ABSTRACT
Theory has the value of suggesting a range of possible policy goals: it can facilitate both the specification of underlying assumptions and their systematic comparison. While retaining the right to criticize Soviet policy, the United States government should avoid any appearance of challenging Soviet legitimacy, for the simple reason that it has never considered itself to have a vital interest in replacing that regime. Containment was intended for a particular situation at a particular time: it was never meant to inform American policy toward the Soviet Union for all time to come. The major postwar effort to make reform in Russia an objective of policy in the United States arose, during the early 1970s, outside the Nixon administration. It is easy to say that one should have coherent objectives in conducting foreign policy; but it is not so easy in fact to decide what they should be, or to implement them once they have been chosen.
