ABSTRACT
The responsibility rests to a major degree on the aggressiveness of Soviet policy, which, in turn, has reflected the Soviet view of the consequences of a favorable change in the "correlation of forces." Soviet policy also yields to internal factors, but the causal relationship between foreign policy and the domestic situation is far more difficult to interpret. The great irony of detente was that the temporary Soviet gains in the West came to be offset by a massive crisis in the East. The chief difference is that under active approach, the expectation is that the Soviet situation would worsen; negotiations would then resume under more favorable Western terms. Soviet policy will also reflect Moscow's appraisal of its possibilities in dealing with the United States. Soviet policy thus confronts a traditional mix of opportunities and challenges. The net effect was to leave the United States dismayed and embittered by the persistent European rationalization of Soviet advances.
