Peaceful Revolution increasingly lacked the materials to continue the arms race with the Reagan-era United States – particularly with a drawn-out war in Afghanistan – and the resources to control Central and Eastern Europe. With his economic and sociopolitical reform program as well as his disarmament initiatives, Gorbachev therefore sought to take appropriate steps. Having initiated a policy of "glasnost" (openness) and emphasized the need for "perestroika" (economic restructuring), Gorbachev essentially permitted the six member states of the Warsaw Pact to now each take their own direction with their own reforms. While those reforms implemented the Soviet Union were met with broad
Union of Sovereign States Union of Sovereign States The Union of Sovereign States () was the proposed name of a reorganization of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics into a new confederation. Proposed by the then President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, the proposal was an attempt to avert an end to the Soviet Union. The proposal was never implemented in the wake of the August Coup in 1991 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union ultimately occurred on December 26th of that year. The overall proposal was resurrected as the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), although as a regional organization, not a