ABSTRACT
Mikhail Gorbachev's policy on the German problem evolved on four different but interacting levels: change in the Soviet Union; redefinition of the Soviet-East European relationship; events in East Germany, notably the Honecker regimes refusal to embark on reform; and Soviet Westpolitik, that is, the reordering of Soviet relations with the United States and Western Europe, including West Germany. Reliance on nuclear weapons for security blatantly contradicts the "new thinking" and, more specifically, Gorbachev's ambitious program for ridding mankind of the scourge of nuclear weapons by the year 2000. The spring 1990 elections in Romania and Bulgaria, which returned to power communists with a refurbished "socialist" program, demonstrated that such change, rather than explosive upheaval, was in the realm of the possible. In Gorbachev view, only the political aspect, the existence of two German states with different socioeconomic systems was relevant.
