Opinion | The end of history? Communism and the cold war continue to blight democratic ideals 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall

The fall of the Berlin Wall, on November 9, 1989, heralded the end of communism in central and eastern Europe. The prevailing Western view then – as claimed in Francis Fukuyama’s book The End of History – was that capitalist democracy had won, communism was dead and the cold war over.

During the cold war of 1945-89, the world faced a nuclear arms race between leading powers who backed opposing sides in civil wars and regional conflicts. Vietnam hosted a brutal proxy war between communism and capitalist democracy – or Western imperialism, depending on your point of view. The Korean peninsula was a focal point in a world bitterly and dangerously divided. How much has changed?

In a recent BBC interview, Mikhail Gorbachev, the only Soviet leader to reduce his country’s arsenal of warheads, spoke of the “colossal danger” the world faces from the renewed nuclear arms race between the United States and Russia.

America’s foe Russia, led by Vladimir Putin – the KGB’s leading spy of the previous cold war era – has lined up against the US and its allies, with Syria, Ukraine and now Libya as arenas where proxy-war rivalries play out in a manner reminiscent of the first cold war. In the civil war in Libya, like in Syria, Russia is deploying military aircraft, guided missiles and snipers in support of its preferred contender.