<P> By the 1970s, both sides had become interested in making allowances in order to create a more stable and predictable international system, ushering in a period of détente that saw Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and the US opening relations with the People's Republic of China as a strategic counterweight to the Soviet Union . Détente collapsed at the end of the decade with the beginning of the Soviet--Afghan War in 1979 . The early 1980s were another period of elevated tension, with the Soviet downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 (1983), and the "Able Archer" NATO military exercises (1983). The United States increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressures on the Soviet Union, at a time when the communist state was already suffering from economic stagnation . In the mid-1980s, the new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the liberalizing reforms of perestroika ("reorganization", 1987) and glasnost ("openness", c. 1985) and ended Soviet involvement in Afghanistan . Pressures for national independence grew stronger in Eastern Europe, especially Poland . Gorbachev meanwhile refused to use Soviet troops to bolster the faltering Warsaw Pact regimes as had occurred in the past . The result in 1989 was a wave of revolutions that peacefully (with the exception of the Romanian Revolution) overthrew all of the communist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe . The Communist Party of the Soviet Union itself lost control and was banned following an abortive coup attempt in August 1991 . This in turn led to the formal dissolution of the USSR in December 1991 and the collapse of communist regimes in other countries such as Mongolia, Cambodia and South Yemen . The United States remained as the world's only superpower . </P> <P> The Cold War and its events have left a significant legacy . It is often referred to in popular culture, especially in media featuring themes of espionage (notably the internationally successful James Bond film franchise) and the threat of nuclear warfare . </P> <Table> <Tr> <Td> <P> Part of a series on the History of the Cold War </P> </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Origins of the Cold War </Th> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> World War II (Hiroshima and Nagasaki) War conferences Eastern Bloc Western Bloc Iron Curtain </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Cold War (1947--1953) </Th> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Cold War (1953--1962) </Th> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Cold War (1962--1979) </Th> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Cold War (1979--1985) </Th> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Cold War (1985--1991) </Th> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Frozen conflicts </Th> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Timeline Conflicts Historiography </Th> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> <P> Part of a series on the History of the Cold War </P> </Td> </Tr>

Why was the us fearful of the soviet union in the cold war