Late 20th Century

In 1989 the Berlin Wall was opened and by 1991 the USSR had ceased to exist. The Cold War was over but many of the conflicts of that era remained unresolved, or new conflicts emerged once the restraining yoke of direct superpower rivalries had been lifted.

This new era found many strange bedfellows and redrawn alliances; Saddam Hussein’s invasion and occupation of Kuwait was undone by an unprecedented alliance headed by the USA that would incorporate British, French, Syrian and Egyptian forces – amongst many others from the region and around the world – under a single command. Overwhelming success in Kuwait would lead to a misplaced belief in a new world order and an era of easy military solutions to complex and longstanding problems.

The successors to the USSR fought wars and civil wars as the newly independent states sought to define their boundaries. Elsewhere nations that had thrown off the colonialism and embraced Marxism found themselves without the sponsorship of a communist superpower. Economies collapsed, new governments rose and fell, and some states failed and descended into anarchy.

Yugoslavia unravelled into a series of bloody wars that would see the return of genocide to Europe and ultimately draw NATO into its first armed action. Former Warsaw Pact nations sought to divest themselves of links to the former USSR and realign themselves with NATO and the West.

Despite the end of the Cold War, the late twentieth century would remain very much an era of conflict.

NATO bombing of Yugoslavia (1999)

Second Chechen War (1999-2009)

Eritrean-Ethiopian War (1998-2000)

Second Congo War (1998-2003)

First Congo War (1996-1997)

First Chechen War (1994-1996)

Iraqi-Kurdish Civil War (1994-1997)

Yemeni Civil War (1994)

Sierra Leone Civil War (1991-2002)

Yugoslav Wars (1991-2001)

Gulf War (1990-1991)