Soviet Foreign Policy Today

The rapid changes in Soviet foreign policy under Gorbachev towards the capitalist world, the communist world, and the Third World represent a radical break with the past. As the conventional wisdom on Soviet objectives, strategy, and tactics in a global context becomes irrelevant, it has become essential to reassess basic assumptions on the conceptual and behavioral changes associated with this "new political thinking." Soviet Foreign Policy Today focuses on the highly personal nature of Gorbachev's leadership and the links between his domestic and foreign policy. To place Gorbachev's radical alterations to Soviet policy in perspective, the book is divided into two parts. The first part describes the previous conceptual, historical, and institutional setting of Soviet foreign relations under the "old political thinking" and assesses the general effects of the changes. The second part analyzes the impact of the new Soviet policies on the rest of the world. Soviet Foreign Policy Today presents a comprehensiveoverview of the links between economic, political, and military factors on a world-wide scale, and will appeal to anyone interested in understanding the radical changes represented by Gorbachev's new visions of international relations.