ABSTRACT
Mikhail Gorbachev practices the diplomacy of the unexpected. His international maneuvering and high-pressure negotiating style put him in a long tradition of leaders who have pursued innovative foreign policies. One Central Committee foreign policy specialist recently looked back on 1987 as the "Year of Europe" in Soviet diplomacy. The same Soviet official who spoke of the "Year of Europe" has boldly forecast that 1988 will be in effect the "Year of Asia". Most significant, the Soviet Union has experimented with developing good ties to both sides of certain Third-World regional conflicts-potentially a very formidable innovation in Soviet diplomacy, which has generally been limited to cooperative relations with one side only. Gorbachev will presumably argue that much of the weakness of Soviet diplomacy stems from the desire to have it both ways and that only the retrenchment he advocates can mark out a path to future success.
