ABSTRACT
The objective basis in actual Soviet military power for Western net assessment of threat is unlikely to alter dramatically. Mikhail Gorbachev's policy motives probably are both wholly traditional and close to irrelevant. His leadership role plainly is uniquely important, but the changes under way in the Soviet empire are by no means solely the result of one man's commitment to change. The unique quality of Soviet threat discerned by Americans has not pointed to anything very extraordinary in Soviet statecraft but rather to the absence of adequate balancing elements within Europe and Asia and to the novel range and destructiveness of modern weapons. Moreover, if the Western alliance were to unravel itself in a more or less unplanned reaction to the apparent disappearance of the Soviet threat, one wonders how Soviet policymakers would define their responsibility to their country in such a new situation.
