ABSTRACT
Describing nuclear weapons as "the greatest evil," Mikhail Gorbachev advocated their abolition along with all other means of mass destruction. He stressed the new Soviet doctrine of "military sufficiency," that is, a level of forces adequate to repel aggression but unable to conduct offensive operations. Gorbachev realizes that Leonid Brezhnev's tactics in the 1970s, nuclear intimidation and military adventurism, finally alarmed the West and provoked it to react. He amplified his "new Asian policy" in a September 1988 speech in the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. Chinese leaders take a sober view of the Soviet threat, warning Philippine President Corazon Aquino on a visit to Beijing last spring of the Soviet menace to Southeast Asia. The Chinese Foreign Ministry presented her with an assessment of the Soviet buildup at Cam Ranh Bay prepared by the Shanghai Institute of International Studies. Thus far Gorbachev's rapprochement with China and Japan has proceeded slowly.
