ABSTRACT
The ambitious reform efforts Mikhail Gorbachev has undertaken as leader of the Soviet Union have encompassed every component of Soviet society, albeit with varying degrees of success. The changing perspective of the threat is likely to have significant effects on the Soviet force posture in the near future. The democratically elected governments of Czechoslovakia and Hungary have reached agreements with the Soviet Union for the complete withdrawal of all Soviet forces and their equipment by mid-1991. The revolution in Eastern Europe and German unification have profound implications for the European security environment and the restructuring of East-West relations more broadly. Soviet civilian analysts began to criticize the dichotomy between the defensive nature of Soviet military doctrine at the political level and the offensive strategies espoused at the military-technical level. Gorbachev appears to have been sincere when he announced his plan for complete nuclear disarmament by the year 2000.
