The transition from confrontation to cooperation in the
Soviet-American relationship which occurred in the mid- and
late-1980s was neither easy nor free of internal conflict. The
difficulties encountered by the new Gorbachevian leadership in
the USSR as it set about changing the direction of its foreign
policy were not rooted solely in the "established stereotypes of
thinking." Rather, they could be traced to a number of objective
factors, such as the vast stocks of strategic arms amassed in the
preceding years, the inertia inherited by the defense programs
then under way, and the significant influence exercised by the
representatives of the "old guard" Party and state structures in
both the domestic and foreign policy activities of the state.
Alongside these large-scale obstacles, there suddenly appeared a
seemingly peripheral, nonfundamental issue: construction in the
Soviet Union of "just another" early warning radar in the area of
Krasnoyarsk. For various reasons, however, it was precisely
this "innocuous" program that put the Soviet leadership's "new
political thinking" to its mo
st serious policy test.

That test can be traced back to the founding years of the
Strategic Forces of the Soviet Union. No objective correlation
of forces would have been possible if defenses were not
considered in conjunction with offenses. Clearly, as the Soviet

-95-