The initial response of the Soviet government to the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl was the perfect storm of incompetence, callousness, and shameless lies. This bungled exposed the flaws in the Soviet system its own people and to the wider world.

In the early morning hours of April 26, 1986, reactor number 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station suffered a catastrophic failure when the poor decisions of the plant's electrical engineers combined with a critical design flaw in the reactor. The result was the worst nuclear accident in history.

In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev did not yet have the political capital or the right people in place to enact his bold domestic reforms. However, in the realm of foreign policy, he was able to make a splash more quickly.

Mikhail Gorbachev was a natural leader and a skilled administrator, but little about his early life led people to believe that he would usher in an era of revolutionary change when he became General Secretary in March 1985.

The period between the death of Leonid Brezhnev in 1982 and the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985 is often glossed over in histories of the Soviet Union. Yet, much of what happened in this time period provides vital context for the turmoil that would rock the USSR in the coming decade.

The Guerilla forces who faced the Red Army in Afghanistan have been defined in various lights. To some, they were the heroic defenders of Afghanistan's freedom. To others, they were bloodthirsty terrorists. In truth, they were mostly ordinary people forced to live in extraordinary and difficult times.

The war in Afghanistan was a bridge between the old Soviet Union and the new Russia. The soldiers of the Red Army who fought in it came from every republic and region of the USSR, and the war left an indelible mark on those who survived.

Between 1973 and 1979, there were three violent coups in Afghanistan, generating a crisis that culminated in the full-scale Soviet invasion of the country. It would be a war with few, if any, redeeming qualities. There were no good guys and everybody lost.

Afghanistan is a country at the crossroads of the world. Just about every major Eurasian Empire has been entangled in Afghan affairs at some point. The history of Afghanistan brings clarity not just to our understanding of the decline of the Soviet Union, but the entire modern world.

The Soviet Union was an officially and aggressively atheist state. However, religious traditions were strongly rooted among the peoples of the USSR. Even amidst an atmosphere of persecution, various Christian, Muslim, and Jewish communities persevered and even thrived.