The International Sources of Soviet Change Author(S): Daniel Deudney and G

The International Sources of Soviet Change Author(s): Daniel Deudney and G. John Ikenberry Reviewed work(s): Source: International Security, Vol. 16, No. 3 (Winter, 1991-1992), pp. 74-118 Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2539089 . Accessed: 09/01/2012 02:11

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http://www.jstor.org The InternationalDaniel Deudney and Sources of Soviet G. JohnIkenberry Change

The Cold War has ended, shiftingglobal political life on a scale not seen in fiftyyears. At the heart of these changes were domestic and foreignpolicy choices made by the Soviet Union. In domestic affairs,the Communist Party gave up its political monopoly, then collapsed, glasnosthas aired historicalcrimes and failings,and socialist economics is being abandoned. In foreignaffairs, the Soviets have acquiesced in the complete collapse of communistclient regimes in Eastern Europe and the unificationof Germany, accepted far-reaching force reduction and disarmament agreements, sought to strengthenthe United Nations, and embarked upon a broad effortto solve regional con- flicts.'The speed and magnitude of these changes, acceleratingin the wake of the abortive August coup, have exhilarated world public opinion and stunned Western foreignpolicy elites. They have also overturnedmuch of the conventionalwisdom in the West about the permanence of the East-West

Daniel Deudneyis AssistantProfessor of PoliticalScience at the Universityof Pennsylvania and author ofthe forthcoming book Pax Atomica: States and Republics in Sustainable Global SecuritySystems. G. JohnIkenberry is AssistantProfessor of Politicsand InternationalAffairs at PrincetonUniversity; during1991-92, he is an InternationalAffairs Fellow on the PolicyPlanning Staff at the U.S. State Department.He is authorof Reasons of State: Oil Politicsand the Capacities of American Govern- ment, and co-authorof The State; he is currentlywriting a bookabout the international spread of policy doctrines.

The authors would like to acknowledge helpful comments and suggestions by Henry Bienen, Matthew Evangelista, Andrew Farkas, Sam Kim, Rey Koslowski, Charles Kupchan, David Meyer,Henry Nau, Alvin Rubinstein,Stephen Walt,and WilliamWohlforth. Research assistance was provided by GeoffreyHerrera and Naomi Mobed. Research for this paper was supported by the Peter B. Lewis Fund and the Center of InternationalStudies, Princeton.

1. For overviews of Soviet foreignpolicy change, see Matthew Evangelista, "The New Soviet Approach to Security,"World Policy Journal, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Fall 1986), pp. 561-599; RobertLegvold, "The Revolutionin Soviet ForeignPolicy," Foreign Affairs, Vol. 68, No. 1 (Americaand the World, 1988/89),pp. 82-98; David Holloway, "State, Society, and the Military Under Gorbachev," InternationalSecurity, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Winter 1989/90),pp. 5-24; JackSnyder, "The Gorbachev Revolution: A Waning of Soviet Expansionism?" InternationalSecurity, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Winter 1987/88),pp. 93-131; William Hyland, The Cold War Is Over (New York: Knopf, 1990); Michael MccGwire, Perestroikaand SovietNational Security(Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 1991); David Armstrongand Erik Goldstein, eds., The End ofthe Cold War(London: Frank Cass, 1990); Andrei V. Kozyrev, "The New Soviet AttitudeToward the United Nations," The WashingtonQuarterly, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Summer 1990), pp. 41-53.

InternationalSecurity, Winter 1991/92 (Vol. 16, No. 3) (C 1991 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and of the Massachusetts Instituteof Technology.

74 The InternationalSources of SovietChange j 75

conflict,the possibilityof change in the communistworld, and the relative strengthsof the competing camps.2 Not only have these changes been sweeping and unexpected, but they have been peaceful as well, at least at the internationallevel. Many students of Great Power politics have long held that sudden and significantchanges in the status of Great Powers, particularlyauthoritarian ones, are likely to be violent.3In the modern state system, it is hard to find a precedent for sudden and peaceful change in the status of a central Great Power and in the patternand intensityof inter-staterivalry. The half centuryof Cold War, markedby unexpected stabilityand peace among the Great Powers, has been labeled the "long peace."4 The postwar period has now also experienced "major peaceful change." Given the centralityof the Cold War over the last forty-fiveyears and the importanceof the Soviet experimentin the twentiethcentury, explanations

2. The consensus of foreignpolicy elites in the West was that the East-Westconflict would be a semi-permanentfeature of world politics. As late as 1986 Zbigniew Brzezinski argued that "the American-Sovietconflict is not some temporaryaberration but a historicalrivalry that will long endure." Brzezinski, Game Plan: A GeostrategicFramework for the Conduct of the U.S.-Soviet Contest(Boston: Atlantic,1986), p. xiii. Colin Gray argued that "the East-Westconflict is (forall relevantpolicy-related purposes) a permanentfeature of internationalrelations." Gray, The Geo- politicsof the Nuclear Era: Heartlands,Rimlands, and theTechnological Revolution (New York: Crane, Russak, 1977), emphasis in original. "Profound differencesand severe competitionwill surely continue to mark U.S.-Soviet relations," wrote Robert S. McNamara and Hans A. Bethe, "Re- ducing the Risk of Nuclear War," Atlantic,July 1985, p. 47. Only fifteenyears ago, Daniel Patrick Moynihan worriedthat Western ideas and institutionswere becoming increasinglymarginalized in world history.Moynihan, "The United States in Opposition," Commentary,Vol. 59, No. 3 (March 1975). Jeane Kirkpatrickargued that totalitarianregimes such as the Soviet Union were incapable of reform.Jeane Kirkpatrick,"Dictatorships and Double Standards," Commentary,Vol. 68, No. 5 (November 1979), pp. 34-45. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, many in the West saw a Soviet strategicand geopolitical juggernaut. Henry Kissinger argued in 1978 that because of "the vulnerabilityof our strategicforces . . . [Soviet] willingness to run risks . . . must expo- nentiallyincrease." The next five years, he said, were going to be "our period of maximum danger." U.S. Senate, Committeeon Foreign Relations, The SALT II Treaty,96th Cong., 1st sess. (Washington,D.C.: U.S. GovernmentPrinting Office [U.S. GPO], 1979), pt. 3, pp. 224-225. 3. The problem of peaceful change in Great Power systems is a central proposition of realist internationaltheory. As E.H. Carr put it, "normally,the threatof war, tacit or overt, seems a necessarycondition for important political changes in the internationalsphere." Carr,The Twenty Years Crisis,1919-1939 (London: MacMillan, 1939), p. 216. Similarly,Robert Gilpin argues that "throughouthistory the primarymeans of resolving the disequilibriumbetween the structure of the internationalsystem and the redistributionof power has been war." Gilpin, War and Changein WorldPolitics (New York: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1981), p. 197. See also JackS. Levy, "Declining Power and the PreventiveMotivation for War," WorldPolitics, Vol. 40, No. 1 (October 1987), pp. 82-107. 4. JohnLewis Gaddis, The Long Peace: Inquiresinto the History of the Cold War(New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1987); Charles W. Kegley, Jr.,ed., The Long PostwarPeace: ContendingExplana- tionsand Projections(New York: HarperCollins, 1991). InternationalSecurity 16:3 | 76

