ABSTRACT
The realities of the nuclear age and of the scientific and technological revolution call for new thinking and new approaches to the accomplishment of foreign-policy tasks. The hegemonistic, great-power ambitions of Stalinism, becoming deeply rooted in foreign policy, repeatedly jeopardized the political equilibrium among states, especially the East-West equilibrium. The US, paralyzed by the Vietnam catastrophe, was pained by the expansion of Soviet influence in Africa, the Middle East and other regions. The NATO countries' ruling circles have regarded all progressive social processes almost exclusively through the prism of further changes in the global political equilibrium in the Soviet Unions favor. In Western eyes, the expansion of the sphere of Soviet influence reached critical dimensions with the introduction of Soviet troops into Afghanistan. The "feedback" effect put the Soviet Union in an extremely grave condition in the areas of foreign policy and the economy.
