Based on insights into the structure of postwar international politics revealed by the collapse of the Soviet Union, this study provides a fresh assessment of the entire course of the Cold War. Drawing on newly released material and scholarly research from both the West and former communist states, it argues that the Cold War can only be understood by exploring the interplay between ideology, domestic politics, and military security, not only in the U.S. and the Soviet Union, but in other states and movements with a capacity for significant military and political action.