The 1980s and the end of the Cold War - NZ and the Cold War

New Zealand's anti-nuclear stand

As had happened in the late 1950s, in the late 1970s and early 1980s the Soviet Union and the United States both enhanced their nuclear arsenals. This development reignited a peace movement worldwide. For New Zealanders there was a South Pacific focus. Initially provoked by French nuclear testing, from 1975 it was directed more at the United States' nuclear presence in the region. Reinforced by world trends, the New Zealand movement exploded in size in the early 1980s.

In 1985 the fourth Labour government clashed with the United States over its ban on port visits by nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed ships. This distanced New Zealand from its Cold War allies and led the United States to suspend its ANZUS obligations to New Zealand. Nevertheless, the depth of sentiment in New Zealand was such that the National Party also adopted Labour's 'anti-nuclear' stance in 1990. By then, with Soviet control having collapsed in east and central Europe, the Cold War was approaching its end.

The end of the Cold War

The Berlin Wall came down in 1989. The demise of the Soviet Union itself at the end of 1991 completed the process. Some commentators saw the massive build-up of the American nuclear arsenal in the 1980s as a crucial factor, given that the Soviet Union proved unable to match it. The collapse of Soviet power probably owed more to Eastern European resentment of Soviet domination, and to internal factors, in particular the declining ability of the Soviet system to meet its citizens' needs, and the loss of legitimacy on the part of the country's governing Communist Party.