ABSTRACT
The possibility of change in the Soviet Union, especially with respect to the Kremlin's new assertions on the use of military power, has dominated Western discussions of foreign affairs in the late 1980s. The signing of the Treaty on Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces in December 1987, sparked further optimism in the West that Soviet military policies had changed for the better. Mikhail S. Gorbachev's announcement in early 1988 that Soviet forces would be withdrawn from Afghanistan was welcomed throughout the noncommunist world. Should the withdrawal take place as announced, major problems in Afghanistan, caused by the Soviet invasion. In the early 1960s Soviet military doctrinal writings stressed nuclear war and how it would be fought. By the 1980s the military doctrine that had taken the Soviet Union to the position of a military superpower appeared once again to be in a cycle of modification.
