Cold War (1985–1991) reduced some strategic arms unilaterally. Fundamental to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Gorbachev policy initiatives of Restructuring ("Perestroika") and Openness ("Glasnost") had ripple effects throughout the Soviet world, including eventually making it impossible to reassert central control over Warsaw Pact member states without resorting to military force. On June 12, 1987, Reagan challenged Gorbachev to go further with his reforms and democratization by tearing down the Berlin Wall. In a speech at the Brandenburg Gate next to the wall, Reagan stated: While the aging communist European leaders kept their states in the grip of "normalization", Gorbachev's reformist policies
Foreign policy of the Ronald Reagan administration in Malta. The Soviet alliance system was by then on the brink of collapse, and the Communist regimes of the Warsaw Pact were losing power. On March 11, 1990 Lithuania, led by newly elected Vytautas Landsbergis, declared independence from the Soviet Union. The gate to the Berlin Wall was opened and Gorbachev approved. Gorbachev proposed to President George H.W. Bush massive troop reductions in Eastern Europe. In the USSR itself, Gorbachev tried to reform the party to destroy resistance to his reforms, but, in doing so, ultimately weakened the bonds that held the state and union together. By February 1990,