of these events are of central concern to social scientistsand historiansas well as makersof foreign policy.5 Thus thelong and contentiousdebate over the originsand strategyof the Cold War is being replaced by a debate about its end.6 Because Western knowledge of internal Soviet deliberations and motives remains incomplete and because events of this magnitude are the product of the conjunction of many forces,the debate over the end of the Cold War,like the debate over its origins,is likelyto be long and inconclusive. At the heart of this debate is a question with far-reachingpractical and theoreticalimplications: what are the sources of the Soviet crisisand how do we account for the directionsof policy change? At the outset, it is useful to distinguish between the question of what caused the Soviet crisisand the question of what caused the responses.Many students of Soviet politicsargue that both the crisis and the responses are the product of essentiallyinternal developments-the failureof socialism and the reformimpulses it generated. In this view, the new Soviet foreignpolicy has been primarilydriven by the requirementsof domestic reform.7 The propositionof this paper is thatrecent changes in Soviet foreignpolicy behavior (and some domestic behavior) can be explained as a product of the changing characterof the Soviet Union's externalenvironment. The Soviet environmenthas evolved slowly but profoundlyover the last half century. The two most importantfeatures of the Soviet Union's new environment, nuclear weapons and the multi-facetedliberal capitalist system of states, have foreclosed the traditionaloptions of expansion, while creatingoppor- tunities and imperatives for accommodation and integration. Although the primarycauses of the crisis are domestic, Soviet responses, particularly in foreign affairs,derive from external sources. These policy changes are, to a significantdegree, an adaptation to a changed internationalenvironment that has shaped policy responses by foreclosing some opportunitiesand creating others.8In short, the transformationof the Soviet

5. For an extended review of theoreticalapproaches relevant to these developments, see Mat- thew Evangelista, "Sources of Moderation in Soviet SecurityPolicy," in Philip E. Tetlock,et al., eds., Behavior,Society, and NuclearWar, Vol. 2 (New York:Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 254- 354. See also Robert Legvold, "Learning and Soviet Policy," in George W. Breslauer and Philip E. Tetlock,eds., Learningin U.S. and SovietForeign Policy (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1991). 6. These recent events also seem certainto alter the debate about the origins of the Cold War. John Lewis Gaddis, "The End of the Cold War and the Rewritingof Cold War History," unpublished paper, summer 1990. 7. We argue that the theoryof industrialmodernization best explains the Soviet crisis;Deudney and Ikenberry,"Soviet Reformand the End of the Cold War: ExplainingLarge-Scale Historical Change," Reviewof International Studies, Vol. 17, No. 3 (Summer 1991), pp. 225-250. 8. One of the few systematicattempts to schematize adaptation processes is that of James N. The InternationalSources of SovietChange j 77

Union was made possible by the transformationof the international system.9 The Soviet Union's externalenvironment is a complex collectionof factors thatinclude deep global structuraltrends, the policies of leading states, and the actions of transnationalmovements and particularindividuals.10 Many commentatorshave emphasized the role of Westernstate policy, and particularly American containmentpolicy, in inducing Soviet change. However, before conclusions are drawn about the success or failureof particularpoli- cies, it is importantto assess the full set of environmentalfactors operating on the Soviet Union, some of which have been long in the making and some of which are not a reflectionof governmentpolicy. To assess the impact of the Soviet Union's externalenvironment, it is useful to distinguishbetween military,economic, and sociocultural realms, and to isolate eight distinct dimensions and chart their change over time. In the militaryrealm, these are: (1) the regime type of leading states; (2) the composition of military power; and (3) the distributionof militarypower. In the economic realm, they are: (4) economic resources available to other states; (5) economic sta-

Rosenau, who distinguishesfour types of adaptation (acquiescent, intransigent,promotive, and preservative). In Rosenau's framework,the Soviet Union has moved fromintransigent to acquiescent. Rosenau, The Studyof Political Adaptation: Essays on theAnalysis of World Politics (New York: Nichols, 1981). On the usefulness of the adaptation approach to Soviet foreignpolicy, see Rosenau, "Toward Single-CountryTheories of ForeignPolicy: The Case of the USSR," in Charles F. Hermann, Charles W. Kegley, Jr.,and JamesN. Rosenau, eds., New Directionsin theStudy of ForeignPolicy (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1987), esp. pp. 71-72. 9. We believe that there is a strong deductive case forour claims that changes in the external environmentproduced changes in Soviet domesticand foreignpolicy, but untila fullassessment of the evidence fromSoviet sources is possible, many of our argumentsshould be regarded as hypotheses, however plausible. The argument that internationalor system-levelfactors are paramount in shaping foreignpolicies rests on the insightthat states must respond to external opportunitiesand vulnerabilitiesto achieve theirgoals. Even withoutfull knowledge of internal decision-making,a focus on a state's internationalsetting provides powerful insights into its behavior. Accordingly,to account for these changes in foreignpolicy, it is useful to turn to internationalrelations theory to constructa system-levelor "outside-in" explanation. Key works in the debate over the explanatorypower of unit-levelversus system-levelfactors are: J. David Singer,"The Levels-of-AnalysisProblem in InternationalRelations," in Klaus Knorrand Sidney Verba, eds., The InternationalSystem: Theoretical Essays (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1961), pp. 77-92; Kenneth Waltz, Man, theState, and War(New York: Columbia UniversityPress, 1959); and RobertJervis, Perception and Misperceptionin InternationalPolitics (Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 1976), chap. 1. 10. The environmentof a state is made up of a multitudeof pressures, constraints,opportunities, and attractionsoften pushing, pulling, and blocking in differentdirections simulta- neously. While all states are subject to the internationalenvironment, not all states experience the same environment.The geographical position of a state's neighborsmatters a great deal. In the case of the Soviet Union the behavior of Germany-the nearest Great Power-has loomed particularlylarge. See Harold Sprout and Margaret Sprout, The EcologicalPerspective on Human Affairs(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965). InternationalSecurity 16:3 | 78

