ABSTRACT
The year 1984 is more than two-thirds of a century from the time the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia. In the decades that have elapsed US attitudes and policies toward the Soviet regime have undergone frequent changes. There were the initial fifteen years when Washington ignored the communist state, as if expecting it to go away. US policies toward the Soviet Union have been and continue to be determined by Washington's evaluation of that country's behavior outside its own domain as being either "aggressive" or "restrained." As concerns the Soviet military threat, there is wide consensus in this country that it must be matched and thereby neutralized, even if considerable disagreement exists as to the precise extent of the threat and the best ways of coping with it. The military threat is readily understood by most people, which is probably why governments that feel externally threatened tend to reduce the threat to military terms.
