Change In Soviet Foreign Policy Research Articles

Editor's Note

Editor's Note

Soviet Entrance to the Middle East and Manoeuvring between Superpowers—the Case of Israel and Egypt

Abstract This article focuses on the strategies that Moscow chose during the first decade after World War II to overcome the obstacles created by the West to its entrance into the Middle East. The cases of Israel in 1948 and Egypt in 1955 show two different entry strategies used by Moscow and reflect significant changes in Soviet foreign policy that occurred between Stalin and Khrushchev toward developing countries. In 1948 Stalin chose an indirect and often tacit support of Israel, while in 1955 Khrushchev opted for a more direct approach with Egypt. Khrushchev’s confident tactics presented Moscow with new opportunities in the Middle East and the developing nations but also created long term challenges for the Soviet regime. At the same time, Israel and Egypt successfully maneuvered between Moscow and the West to gain maximum benefits for their national security needs by using both camps of the Cold War.

The Russian Far East during the Perestroika

The publication describes the main changes in Soviet foreign policy in the APR and trends in the state of society and power in the Russian Far East during the years of perestroika, and draws a conclusion on the influence of late Soviet reforms on the destruction of socio-political unity. Far Easterners, including party and state leaders, showed an ambiguous reaction to the challenge of perestroika. Their character changed with the manifestation of the multilayered consequences of the reforms. The long-term state program for the development of the Far East developed in 1987 was an attempt by reformers and Gorbachev personally to ease social tension in the region and at the same time strengthen the position of the USSR in the APR. But in terms of its implementation indicators, it turned out to be the worst in Soviet history. The process of maturation of the situation of transition from the state of social stratification of society towards the social split in the region is highlighted.

Political learning by doing: Gorbachev as uncommitted thinker and motivated learner

The direction and scope of the change in Soviet foreign policy after 1985 cannot be explained without reference to the impact of Gorbachev's representation of the Soviet security problem. Changes in the international distribution of capabilities and generational change are indeterminate explanations of the changes in Soviet foreign policy. Building on propositions from social cognition and organizational psychology, I argue that through inductive “trial-and-error learning” from failure, Gorbachev developed a new representation of the “ill-structured” Soviet security problem. Gorbachev learned in part because he was a relatively uncommitted thinker on security issues and was open to the ideas of experts. He was also highly motivated to learn because of his commitment to domestic reform. The complex interactive relationship between learning and action that provided quick feedback is captured by the social cognition of “learning by doing.” The conditionality of political learning suggests a rich research agenda for the analysis of foreign policy change.

Ideas do not float freely: transnational coalitions, domestic structures, and the end of the cold war

Realist or liberal explanations for the end of the cold war cannot account for the specific content of the change in Soviet foreign policy or for Western responses to it. These theories need to be complemented by approaches that emphasize the interaction between international and domestic factors and that take seriously the proposition that ideas intervene between structural conditions and actors' interests. Some of the strategic prescriptions that informed the reconceptualization of Soviet security interests originated in the Western liberal internationalist community, which formed transnational networks with “new thinkers” in the former Soviet Union. These new ideas became causally consequential for the turnaround in Soviet foreign policy and also had an impact on American and German reactions to it. Even though transnational networks were active in Germany, the Soviet Union, and the United States, their success varied. Domestic structures like the nature of political institutions, state-society relations, and political culture determine the ability of transnational networks first, to gain access to a country's political system and second, to build “winning coalitions.” These differences in domestic structures can largely explain the variation in impact of the strategic prescriptions among the three countries.

Internal Battles and External Wars: Politics, Learning, and the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan

Studies explaining the end of the cold war and change in Soviet foreign policy tend to emphasize the role of the international system: decision makers “learned lessons” about the international system, and this learning brought about Soviet accommodationist policies. Such systemic and cognitive learning approaches tend, however, to mask the political and highly contingent nature of the policy changes. To understand these changes, one must explore how certain ideas got placed on the political agenda and how others were forced off.This essay stresses the role of ideas about both the foreign and the domestic scene, as well as the role of a network of specialists that helped put these ideas on the national agenda. Ideas alone cannot explain any one outcome. They must be understood in terms of the political process by which they are selected. Ideas are more likely to be implemented and epistemic communities are more likely to be influential under three conditions: (1) access to the leadership, (2) salience of the ideas to the leadership, and (3) the ability of the leadership to control the political agenda.One critical example of great change in foreign policy was the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. This study examines the interplay of ideas and politics over time and explains how the decision to withdraw was implemented and why it occurred when it did. It focuses on (1) the mobilization of an epistemic community before Gorbachev came to power, (2) massive personnel changes within Soviet institutions in the 1980s, and (3) the empowerment of the epistemic community once Gorbachev had consolidated his power.

Désarmement régional en Europe et sécurité collective

Conventional Disarmament in Europe and Collective Security, by Jean Klein Considered by the Charter of the United Nations as a way to promote world wide collective security, disarmament became during the East-West confrontation one of the means to stabilize the military balance between the two alliances. Nevertheless, the talks on mutual and balanced force réductions in Central Europe (MBFR) were a failure and an agreement on conventional forces in Europe could only be concluded after the changes in Soviet Foreign Policy under Gorbatchev and the desintégration of the Warsaw Pact Organisation. Although the Paris treaty on conventional forces has only a limited significance it responds to the Western concerns and is a first step towards a multilateral agreement linked to the CSCE process.

The demise of the world revolutionary process: Soviet‐Angolan relations under Gorbachev

Ironically, Brezhnev's observation still holds true today. However, the transformative power of the international communist movement has resulted not from its consolidation, as Brezhnev surmised, but from its disintegration. The 'world revolutionary process' predicted by Marx, initiated by Lenin, and promoted for seventy years by the Soviet Union has come to an abrupt halt. Whether temporary or permanent, its present demise has created one of the most fluid historical moments of the twentieth century. This paper seeks to assess the impact of this world-wide phenomenon on southern Africa by analyzing one of its dimensions — Soviet relations with Angola. The paper addresses two central questions. To what extent have Soviet conceptual and organizational changes in foreign policy affected Soviet policy towards Angola? How has this new Soviet policy influenced developments in Angola and southern Africa more generally? The analysis is divided into four sections. The first section outlines recent 'restructuring' within and between those institutions which formulate and execute Soviet foreign policy towards Angola. The second section describes and explains the conceptual and concrete changes in Soviet foreign policy regarding states of socialist orientation which affect Angola. The third section discusses another revised concept in Soviet foreign policy — 'new thinking' about regional security — and its impact on Soviet-Angolan relations. The final section concludes with an

Continuity and change in soviet foreign policy

Continuity and change in soviet foreign policy

The change in Soviet foreign policy

The change in Soviet foreign policy