ABSTRACT
Relations among major powers will be the product or many factors—foreign policy objectives and capabilities, domestic stability or instability and political will, and levels of economic and technological development. It is possible, of course, to postulate a variety of scenarios in the US-Soviet relationship based on the Soviet Union in an "imperial phase" and the United States in decline, both in relative military power and in political will. Crucially important to the future of the US-Soviet relationship is, of course, the Sino-Soviet conflict. The deepening of tensions between Moscow and Peking in the late 1960s and the interest of the United States in minimizing its potential for conflict with Peking through the reduction of US interests in the Asian-Pacific region provided the crucially important ingredients for the Sino-US rapprochement symbolized by President Nixon's visit to the People's Republic of China in February 1972.
