It was the year that is usually considered the final year of the Cold War that had begun in the late 1940s. During the year, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics collapsed into fifteen sovereign republics. India also abandoned its policies of socialism and autarky and began extensive neoliberal changes to its economy in July 1991 which would increase the GDP but also economic inequality over the next two decades. A U.N.-authorized coalition force from thirty-four nations fought against Iraq, which had invaded Kuwait in the previous year, 1990. The conflict would be called the Gulf War and would mark the beginning of a since-constant American military presence in the Middle East. The clash between Serbia and the other Yugoslav republics would lead into the beginning of the Yugoslav Wars, which ran through the rest of the decade.