ABSTRACT
Aid to the Soviet Union was initially placed on the agenda of the Group of Seven (G-7) Summit in Houston in 1990 by France and Germany. It was elevated to the top of the G-7 agenda in London in 1991 by Gorbachev's own appearance there. In the wake of the global euphoria over the aborted seventy-two-hour Moscow coup, the subject has acquired immediate prominence. Although Japan's stance would doubtless be heavily influenced by the United States, its reluctance to become "fully engaged" in aiding the Soviet Union has deep roots. On all of these matters, Japan is the most "conservative" of all the G-7 countries in its coolness toward large-scale aid to the Soviet Union. An ostensible "bargain" that purports to relate the added resources to changes in Soviet resource allocations—for example, to cuts in Soviet military spending and forces, as advocated by Martin Feldstein— or to other changes in Soviet behavior, would be an illusory bargain.