bilityof otherstates; and (6) the externalappeal of a state's economic system. In the socioculturalrealm, they are: (7) the strengthof internationalorganizations; and (8) the characterof global society and culture. Any analysis of eitherthe world system or Soviet policies that does not weigh this fullrange of factorsrisks being incomplete and distorted.1" With so many relevant variables, the question arises whether a smaller number of more fundamental causes link them. Identifyingsuch taproots would allow a more parsimonious explanation. The most salient cluster of variables in the Soviet Union's environmentis the West, itselfa multi- dimensional, complex set of factorsincluding the world capitalist system, the Westernalliance, the policies of the United States, non-stateactors, and Westernsociety and culture. Although the featuresof this system are interconnected, they cannot be readily reduced to one factor,but rather are distinct forces that pull and push in differentways and directions. The economic dynamism of capitalism puts competitivepressures on the Soviet Union, while the democratic and pacific characterof the West diminishes Westernmilitary aggressiveness. Nuclear weapons, a factordistinct from the characterof the West, reinforcepacific tendencies and incentivesfor accommodation. The result is a paradox: although the West has become more militarilyand economicallypowerful, it has presented an increasinglybenign and magnetic face to the Soviet Union. Since many of the influentialfactors in the Soviet environmenthave existed formany decades, explaining the timingof Soviet change poses a particular challenge. To begin with, the search fornew policies may have begun only afterthe internaleconomic malaise was perceived as a crisis, which would explain why long-establishedexternal features began only recentlyto exert an influence.Furthermore, some featuresof the Soviet Union's environment, such as the performanceof capitalism and the externalappeal of socialism, were undergoinggradual transformation.Also, some featuressuch as nuclear weapons were so novel that a long and uneven learning process was necessary before fundamentallynew policies were deemed necessary. Conclusions about the role of internationalfactors in shaping Soviet change have importantimplications for two ongoing Western debates. First, they are centralto the spirited debate between the leftand the righton the role of recentpolicies and movementsin ending the Cold War. Many assessments

11. For a pioneering effortat examiningthe fullcontext of the Soviet position in the world, see Walter C. Clemens, Jr.,The U.S.S.R. and GlobalInterdependence (Washington, D.C.: American EnterpriseInstitute, 1978). The InternationalSources of SovietChange j 79

of the conclusion of the Cold War are extensions of political positions held during the Cold War. The rightand the leftare each scramblingto show that a largelyunexpected outcome was the product of its favored policy. On one side, several formerReagan administrationofficials argue that the vigor of the Reagan-era militarycounterpressure and its ideological reassertiveness precipitatedthe Soviet changes.12On the other side, many Europeans claim that the Helsinki process, detente, and transnational ties within Europe caused change in the East.13Members of the Americanpeace movementalso argue that their effortsto moderate Western extremismand to signal the Soviets that accommodation had a strong constituencyin the West signifi- cantlycontributed to the moderation of Soviet foreignpolicy.14 Despite their obvious differences,these views all assign a major importanceto veryrecent Western effortsto alter Soviet behavior. But viewed from the longer and wider perspective developed in this article, these initiativesplayed only a negligible-perhaps even a retarding-role in the Soviet reorientation. Secondly, conclusions about the internationalsources of Soviet change also have implications for the long-runningclash between realism and liberal globalism in internationaltheory. Since the 1940s, the type of realism that emphasizes the distribution(or balance) of power has been dominantamong Westernacademic theoristsas well as in shaping Westernpolicy. 15 In the last several decades, this type of realism has been repeatedly challenged by a heterogeneous set of propositions emphasizing global interdependenceand the importance of changes in the composition of power.16In the late 1960s

12. Richard Perle, "MilitaryPower and the Passing Cold War," in Charles W. Kegley, Jr.,and Kenneth L. Schwab, eds., Afterthe Cold War: Questioningthe Moralityof Nuclear Deterrence (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1991); Caspar Weinberger,Fighting for Peace (New York:Warner Books, 1990); and Anthony Dolan, Undoing the Evil Empire:How Reagan Won the Cold War (Washington,D.C.: American EnterpriseInstitute, 1992). 13. Mary Kaldor, "Cold War Europe: Taking the Democratic Way," The Nation,April 22, 1991, pp. 514-519; Thomas Risse-Kappen, "Did 'Peace Through Strength'End the Cold War? Lessons fromINF," InternationalSecurity, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Summer 1991), pp. 162-188. 14. See David S. Meyer, A Winterof Discontent:The NuclearFreeze and AmericanPolitics (New York: Praeger, 1990); and David Cortright,"Assessing Peace Movement Effectivenessin the 1980s," Peace and Change,Vol. 16, No. 1 (January1991), pp. 43-63. 15. For the prominence of realism in American internationalrelations scholarship, see Stanley Hoffmann, "An American Social Science: InternationalRelations," Daedalus, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Summer 1977), pp. 41-60. 16. Leading statementsof liberal globalist theoryinclude James Rosenau, ed., LinkagePolitics: Essays on the Convergenceof National and InternationalSystems (New York: Basic Books, 1969); Richard Falk, A Studyof FutureWorlds (New York: Free Press, 1975); and Robert 0. Keohane and JosephS. Nye, Jr.,Power and Interdependence:World Politics in Transition(Boston: LittleBrown, 1977). For an overview of this literaturesee K.J. Holsti, The DividingDiscipline: Hegemony and Diversityin InternationalTheony (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1985). A recentrearticulation of liberal InternationalSecurity 16:3 j 80

