Thomas Daschle: “as hard as it is for me to believe, it was 8 years ago this month that the Berlin Wall came tumbling down. Who among us…”

“as hard as it is for me to believe, it was 8 years ago this month that the Berlin Wall came tumbling down. Who among us can forget the stirring pictures of that moment? The entire world watched as jubilant Germans, separated for 38 years by a man-made scar running the length of their country, breached this once impregnable barrier. In so doing, they not only united Germany, they brought together a continent. The dismantlement of the wall dramatically symbolized to all that democracy had at last triumphed over totalitarianism. The fall of the wall set in motion a series of incredible events. In June 1991, Boris Yeltsin became the first democratically elected Russian President. Two months later Yeltsin disbanded the Communist Party. By the end of 1991, the Soviet Union itself ceased to exist. And the Warsaw Pact, the once fearsome military alliance established to counter and defeat NATO, was officially dissolved. After five decades of tension, the loss of thousands of lives, and the expenditure of several trillion dollars, the cold war was over. However, as the euphoria of this historic occasion began to melt away, leaders in the United States, Europe, and Russia began to realize that the national security paradigms they had used for nearly half a century no longer applied. They would be required to think anew--a task that presented both challenges and opportunities.”