In this book, David Cox argues that the initial disagreements that led to the Cold War largely centered around Central/Eastern Europe, and Germany in particular. The end of the Cold War, according to Cox, can best be understood in the context of the withdrawal of Soviet forces and the disintegration of Soviet hegemony in these areas.
In this insightful and original book, Cox examines the circumstances surrounding the Soviet Union's military retreat from Germany and Eastern Europe as a microcosm of the decline and collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Using Soviet, and later Russian press reports, as well as German accounts, Cox traces the origins on the Western Group of Forces (WGF) within the Soviet alliance system up to the beginning of Gorbachev's reforms and the consequences of these reforms on the Soviet position in Eastern Europe. He also examines Gorbachev's new political thinking in Soviet foreign policy, the East German Revolution, Moscow's relations with Germany, domestic Soviet politics and the WGF, and ultimately the end of the Cold War.