and 1970s, these liberal globalist theories rapidly gained ground, but were then dealt a serious set-backby the deteriorationof East-Westrelations.17 For liberalglobalists, the hard case has been the U.S.-Soviet relationship,because its antagonisticand militarizedcharacter has confounded their expectation thatrelations between states would become more moderate. The basic thrust of our analysis is that while certainaspects of the internationalenvironment described within realism and liberalismaccount for the outcomes, they are not those dimensions of power and interdependencethat have been emphasized by eitherschool over the last several decades. We begin by sketchingthe key featuresin the Soviets' domestic economic crisis, potential avenues of domestic and foreignpolicy response, and the actual policy changes pursued by Soviet officialsto date. In the central sections of the paper, we analyze the Soviet Union's environmentin eight dimensions, trace changes in them over the last half century,and weigh the impact of these changes upon the Soviet Union. In the conclusion, we weigh the relativestrength of these variables, examine theirinteractions, and draw implicationsfor international theory.

The SovietCrisis and AlternativeStrategies in Response

About the character of the crisis there is wide agreement. Virtuallyevery commentator of these events-from Mikhail Gorbachev to his American right-wingcritics-points to economic stagnationas the decisive impetus for change. Economic stagnation has created a political crisis because it has reduced the resources available to Soviet foreignpolicy, reduced the domestic legitimacyof the Soviet regime, and reduced the attractivenessof the Soviet model elsewhere. The crisis was the product of failures in the domestic economy.18 The crisiswas exacerbatedby internationalfactors, but not caused by them. globalisttheory is JamesN. Rosenau, Turbulencein WorldPolitics: A Theoryof Change and Continuity (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1990). 17. See JosephS. Nye, Jr.,"Neorealism and Neoliberalism,"World Politics Vol. 40, No. 2 (January 1988), pp. 235-251. 18. For an overview of Soviet economic troubles, see Marshall I. Goldman, The USSR in Crisis: The Failure of an EconomicSystem (New York: Norton, 1983); Anders Aslund, "How Small Is Soviet National Income?" in Henry S. Rowen and Charles Wolf, Jr., eds., The Impoverished Superpower:Perestroika and the SovietMilitary Burden (San Francisco: Institutefor Contemporary Studies, 1990), pp. 13-62; and see Aslund, Gorbachev'sStruggle for Economic Reform (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UniversityPress, 1991). The InternationalSources of SovietChange j 81

To explain the particularresponses to this crisis,it is necessary to consider various paths of change, including those that were not chosen. Both history and theory suggest that there is a range of potential strategicresponses to such a crisis. States might pursue differentcombinations of policies with differentdegrees of intensity.We categorize these policies to capture inter- related clusters of policies that define fundamentallydifferent societal tra- jectories.19Domestic options range from the totalitarianand authoritarian (single-partyand autocraticpolitical rule, repression of human rights,extensive confiscatoryextraction, and a state that dominates civil society) to the liberal (political democracy and pluralism,extensive reliance on marketsand privateproperty, openness and the accountabilityof the state to civil society). Foreign policy options include imperialism(military aggression, ideological truculence); autarky (economic and cultural isolation); and accommodation (retrenchment,integration, and ideological moderation). Prior to the emergence of the Gorbachev regime, there was widespread expectationin the West that the Soviet Union would respond to a crisis of economic stagnation with a mixtureof renewed imperialismand authoritar- ianism.20Contrary to these expectations,Gorbachev has led the Soviet Union in a fundamentallynew directionboth at home and abroad. The Soviet Union has responded to this crisis with a mixture of internal liberalization and externalaccommodation and retrenchment,rather than increased domestic repression and foreignaggression. The path of Soviet change contradictedthe predictions of renewed au- thoritarianismand aggressiveness, because a changed internationalenviron- mentmade possible the new Soviet foreignpolicy and domesticliberalization. To understand the logic of Soviet response in the 1980s, we look to the shiftingand complex contours of the internationalenvironment.

19. For a discussion of the grand strategicalternatives, see Paul Kennedy, "'Grand Strategyin War and Peace: Toward a Broader Definition,"in Kennedy, ed., GrandStrategies in Warand Peace (New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, 1991), pp. 1-7; Gilpin, Warand Changein WorldPolitics. 20. In the early 1980s, forexample, Edward Luttwak argued that "regime pessimism," exacer- bated by economic failure,would produce Soviet aggression against neighboringstates, particularly in Asia. Luttwak, The Grand Strategyof the SovietUnion (New York: St. Martin's, 1982). "For Russian governments,foreign glory is not merely an escape fromtransient crises, but a featureof the veryconstitutional order; permanentconquests serve to justifythe permanentsub- servience of Russian society. . . For this reason, internationaltension and the spectre of war in the formof an 'imperialist'attack on the Soviet Union, are vital to the interestof the Com- munist elite." Pipes, Survivalis Not Enough(New York: Simon and Schuster,1984), pp. 41-42. InternationalSecurity 16:3 j 82

THE SECURITY ENVIRONMENT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES A primarygoal of all states is the provision of physical securityfor its people and territory.The ease or difficultyof achievingthis goal varies greatlyacross time and space. For much of Russian and Soviet history,invasion and terri- torialappropriation was an acute and recurringproblem. The way in which the Russian and Soviet state secured itselfhas had deep ramificationsnot only for its continued existence but also for many aspects of the domestic regime.21Over the last fiftyyears, the Soviet Union's militaryand strategic environmenthas changed, with importantimplications for both domestic and foreignchoices. For purposes of analysis, we look at the international securityenvironment in three parts: the regime characteristicsof potential adversaries, the composition of militarypower, and the distributionof military power. These features,their changes, and their implicationsare summarized in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Security Environment.

