ABSTRACT
A re-examination of the sources of national security included an increase of emphasis on the arms control process as a means to regulate the costs and risks of the military competition with the United States. Mikhail Gorbachev noted the decreasing efficacy of parity as "a factor of military-political restraint," thus reinforcing the impression that the Soviet leadership was reconsidering how best to ensure national security specifically in an age of strategic nuclear parity. Where Gorbachev avoided the phrase "equality and equal security" in his discussion of arms control, Leonid Brezhnev had noted that negotiations could be conducted only on the basis of this principle. Vladimir Petrovskii was an unusual combination of an academic and bureaucrat who in the summers of 1984-1986 had contributed to leading academic journals on foreign policy. The importance of the military factor in Soviet foreign policy was often blurred by two mistaken ideas about the relationship between the civilian leadership and the military.
