ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the conditions in which that reassessment is taking place and the lines which Soviet policy towards the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) has begun to take as a result. It argues that there is nevertheless evidence of an important, new Soviet effort to revitalize the CMEA and to reshape it into a mechanism through which more effective, collective responses to the economic challenges of the 1980s can emerge. The acceleration of technical progress in the region as a whole is to be the primary goal of the coordination of national policies at the CMEA level. Developments in the energy sector reflect the new Soviet thinking about the CMEA and the policy initiatives that have resulted. The energy sector also illustrates the mixed character of the CMEA system and the nature of the related Soviet dilemma, and it seeks to adapt the regional system to the new conditions that have emerged in the 1980s.