Old International New International Implicationsfor Domestic Environment Environment Soviet ForeignPolicy Implications

Quasi-feudal Pacificliberal- capitaliststates vs. democratic seek territorial stateswidespread expansion Moreopportunity Lessenedfear fordomestic Militaryseizure Nuclearweapons ofWestern > liberalization of territory maketerritorial aggression possibleand often vs. aggression successful suicidal Expansionas Sovietaggression - solutionto domestic too costly problemsforeclosed

Russia/SovietUnion Overallparity in at relativemilitary VS. fullrange of disadvantage militarycapability

21. The classic formulationof this argumentwas made by Otto Hintze: "The formand spiritof the state's organization will not be determined solely by economic and social relations and clashes of interests,but primarilyby the necessities of defense and offense, that is, by the organizationof the army and of warfare." Hintze, "MilitaryOrganization and the Organization of the State" (orig. pub. 1906), in Felix Gilbert,ed., The HistoricalEssays of Otto Hintze (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1975). The InternationalSources of SovietChange | 83

THE AIMS OF POWER AND THE SPREAD OF LIBERAL-PACIFIC STATES Change in the Soviet Union's neighboringand rival states during the twentiethcentury provides a powerfulexplanation forthe recentreorientation of Soviet foreignpolicy. A world populated by secure liberal democraticstates presents a much more benign securityenvironment for the Soviet Union than one filledwith dictatorialand authoritarianstates. The centralpresence in the Soviet environment is the Western system that presents a set of constraintsand opportunities to which Soviet foreignpolicy has adapted. We assess this changing environmentat two levels: the patternof regimes of neighboringand rival Great Powers, and the characterof foreignpolicies pursued by liberal democraticstates. GREAT POWER REGIME TYPE AND SYSTEM CHARACTER. A key dimension of a state's securityenvironment is the foreignpolicy orientationof neighboring and powerful states. States must be concerned not just with the capabilities of otherstates, but also with theirforeign policy objectives. The threatposed by a potential adversary is determined by both intent and capabilities.22 Policies and intentionsare less tangible,harder to measure, and can change more rapidly than capabilities. Nevertheless, foreignpolicy goals have sig- nificantcontinuities because they are rooted in political institutionsand culture.23Thus the overall characterof a system can be powerfullyshaped by the politicalorientations of the leading actorsin it, particularlyin a system with a small number of major powers. For the Soviet Union as well as Russia beforeit, the politicalorientation of neighboringstates in the West has constitutedan overwhelmingfeature of its environment. During the firsthalf of the twentiethcentury, Germany loomed largest in the Russian and Soviet securityenvironment. War with Germany has been a profoundly formativeexperience: In World War I,

22. For a classic formulationof this view, see Klaus Knorr,On the Uses ofMilitary Power in the NuclearAge (Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 1966). A more recent statementis found in Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UniversityPress, 1987), Chapter 2. 23. Internationaltheories concerned with system-levelphenomena tend to downplay foreign policy patternsbased on domestic regime type. But one strand of realist theory,developed by Raymond Aron and Stanley Hoffmann,argues that the characterof the internationalsystem is powerfullyinfluenced by the domestic regimesthat make it up. Raymond Aron, Peaceand War- A Theoryof InternationalRelations (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966); StanleyHoff mann, The State of War: Essays on the Theoryand Practiceof InternationalPolitics (New York: Praeger, 1965). For a recent interpretationof the pattern of European politics that places heavy emphasis on the domestic sources of internationalpolitics, see David Kaiser, Politicsand War:European Conflict fromPhilip II to Hitler(Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1990). InternationalSecurity 16:3 | 84

Imperial Germanyoccupied large areas of the Russian Empire and weakened the autocracy,opening the way for the Bolshevik coup.24 In World War LI, Nazi Germany's invasion was defeated at the cost of roughlytwenty million lives. The aggressive foreignpolicy of both Imperial and Nazi Germanywas in significantmeasure the expression of their authoritarianand totalitarian regimes.25This experience confirmedthe Leninist expectationthat capitalist states were volatile and aggressive. Since the Second World War, there have been two major changes in the Soviet Union's adversaries in the West. First, the Soviets' main adversary has been the liberal democracy of the United States and not imperial au- thoritarianGermany. The United States is a far more benign and less aggressive Great Power than most of the European states with which the Tsar or Stalin had to contend. Second, and perhaps even more importantfor the Soviets, the regime character of Germany was radically changed with the emergenceof robustliberal democratic institutions in postwar West Germany. The American occupation forces transplantedliberal democraticand consti- tutional norms and institutionsinto Germany in such a way that they did not bear the stigma of their foreign origin or arouse a sense of national humiliation.26For half a centurynow, the Soviet Union's principaladversary has been a stable alliance of liberal capitalist democracies. This Western alliance largely defines the characterof the contemporaryinternational system and the Soviet Union's securityenvironment. THE PACIFIC WESTERN SYSTEM. The states of the Western alliance, while capable of balancing and resistingSoviet aggression, have shown littleincli- nation to aggress on the Soviet sphere or to provoke war. The system is pacific: capable of defense but structurallynon-offensive. The internalplu-

24. This argumentis made most forcefullyby Theda Skocpol in Statesand Social Revolutions:A ComparativeAnalysis of France, Russia, and China (New York: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1979). 25. By far the most widely held view of Germany in the firsthalf of the twentiethcentury is that domestic factorsheavily shaped German aggressive behavior. Eckart Kehr argued for the role of domestic economic interestsand conflictsin causing German aggression. See Kehr, ed., EconomicInterests and GermanForeign Policy (Berkeley: Universityof California Press, 1977). WoodruffSmith in The IdeologicalOrigins of Nazi Imperialism(Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 1986) emphasizes the independent role of ideology in stimulatingGerman aggression. The influenceof systemicfactors on German foreignpolicy is argued in David Calleo, The German ProblemReconsidered (New York: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1978). 26. See John D. Montgomery,Forced to Be Free: The ArtificialRevolution in Germanyand Japan (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1957); and Nicholas Pronay and Keith Wilson, eds., The PoliticalRe-education of Germany and Her Alliesafter World War II (Totowa, N.J.: Barnes and Noble Books, 1985). For a discussion of the impact of American occupation policy on the postwar hegemonic order,see G. JohnIkenberry and Charles A. Kupchan, "Socialization and Hegemonic Power," InternationalOrganization, Vol. 44, No. 3 (Summer 1990), pp. 303-307. The InternationalSources of SovietChange | 85

