Gorbachev's Russia And American Foreign Policy

The Soviet post-Stalin period is examined in its economic, political, and foreign policy dimensions, stressing the factors that provided the gestation environment for Gorbachev's reforms. There follows an analysis of the nature, sources, and plausible outcomes of Gorbachev's "revolution" and the strategies he is applying to it. A separate part of the book examines the changing goals of past U.S. policies toward the Soviet Union and their effectiveness in influencing Soviet behavior. The final part puts forth suggestions and prescriptions for a U.S.approach to the changes in Soviet economic, security, and foreign policies. The East-West Forum is a New York-based research and policy analysis organization sponsored by the Samuel Bronfman Foundation. Its goal is to bring together experts and policy leaders from differing perspectives and generations to discuss changing patterns of East-West relations. It attempts to formulate long-term analyses and recommendations. In preparing the chapters of this book, the authors drew upon the work of a series of workshops initiated by the Forum.

Bialer, Seweryn

Preface -- Introduction -- Patterns of Change -- The Changing Nature of Change in the USSR -- Sources of Change in Soviet History: State, Society, and the Entrepreneurial Tradition -- Russia After Stalin -- The Soviet Economic Model -- War, Weapons, and Soviet Foreign Policy -- Human Rights: A Thaw Imperiled -- Gorbachev's Russia -- Gorbachev and the Politics of System Renewal -- The Crisis of the Soviet System of Power and Mikhail Gorbachev's Political Strategy -- Gorbachev's Program of Change: Sources, Significance, Prospects -- Russia and the West -- The Evolution of U.S. Policy Goals Toward the USSR in the Postwar Era -- Western Influence on the Soviet Union -- Gorbachev and the United States -- Gorbachev's Russia and U.S. Options -- U.S. Policy and Gorbachev's Russia -- East-West Relations -- The Soviet Union and the West: Security and Foreign Policy