ABSTRACT
Joseph Stalin's main foreign policy achievement was to restore the Soviet Union's traditional position in the region. The Soviet Union thus was assured a voice in any postwar decisions regarding either reunification or permanent partition of the German nation. Stalin's policies probably were appropriate to the conditions as he saw them. The "revolution in Soviet military affairs" that took place after 1953 resulted in a change of strategy, but, with the possible exception of a brief period in the late 1950s, did not lead to a downgrading of Eastern Europe's strategic importance. The pact did not play much of a role in fostering Soviet-Eastern European military cooperation, which was efficiently managed through a tight network of bilateral links. The Brezhnev-Kosygin regime that replaced Khrushchev in 1964 did not radically revise his policies toward Eastern Europe. The new push for economic integration was complemented by integrationist reforms in the military sphere.
