ABSTRACT
The collapse of communism throughout East-Central Europe and the unification of Germany within North Atlantic Treaty Organization have revolutionized the entire context of Soviet and post-Soviet foreign and security interests in the heart of Europe—for Soviet observers the central theater of world politics. On the official level the late Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev, Mikhail Gorbachev’s military adviser, forcefully rejected the concept of “limited sovereignty” in future Soviet-East European diplomatic relations, arguing that the Soviet Union must adapt to the East European revolution of 1989. Understanding the cognitive world of the Soviet elite as applied to Soviet foreign policy should thus occupy a prominent place in our studies of Soviet foreign relations. Soviet analysis of the international system may be related in significant ways to attitudes to the internal distribution of power and resources within the Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics.
