AP Photo

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union, and in a milder way the United States, imposed external limits on the activities of states and societies, causing longstanding conflicts among smaller countries to be "frozen." Following the Soviet Union's collapse in the 1990s, those conflicts began to "unfreeze." With interethnic tensions already on the rise, Yugoslavia was the first country to dissolve into conflict. Soon after, war broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan, followed by fighting in Transdnestr and Chechnya. Some conflicts were addressed: The West finally intervened militarily in the former Yugoslavia, and Russia fought in Chechnya for almost a decade and imposed peace in Transdnestr. But others, such as that between Armenia and Azerbaijan, were simply frozen again.