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Mikhail Gorbachev: A Preliminary Strategic Assessment
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10541 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1993 |
3,904 Words |
| Author
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Richard C. Thornton
Richard C. Thornton is a professor of history and international
affairs at the Elliott School of International Affairs at
George Washington University in Washington, D.C. |
The major thrust of analysis evaluating Gorbachev's leadership role in the former Soviet Union has centered on his domestic reform program, perestroika, and glasnost, with relatively little attention paid to the rapid evolution of Soviet foreign policy during his chairmanship. A comprehensive understanding of this literally revolutionary period would appear to require a broader and more balanced approach, to include the interrelationship of external to internal developments, both political and economic. Indeed, the record strongly suggests a inextricable, even causal, relationship between Gorbachev's foreign and domestic policies.
Gorbachev's fundamental objective was the economic and military modernization of the Soviet Union, and the arrangement of a dramatic reduction in external security requirements was prerequisite to the initiation of far-reaching domestic change. In short, Gorbachev sought to obtain the resources needed for the modernization of the state by changing Soviet strategy toward the West from confrontation to cooperation. Dramatically reducing security requirements and cutting the costs of overextended positions, in turn, enabled him to shift saved resources into the modernization effort, of which perestroika was the proclaimed centerpiece.
Such was the conception that unfortunately went awry. Ironically, Gorbachev's reform efforts created the dilemma that led to his downfall. As reform proceeded diminishing the legitimacy of the Communist Party and state, conservative party and military leaders increasingly demanded a restoration, while republic leaders, tasting the fruits of political and economic freedom, demanded and achieved independence. It was Gorbachev's unsuccessful attempt to guide the domestic reform process through the twin dangers of restoration and disintegration, the rocks of Sylla and Charybdis, as it were, that best explains his erratic reform policy course in 1990 and 1991, and his downfall.
THE GRAND FAILURE OF THE BREZHNEV STRATEGY
The starting point for analysis must be the failure of Brezhnev's strategy the attempt to change the global correlation of forces by military means. The Brezhnev leadership believed that strategic superiority was attainable and politically unable, and that its cost would not impose an unbearable burden upon Soviet society. Unfortunately for the Soviet people an enormous military buildup led to an overextended global position that became politically and economically unsustainable. A combination of circumstances including poor planning, political miscalculation,
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