ABSTRACT
A revolution is under way in Soviet foreign policy greater than any in the postwar period, indeed greater than any since Lenin in the early years of his regime accepted the failure of the pan-European revolution and allowed the Soviet Union to join the game of nations. Steadily but chaotically, with a lurching, creative energy, the transformation has cut wider and deeper into the rudiments of Soviet foreign policy. The revolution in Soviet foreign policy is occurring on another level, where notions more directly inform practical choice, the level of policy concepts. If Soviet leaders are rethinking the very notion of national security, they are also revising the concepts that guide their defense decisions and their negotiating posture in arms control settings. When a foreign policy has diminished national welfare and weakened the states ability to influence or control external change, as so many Soviet spokesmen freely admit has been true of Soviet policy, the price of not responding mounts.