ralism and structureof the Western system largely foreclosesthe formation and implementationof an offensivegrand strategy,and makes coherentand sustained defensive strategiesdifficult, particularly in circumstanceswhere threats are not immediate and unambiguous. Liberal states are capable of formulatingcoherent grand strategies,but these strategies-for the deeply rooted reasons we describe below-tend to be non-offensive. The tendency of liberal democracies to have pacific relations with each other has been widely recognized.27At the same time, liberal democracies do have an extensive record of militaryintervention in smaller and weaker non-liberalstates. But liberal democraticstates have not initiatedwar against non-liberal Great Powers and their overall posture toward such states is essentiallydefensive. There are fivereasons forthis pattern.First, the structure of the liberal state itselfimpedes aggressive action because of its numerous constitutionalchecks on major war-making,and because its extensive system of deliberationand consultationtends to filterout rash and extreme ideas.28 Second, democracy empowers the broad mass of people, who have the most to lose fromwar, and who thereforetend to hold theirstates back from war-making.29Third, the capitalist system of private ownership of wealth provides a continuingcheck on the abilityof the state apparatus to generate revenues for public purposes of all sorts, including war-making.30 Fourth, the pacific tenor of liberal democraticpolitical culture and the non-

27. Eighteenth-centuryliberal theoristsmaintained that popular and constitutionalconstraints on foreignpolicy decision-makingwould lead to pacific outcomes because they would give power to the citizens who would tend to bear the costs of wars. For discussions of the complex relationshipsbetween democracyand war, see Peter Manicas, Warand Democracy(Oxford, U.K.: Basil Blackwell, 1989); and Michael Doyle, "Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs,"Philos- ophyand PublicAffairs, Vol. 12, No. 3 (Summer 1983), pp. 205-235; and ibid., Vol. 12, No. 4 (Fall 1983), pp. 323-353. 28. Kant's argument for the pacific tendencies of "republican states" is based on the idea that the state is constitutionallylimited, as well as upon democraticcontrols. On the filteringout of extremepolicies in a democracy,see Stephen Van Evera, "Primed forPeace: Europe Afterthe Cold War," InternationalSecurity, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Winter1990/91), p. 27. 29. Michael Doyle, "Liberalism and World Politics," AmericanPolitical Science Review, Vol. 80, No. 4 (December 1986), pp. 1160-1161. See also Charles A. Kupchan and CliffordA. Kupchan, "Concerts, Collective Security,and The Future of Europe," InternationalSecurity, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Summer 1991), pp. 114-161. 30. For the classic discussion of the declining bellicosityof modern wealthy states due to their desire to avoid high governmentexpenditures, see Benjamin Constant, "The Spiritof Conquest and Usurpation and their Relation to European Civilization," in Constant, PoliticalWritings, trans. and ed. by Biancamaria Fontana (New York: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1988). See also Edmond Silberner,The Problemof War in NineteenthCentury Economic Thought (Princeton: Prince- ton UniversityPress, 1946). For a modern critiqueof the military-industrial-complexargument, see Bruce M. Russett, WhatPrice Vigilance?The Burdensof NationalDefense (New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, 1970). InternationalSecurity 16:3 | 86

martialcharacter of consumer societyfurther reduces the probabilityof liberal aggression, particularlyagainst a well-armedstate.31 Fifth, alliances of liberal states experience in a particularlyacute formthe coordinationproblems that are inherentin all alliances. Thus liberal democratic states and alliances of such states are likelyto experience great difficultiesin pursuing grand strategies that go beyond defense.32 As the theorysuggests, the basic post-WorldWar II strategyof the Western alliance toward the Soviet Union-containment-has been essentiallydefensive in character.33"Rollback," the alternativeto containmentadvanced by JamesBurnham and otherright-wing critics, has remained a fringeposition.34 Furthermore,the demands of rollback were mismatched to American institutionsand culture. The chronicpessimism of rollbackadvocates was rooted not just in an exaggerated fear of Soviet capabilities, but in an accurate assessment of American unwillingnessto engage in provocativeand aggressive acts other than interventionsin small, weak neighboring states. In addition, this grand strategicalternative has not been pursued because of the potential costs of major war in the nuclear era. Moreover, the nonaggressive nature of America's grand strategywas matched-indeed, sur- passed-by those of West Germany and the other European members of

31. The hypothesis that wealth softensmartial tendencies has been advanced by Aristotle,Ibn Khaldun, Machiavelli, and Montesquieu. Only in the eighteenthcentury did this softeningcome to be seen as a virtue ratherthan a liabilityof mercantilesocieties. See Albert 0. Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests:Political Arguments for Capitalismbefore its Triumph(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977). The existence of militantindustrial states, such as Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, pose a challenge to this proposition. The changing relationship between wealth and militarismis explored in Michael Mann, "Capitalism and Militarism,"in Martin Shaw, ed., War, State and Society(New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984), pp. 25-46. See also Manicas, Warand Democracy. 32. Our argument is essentially Schumpeterian: the aggressiveness observed in capitalist regimes derives frompre-modern residues. "In a purely capitalistworld, what was once energy for war becomes simply energy for labor of every kind. Wars of conquest or adventurism in foreignpolicy in general are bound to be regarded as troublesome distractions,destructive of life's meaning, a diversion fromthe accustomed and therefore'true' task. A purely capitalist world thereforecan offerno fertilesoil to imperialistimpulses." Schumpeter,"The Sociology of Imperialisms,"in Imperialismand Social Classes (New York: World Publishing, 1972), p. 69. 33. JohnLewis Gaddis, Strategiesof Containment: A CriticalAppraisal of Postwar American National SecurityPolicy (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1982). 34. James Burnham, Containmentor Liberation?An Inquiryinto theAims of UnitedStates Foreign Policy (New York: John Day, 1952). More recent statements include: Aaron Wildavsky, ed., BeyondContainment: Alternative American Policies Toward the Soviet Union (San Francisco: Institute forContemporary Studies, 1983); and Norman Podhoretz, ThePresent Danger (New York: Simon and Schuster,1980). For an overview of rollbackand othergrand strategicoptions, see Stephen M. Walt, "The Case For Finite Containment: Analyzing U.S. Grand Strategy,"International Security,Vol. 14, No. 1 (Summer 1989), pp. 5-49. The InternationalSources of SovietChange | 87

