Foreign Policy

Abstract

The warm international atmosphere at the end of the 1980s bears little resemblance to the second cold war that characterised the beginning of the decade. To a considerable extent this is the result of changes in Soviet foreign policy. Soviet diplomacy has changed dramatically in the last four years. Indeed, the foreign policy reforms have been as profound as in the domestic economy and politics. The most obvious consequence has been a resumption of East-West detente. But there have been other surprising developments in Soviet foreign policy, as well as in the theory underlying policy and in the structure of foreign policy decision-making.