1991-The Future Cover Story

Optimism was in the air, a confidence in the future not felt for a half-century. In Central Europe closed societies burst open with the promise of market economies and democratic government. The signing of the Maastricht Treaty created the prospect of a common European currency before the turn of the century. The World Wide Web-created by a British scientist working in a European laboratory in Switzerland-offered the promise of a burgeoning information age free from the blight of borders, suspicion and censorship.

The end of history, it appeared, was a lovely time to be alive.

Then, suddenly and perhaps predictably, history returned, and with much the same violence and vindictiveness that have made the previous decades of the 20th century so dismally memorable. Iraq launched an attack on Kuwait. It brought a massive response from the U.S.-led coalition that annihilated the Iraqi army in a lightning war. Yugoslavia came apart in an orgy of civil strife and "ethnic cleansing" that

revived memories of Nazi genocide during World War II. Europe and its institutions-NATO, the European Union, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe-stood paralyzed amid slaughter.

Cover For a few perilous days in August 1991, it seemed that the same might happen in the Soviet Union. A junta put Mikhail Gorbachev under house arrest and announced a state of emergency. Defenders of democracy, led by Boris Yeltsin, barricaded themselves inside Moscow's White House, and the coup collapsed. The Soviet Union followed. Soon after, the Central Committee of the Communist Party itself disbanded. Result: freedom for the inmates of the Soviet prison of nations. Mapmakers struggled to redraw borders, and the U.N. made way for 17 new members.

Freedom did not necessarily bring peace. In the Caucasus, Georgia dissolved into civil war while Armenia and Azerbaijan fought over contested territory. Russia itself-a vast multi-ethnic federation

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