NATO, who pursued a remarkablyconsistent conciliatory policy toward the Soviet Union.35 INTRA-WESTERN COUNTER-BALANCING IN THE REAGAN ERA. In the early 1980s, the Reagan administration'shard-line policies signaled an intent to alterWestern grand strategyfundamentally by augmentingcontainment with more active and confrontationalmeasures. This episode calls into question our claim that the West has been consistentlydefensive toward the Soviet Union. Furthermore,this effortto assume an offensiveand active policy has been widely creditedwith triggeringthe reorientationof Soviet policy. But a careful reading of the overall pattern of the Western relationshipwith the Soviet Union during this period reveals that the Reagan initiativewas sig- nificantlyblocked by other actors in the Western system and that the "de- partures fromcontainment" that did take place were balanced by the over- tures of political groups seeking accommodation.6 The Reagan administration'sposture toward the Soviet Union was both inconsistentand evolving. Althoughloudly proclaimingits intentionto break with the previous containmentpolicies toward the Soviet Union that were deemed too soft, the actual Reagan administrationpolicies were, as Gail Lapidus and Alexander Dallin observe, "marked to the end by numerous zigzags and reversals, bureaucraticconflicts, and incoherence."37While the WeinbergerDoctrine seemed to commit the United States to virtual non- intervention,the Reagan Doctrine seemed to committhe United States to a

35. Michael J.Sodaro, Moscow,Germany, and theWest From Khrushchev to Gorbachev(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UniversityPress, 1990). See also Angela Stent, FromEmbargo to Ostpolitik:The Political Economyof West German-Soviet Relations, 1955-80 (New York: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1981). 36. Because the system is a complex and dynamic aggregate, internalcounter-balancing flour- ishes within it. This rich potential forbalancing behavior on the part of powerfulactors in the systemfurther reinforces the difficultyof mobilizingand sustainingan offensiveposture towards powerful antagonists outside the system. As a result, consensus over foreign and security policies tends to be minimumand defensive. The multipleforces shaping U.S. Soviet policy are discussed in Joseph S. Nye, Jr., "Can America Manage Its Soviet Policy?" in Nye, ed., The Makingof America's Soviet Policy (New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, 1984). 37. Gail Lapidus and Alexander Dallin, "The Pacificationof Ronald Reagan," Bulletinof the AtomicScientists, Vol. 45, No. 1 (January/February1989), p. 15. See also Coral Bell, The Reagan Paradox:U.S. ForeignPolicy in the1980s (New Brunswick,N.J.: RutgersUniversity Press, 1989). Early in the Reagan era, Posen and Van Evera analyzed the Reagan administration'sdeparture fromcontainment and found its declaratoryintentions to be unmatched and perhaps unmatch- able with adequate forcestructure. Barry R. Posen and Stephen Van Evera, "Defense Policy and the Reagan Administration:Departure fromContainment," International Security, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Summer 1983), pp. 3-45. See also Posen and Van Evera, "Reagan AdministrationDefense Policy: Departure fromContainment," in Kenneth Oye, Lieber and Rothchild,eds., Eagle Re- surgent?The Reagan Era in AmericanForeign Policy (Boston: LittleBrown, 1987), pp. 75-114. See also Fareed Zakaria, "The Reagan Strategyof Containment,"Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 105, No. 3 (Fall 1990), pp. 373-395. InternationalSecurity 16:3 | 88

strategyof rollback. It was also unclear whether Richard Perle at the De- partmentof Defense or Ronald Reagan at the 1986 ReykjavikSummit spoke forthe administrationon nuclear questions. Althoughrollback had long been a cherished goal of the right wing of the Republican party, the Reagan administrationwas unwilling and unable to implementit. The hard-line tendencies of the Reagan administrationwere offsetin two ways. First and most importantly,the peace movement that burgeoned in the United States and WesternEurope duringthe early 1980s was a response to the Reagan hard-line initiatives.This movement exerted significantpres- sure upon the United States and its NATO allies to advance far-reaching arms controlproposals.38 The mobilizationof the Westernpublics in the early 1980s in favorof arms controlcreated a politicalclimate in which the rhetoric and posture of the early Reagan administrationwere significantpolitical liabilities. By the 1984 elections, Reagan had embraced arms control goals that he previously had ridiculed. At the 1985 Geneva Summit and, most spectacularly,at the Reykjavik Summit, Reagan emerged as the personal spokesman forcomprehensive de-nuclearization.39 Thus, paradoxically,Rea- gan both substantiallytriggered the popular revoltagainst hard-linepolicies and then came to embrace and pursue the popular anti-nuclear weapons agenda more successfullythan any postwar president. Second, the Reagan administration'shard-line policies were also undercut by powerful Western interests that favored East-West economic ties. The embargo upon sales of grain to the Soviet Union imposed by the Carter administrationin 1979 was revoked in the early months of the Reagan administrationin order to keep the Republican party'spromises to Midwestern farmers.40Likewise, in 1981, the Reagan administrationdid littleto challenge Soviet control of Eastern Europe when the Soviet Union suppressed the Polish trade union Solidarity,in part because of the threatthat Poland would default on loans held by Western banks. Also, despite strenuous effortsby

