ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies the shifting analytical dynamics surrounding Soviet military issues. The role of the Soviet military and of the military instrument within Soviet foreign and domestic policy is changing dramatically because of the new international and domestic conditions of the 1990s. In the wake of the Revolution of 1989, the classic elements of Soviet foreign policy which had been designed and implemented by the Communist Party and the Soviet state, began to crumble. Experience of Third World polities underscores that the military, or parts of the military, can become powerful forces for political intervention once a conservative or reformist agenda has been articulated by political leaders. For the Soviet military and, indeed, all of Soviet society, the current process of interaction with the outside world represents a dramatic break with the past. For the military, more overt manifestations of nationalism have had several direct consequences.
