Ten years ago this month, the Soviet Union collapsed in one final, drunken spasm. After decades of fear, the Soviet threat vanished with the proverbial whimper when Communist hardliners launched a last desperate coup attempt to bring then Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev back into line. They failed, victims of their own incompetence and the heroics of Mr. Boris Yeltsin. While the "evil Empire" is gone for good, an uncomfortably large number of people probably look back at the old regime with nostalgia and more than a little longing for the certainties of that time. It is an odd -- and damning -- reflection of life a decade later and failures of both policy and courage during those 10 years.
The drama began Aug. 19, when, in a final effort to save their empire, Soviet conservatives sent tanks into strategic positions in Moscow and imposed martial law. Mr. Gorbachev refused their pleas to declare a state of emergency. Russian Federation President Boris Yeltsin spearheaded popular opposition to the coup and it collapsed two days later when the armed forces failed to rally behind the hardliners. Mr. Gorbachev then resigned his positions in the party and dissolved the central committee, ending seven decades of Communist rule.
At that point, the Cold War was over. Many people dared dream of a new world, one that bridged the ideological divisions of the past and put humankind's vast resources to work to feed the hungry and house the poor rather than build ever more efficient killing machines. And indeed, for one brief moment -- when the United Nations constructed a global coalition to repulse Iraq's invasion of Kuwait -- that seemed possible.