavia, which had established significant relationships with both the US and the Soviet Union.

With the new Soviet political attitude towards the West prevailing in him late 1980s, Eastern European countries had every reason to anticipate ‘the best of both worlds. Instead, they were once again left with no choice, this time being ruled not by coercion but by economic necessity, as new and old countries suffered from the same malaise – an almost defunct economy. Twenty years and billions of aid dollars later, the majority of the former Soviet allies have rebuilt their political systems into democratic or quasi-democratic structures, have undergone IMF-driven economic austerity programs, and have in general regenerated their economies, albeit at enormous cost to their welfare systems.

And the ‘conversion’ is almost complete, with few countries now remaining outside the EU. These are either already in the approval process, are being ‘worked on’ to ready their political systems and economies for EU application, or are currently considered as a ‘lost cause’. However, the most devastating aspect of the collapse of the Soviet Union is perhaps that these countries were unprepared for ‘Western-style’ competition and to a large extent are still so, even after more than two decades. There are new issues emerging as a result of the inflow of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), which initially no doubt would have been welcomed with open arms but which has also opened these states up to completely new and frequently quite brutal scenarios, where multinationals abandon their newfound partners on little provocation, at times merely because a better deal is offered elsewhere