ABSTRACT
US-Soviet relations in the 1980s have manifested an extraordinary degree of indeterminacy. Moscow announced that its moratorium on nuclear testing would end if the United States continued its tests in 1987. By the end of the year, US-Soviet relations had returned to the limbo of uncertainty that had repeatedly characterized them in the past. The uncertainty and the tug-of-war over political strategy are largely due to several related sets of difficulties faced by the policy analysts and advisers on both sides. For the American observer, it has been a matter of genuine difficulty to decide whether the Gorbachev regime has introduced anything substantially different or new into the calculus that produces Soviet foreign policy. The replacement of more than thirty Soviet ambassadors abroad and of many more officials in the minister during Gorbachev's first eighteen months in office is indicative of the housecleaning Shevardnadze has undertaken, with the full support of the general secretary.
