Title: Post–Cold War era - Wikipedia
Headings: Post–Cold War era
Post–Cold War era
Contents
Background
Dating issues
Trends
International cooperation
Consequences of the fall of communism
Government, economic and military institutions
Technology
The Second Cold War
See also
References
Further reading

Content: The same heightened consciousness is true of terrorism, owing largely to the September 11 attacks in the United States and their global fallout. Consequences of the fall of communism
The collapse of the Soviet Union caused profound changes in nearly every society in the world. Much of the policy and infrastructure of the West and the Eastern Bloc had revolved around the capitalist and communist ideologies respectively and the possibility of a nuclear warfare . Government, economic and military institutions
The fall of Communism formed an existential threat for many institutions. The US military was forced to cut much of its expenditure, though the level rose again to comparable heights after the September 11 attacks and the initiation of the War on Terror in 2001. The end of the Cold War also coincided with the end of apartheid in South Africa. Declining Cold War tensions in the later years of the 1980s meant that the apartheid regime was no longer supported by the West as a bulwark against Communism and they were condemned with an embargo. In 1990, Nelson Mandela was freed from prison and the regime made steps to end apartheid, which were on an official basis completed by 1994 with the new election . Socialist and Communist parties around the world saw drops in membership after the Berlin Wall fell and the public felt that free market ideology had won. Libertarian, neoliberal, nationalist and Islamist parties on the other hand benefited from the fall of the Soviet Union.