ABSTRACT
The chapter concentrates on the analytical and intellectual strands of contemporary Soviet foreign policy, as a way of clearing the ground for the broader discussion of Soviet policy and Soviet-American relations to which it stands as antecedent. The profound changes that the political leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev has introduced and induced, into the conduct of Soviet foreign relations, and by consequence in the entire fabric of East-West relations, has shaken the world and compelled its attention. The key trends emerging from the post-Stalin analysis of international relations included: the view of international relations as an arena populated by a plurality of corporate actors, with states as dominant; increasing attention paid to the role of political institutions as sources of foreign-policy conduct; recognition of the noninevitability of world war in the nuclear age, which tended to undermine the Soviet view of international relations as a closed system.
