Soviet Reassessment of Ronald Reagan, 1985–1988
Mikhail Gorbachev's policy of bold concessions on arms control issues and regional conflicts in the latter half of the 1980s has been variously viewed as a response to the militant, anti-Soviet policies of the Reagan administration, compelled by the deepening internal crisis of the Soviet system; the result of a new and more pragmatic form of thinking about international relations that had gained ascendance in Moscow; and the reflection of an ideological transformation involving the social democratization of a part of the Soviet elite.1 Realists and Idealists continue to debate the role of shifts in the balance of power, the assertive defense policies of the Reagan administration, ideological change in the, Soviet Union, and the emergence of new ideas about mutual security in ending the cold war.2 Many of these factors were clearly relevant in varying degrees to the profound shift in Soviet foreign policy that occurred in the latter half of the 1980s. While a complete assessment of the weight of these and other factors in bringing about the transformation of Soviet foreign policy must await a complete opening of Soviet archives on the period, the more detailed evidence on Soviet foreign policy making, which has become available in the form of a growing set of memoirs by key Soviet participants as well as other documents, indicates that the evolution in Soviet policy toward the United States in the period after 1985 was closely linked to shifting perceptions of the