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An Emerging New Soviet Policy
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15417 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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12 / 1989 |
2,435 Words |
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Philip Nel
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As is the case with perestroika, "new thinking" in Soviet foreign policy was not a ready-made commodity that only had to be marketed when Mikhail Gorbachev took power in 1985. While it was clear that the new Soviet leader had to initiate a new foreign policy to address the precarious position of the USSR, no one, not even Gorbachev, initially knew exactly how to tackle the task. In this respect, new thinking reflects a continuing learning process by the new Soviet government--a process that is not yet complete and still retains some elements of uncertainty and ambiguity.
What is already clear, however, is that the Gorbachev team entertains a radically different perspective on the general characteristics of the contemporary world from that held by its predecessors. Gone is the simplified Stalinist view that posited the existence of two world systems locked in a bitter struggle from which only one could emerge victorious. Gorbachev sees the world as a true system; that is, a unified organic whole that represents characteristics not represented by the sum of its component parts. This implies, inter alia, that the Soviet Union has to adjust its foreign behavior to better reflect its position within this unified whole. It also implies that instability in any part of the system should not be viewed in isolation but as something that has dire consequences for stability within the whole system.
Gorbachev's policy toward southern Africa should consequently be viewed, first, as a continuous learning process that has not yet been concluded. As such, it represents an attempt to reverse some of the setbacks experienced by the Soviet Union in the region during the immediately preceding period. Second, it should be viewed as a policy that tries to adjust Soviet behavior according to the insight that continued instability in southern Africa will have consequences for international interaction in general. There is, of course, an essential tension between these two elements of Soviet policy. On the one hand, Gorbachev has tried to reestablish the Soviet Union as a significant actor in the region. On the other hand, the crucial question is how to accomplish this essentially competitive goal (vis-à-vis the United States in particular) without endangering the network of relations on which world stability is based. Before evaluating how far the USSR has come in achieving a balance between these two elements and to what extent U.S. behavior affects this balancing act, let us consider four areas in which Soviet policy has undergone significant change.
The problems and setbacks experienced by the Soviet Union in the first half of this decade were related to the excessively ideological attitude of key Soviet personnel involved in formulating Soviet policy toward southern Africa, the marginalization of Soviet diplomacy in the region, the development of major security threats to key Soviet allies in southern Africa, and the loss of Soviet stature as a reliable economic partner.
On the personality front, the Gorbachev broom has made a clean sweep, getting rid of or neutralizing ideologists such as Boris Ponomarev in the International Department of the Central Committee and Leonid Ilychev in the Foreign Ministry. Today, the International Department has lost its near-exclusive responsibility for southern African policy, and where it is still involved, someone like Valentin Falin ensures that the Gorbachev line takes precedence.
Much of the
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