for autonomy or even complete independence. In August 1991, hard-line Communist Party leaders attempted a coup against Gorbachev. International condemnations and the defiance of prodemocracy Soviets led by Russian President Boris Yeltsin prevented the coup's success. On August 29, 1991, the Soviet national legislature ended Communist Party rule. In December of that year Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus entered an agreement to form a "Commonwealth of Independent States" to replace the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. By December 21, all the other republics except Georgia had signed commonwealth pacts. Gorbachev resigned on December 25, 1991, and the U.S.S.R. officially disbanded later that day.

Before the upheaval in the Soviet Union had run its course, U.S. President George Bush and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev had signed an important Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) on July 31, 1991. Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed START II on January 3, 1992. Although these two treaties represent a step forward in post-cold war U.S. foreign relations, their fate is uncertain. START I cannot take effect until Ukraine ratifies it, and the reductions called for in START II cannot begin until those specified by START I are completed. In the face of the new world order created by the end of the cold war, the United States faces many new challenges in its continuing search for a peaceful future.

In June 1990 President George Bush held a summit meeting with Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. From the Bush Presidential Materials Project.