Richard Ned Lebow

Understanding the End of the Cold War as a Non-Linear Confluence

The end of the Cold War changed the world and the way we think about it. It ushered in a profound transformation of the international system, and has already become a critical case for the generation and testing of theories about conflict resolution and international relations more generally. The policy and theoretical lessons we draw from the largely peaceful end to a conflict that threatened the survival of humankind depend on the explanations we develop for this surprising but welcome development. The introduction to this volume voiced our concern about the predilection of scholars and policymakers alike to reason backwards and offer explanations for the end of the Cold War that are consistent with and supportive of their preferred theories and foreign policies. To combat this tendency and lay the groundwork for more persuasive treatments of the events of 1986-91, the Mershon Center and its collaborators ran a series of conferences to bring policymakers and scholars together and to provide new documentary evidence on the basis of which they could collectively attempt to reconstruct the important decisions that led to the end of the Cold War.