ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book addresses explanations alternative to a learning framework for its duration, intensity, and prospective termination. It explores the use of analogical reasoning by US policy makers. The book examines the utility of distinguishing between learning and adaptation. It provides testimony to the tenacity of the cold war paradigm in shaping both thought and action in the US-Soviet relationship from Joseph Stalin through Lenoid Brezhnev, Harry S. Truman through Ronald Reagan. The book discusses learning as any re-evaluation of the goals and philosophical assumptions built into the cold war paradigms, if the re-evaluation undercuts unilateral approaches to ensuring national security, in favor of cooperative approaches. It describes the Soviet détente policy under Brezhnev as a change of course but emphasizes its limitations.
