Points of Mutual Advantage: Perestroika and American Foreign Policy *

Relations with the Soviet Union have improved considerably since 1985, when Mikhail Gorbachev launched what he called perestroika-a total restructuring of Soviet society, including Soviet foreign and defense policy. The exponents of perestroika see their country as rich in natural resources and human talent but stifled by the legacy of stagnation—a system incapable of producing the economic progress and political legitimacy which Soviet citizens have the right to expect. The chapter shows that a Europe can never be whole or free if the so-called Leonid Brezhnev doctrine justifying Soviet military intervention against its Warsaw Pact allies continues to be a principle of Soviet foreign policy. It focuses on resolving political conflicts—both in Europe and in the Third World—on reducing the risk of war through arms control, and on promoting internal Soviet change. Perestroika, after all, means, for the Soviet Union, a new way of conducting their political, economic, and legal affairs—a new set of standards.