ABSTRACT
Most analysts and scholars involved in studying the former Soviet Union in recent years, including in the military, diplomatic and arms control fields, have concentrated on the changes which took place in that country and in Eastern Europe in the six years of rule by the remarkable political figure Mikhail Gorbachev. He came to power in 1985 on the basis that the country he was governing and the system he was intending to reform would, in the broadest geo-political, strategic and international form, remain intact. Most observers saw in Gorbachev a man determined to modernise, liberalise and upgrade the Soviet Union according to a broad plan, executed often on an “ad hoc” basis, but conforming to the principle of the retention of the country as a Federally-governed state, with democratically-elected Parliamentary structures, a privatised economy and a co-operative role in international affairs, while remaining a military Super Power with effective nuclear armed forces: essentially a key factor in the world balance of power in the coming decades.
