ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters off this book. The book deals with an interrelated set of problems resulting from the Mikhail Gorbachev reforms in the Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics (USSR). It looks at the future, in particular at the nationalist forces that are reshaping the former USSR's international relationships and at the possible policy consequences for the United States (US) of the transmutation of the USSR. The book presents the conceptual background to changes in Soviet foreign policy. It argues that the USSR had been disintegrating for some time before the August 1991 coup and that the US will be affected significantly by the primordial political fact. The book addresses the question of the irreversibility of Gorbachev’s foreign policy line. It shows that Soviet collapse will actually tend to reinforce the pattern of nuclear collaboration between the US and those who maintain control over nuclear weapons on post-Soviet territory.
