UESS Application

Title: The Union of Eurasian Soveriegn States
Territorial claims: Russia, Georgia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Crimea
Capital: Moscow, Russian Federative Republic
Population: ~185,000,000
Nominal GDP: 5.2 Trillion USD, $28,108 per capita
Government type: Federative Dominant-Party Republic
Head of State: President Vladimir Putin
Official Language: Russian
Historical Summary: Mikhail Gorbachev becomes leader of the Soviet Union in the early 1980s, quickly implementing a series of top-down and bottom-up economic reforms known collectively as Perestroika. The Soviet economy at the time had hit a major slump, thanks largely to military overspending and Brezhnev's lackluster management ability. Before these could be implemented Gorbachev began an ongoing effort to improve relations with the West and withdraw troops from Afghanistan. These reforms were conducted alongside Deng Xiaoping's, as the USSR and PRC began to normalize relations. Perestroika focused primarily on decentralizing the economy and allowing at first limited and later more significant free market influence over the economy. While initially coupled with liberalizing social reforms (known as Glasnost), these were partially peeled back as their unpopularity with the Party and failure to engage the public became apparent. Glasnost also failed to fulfill its immediate goal of using the public support for Perestroika as leverage against the more traditional wing of the Communist Party. Socio-political reforms were from then on approached in a far more level-headed manner.

As the Soviet economy began to stabilize in the late 1980s, its military spending and global position as a rival to the United States began to wane. This culminated in the fall of the Berlin Wall and the breakup of the Warsaw Pact in the revolutions of 1989, "ending" the Cold War. This was coupled with a series of uprisings in the Soviet Republics, convincing Gorbachev to draft a New Union Treaty under new terms. Gorbachev's opposition within the Communist Party became increasingly belligerent with this loss of position and political power. Desiring a return to central planning and competition with the United States, leading to the Gang of Eight's attempted coup in 1991. The coup failed to win popular support from the public or most of the Armed Forces and led to the deaths of many of its supporters in the MVD Internal Troops. With revolutions brewing amongst many of the Soviet Republics, Gorbachev met repeatedly with their leadership and held several polls to affirm government and public support for the reforms. Aside from the Baltic States the New Union emerged in 1992 as the Union of Eurasian Sovereign States. Not long after however the Union would face a series of economic and political challenges, brought on by the UESS and Gorbachev's turn away from the Communist Party, being replaced in the first Union Elections with his new Union of Social Democrats. The Chechen Wars occurred not long after, bringing in new political instability which the state and military were just barely able to handle. Several Republics broke off around this time, including Ukraine, worsening the economic impact of Gorbachev's erratic new administration. A series of economic downturns and high unemployment plagued the 1990s, however they were prevented from entirely crashing the economy or destroying the Union. Gorbachev stepped down in 1996, in favour of Vladimir Putin. However, Boris Yeltsin claimed the presidency in his place and went on to win an election with Putin as his reluctant Prime Minister. With Yeltsin's worsening health however, Putin was able to step into his shoes in 2001. Promising to ensure the continued growth of the Eurasian economy and to restore the nation's lost position.
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