ABSTRACT
By the 1960s, the long years of the Cold War had shaped stable policy mindsets in the decision-making elites in both superpowers and lodged them deeply within their national security institutions and practices. Although there were notable shifts in the patterns of superpower relationships over 20 years of what might be called the ‘mature’ Cold War, what struck observers at the time, and still stands out in hindsight, is stability. By the 1980s, it had become clear that in the absence of major change in these deeply embedded foreign-policy mindsets-what many international relations scholars have come to call foreign-policy ‘identities’—superpower cooperation could not develop beyond very strict limits. When superpower cooperation of a new and profoundly deep type finally emerged in the late 1980s, the tumultuous politics of identity change-at least, on the Soviet side-were at centre stage.