38. Risse-Kappen, "Did 'Peace Through Strength'End the Cold War?" 39. David Meyer argues that the Western peace movement built a domestic constituencyof support for arms control, forcinggovernments to support the process and creatinga political climate in the United States that forced governmentofficials to respond to the Soviet Union's steps toward detente and reform.Meyer, A Winterof Discontent. Don Oberdorferalso emphasizes the importanceof Reagan's personal anti-nuclearism;Oberdorfer, The Turn:From Cold War to a New Era (New York: Poseidon, 1991). 40. Karl-Eugen Wadekin, "Soviet Agriculture'sDependence on the West," ForeignAffairs, Vol. 60, No. 4 (Spring 1982), pp. 882-903. See also Richard Gilmore, A Poor Harvest:The Clash of Politicsand Interestsin theGrain Trade (New York: Longmans, 1982); RobertPaarlberg, Food Trade and ForeignPolicy: India, the Soviet Unionand the UnitedStates (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1985). The InternationalSources of SovietChange | 89

the Reagan administrationto stop the project,the NATO allies went forward with the naturalgas pipeline linkingthe Soviet Union withWestern Europe.41 That a projectcreating substantial economic interdependencieswas approved during the worst period of U.S.-Soviet relations in the 1980s points to the difficultiesof maintainingdefensive strategiestoward the Soviets, let alone convertingthem to offensivestrategies.42 CHANGING SOVIET PERCEPTIONS OF THE WEST. Soviet ideology has increasinglyrecognized and reflectedthis tendencyfor advanced capitaliststates to be less aggressive than dictatorialones.43 The traditionalview of orthodox Leninism was that capitalism itselfwas the source of imperial aggression. But there has been a pronounced shiftin Communist party doctrine con- cerningthe tendency of advanced capitalistsocieties to be militarilyaggres- sive.44During the 1930s, Yevgeni Varga posed the revisionisthypothesis that the Westernsystem was not inevitablyaggressive, a view thatwas explicitly rejected by the party.45Beginning in the mid-1980s, however, these views came into the ascendancy. The new view, voiced by Yevgeni Primakov,was thatthe "aggregationof interimperialistcontradictions did not inevitablylead to world wars" and that "militarismis not a mandatorycompanion of even the accelerated growthof productivefactors under capitalism."46Soviet commentatorshave also displayed an increasing sophisticationin theirappreci- ation of the plural and diffusedcharacter of American politicalpower.47

41. Bruce Jentleson,Pipeline Politics: The ComplexPolitical Economyof East-WestEnergy Trade (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UniversityPress, 1986). Also see Angela Stent,East-West Technology Trans- fer: EuropeanPerspectives (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1980). Even during the 1940s and 1950s, when Western perceptions of Soviet threats were high and American preponderance in the alliance was at its peak, the European allies moderated the economic containmentof the Soviet Union. See Michael Mastanduno, "Trade as a StrategicWeapon," InternationalOrganization, Vol. 42, No. 1 (Winter1988), pp. 121-150. 42. See Robert W. Tucker, "1989 and All That," in Nicholas X. Rizopoulos, ed., Sea-Change: AmericanForeign Policy in a WorldTransformed (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1990), pp. 211-213. 43. For general discussions of Soviet perceptions of the West, see Franklin Griffiths,"The Sources of American Conduct: Soviet Perspectives and Their Policy Implications,"International Security,Vol. 9, No. 2 (Fall 1984), pp. 3-50; and Morton Schwartz, SovietPerceptions of the United States(Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1978). 44. MccGwire, Perestroikaand SovietNational Security; and V. Kubalkova and A.A. Cruickshank, ThinkingNew AboutSoviet "Nezv Thinking," Research Series Number 74 (Berkeley,Calif.: Institute of InternationalStudies, 1989). 45. FrederickC. Barghoorn, "The Varga Discussion and Its Significance,"American Slavic and East EuropeanReview, Vol. 7, No. 3 (October 1948), pp. 214-236. 46. Cited in MccGwire, Perestroikaand SovietNational Security, p. 288. 47. This was acknowledged by the Russian ministerof foreignaffairs, Andrei Kozyrev, who noted that "the main thing is that the Western countries are pluralistic democracies. Their governmentsare under the controlof legal public institutions,and this practicallyrules out the pursuance of an aggressive foreignpolicy. In the system of Westernstates . . . the problem of InternationalSecurity 16:3 | 90

The new Soviet policy toward Eastern Europe and Germanyappears to be an adaptation to this new securityenvironment. Western observers steeped in realpolitiktook it as an axiom of internationalpolitical life that the Soviets would never willinglywithdraw from the securitybelt of Eastern Europe acquired at such great cost. The rapid collapse of the regimes in Eastern Europe was undoubtedly unwanted and unexpected by the Soviet leadership. A major factorin Gorbachev's epochal decision not to back the tottering Soviet client regimes with militaryforce in late 1989 was his realization that reformat home would be fatallyundermined by crushingpopular aspirations for change. Nevertheless, his willingness to accept the loss of this buffer zone of client states seems likely to have involved the calculation that the West would not militarilyadvance into this area. That Gorbachev discarded the Brezhnev Doctrine in favorof what Soviet Foreign Ministryspokesman, Gennadi Gerasimov, has dubbed the "Sinatra Doctrine" (under which any Eastern European countrycan sing, "I did it my way") suggests a radical transformationin the Soviet Union's sense of threat fromthe West.48The Soviet acceptance in 1990 of the de factoabsorption of socialist East Germany into the Federal Republic of Germany involves the same calculation with even higher stakes. In accepting the reunificationof Germany despite its record of aggression, Gorbachev was apparently acting on the assumption that the Western system is fundamentallypacific.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND THE COMPOSITION OF MILITARY POWER The development of nuclear weapons has profoundlyaltered the international securityenvironment of all states, particularlythe Soviet Union. Nu- clear weapons are revolutionarybecause they have transformedthe composition of power, which shapes the ends to which specificpower assets can be used.49 Perhaps the most importantaspect of the composition of power war has essentiallybeen removed." Kozyrev, "Building a Bridge-Along or Across a River: The Parameters of Our Security," New Times, Moscow, October 23-29, 1990, pp. 6-8. See also Schwartz, SovietPerceptions of the UnitedStates; and Griffiths,"The Sources of American Con- duct." 48. As Paul Warnke has observed, the Soviet abandonment of Eastern Europe "would not have been possible at a time when the Soviet Union feared that the eliminationof its bufferzone of satellite states would be taken advantage of by the West and thus present a serious threatto Soviet security."Warnke, "Now More Than Ever: No FirstUse," in Kegley, and Schwab, eds., Afterthe Cold War,p. 64. 49. The composition of power should be thoughtof as a second dimension of structurealong with the distributionof power. Analyzing the composition of power is oftenvery difficultand most contemporaryrealist theorists have focused on the distributionof power, employing The InternationalSources of SovietChange I 91

is the degree to which militaryforce can be used to conquer territoryand thus expand the domain of state power. Ebbs and flows in the ability to controlterritory have been propelled by changes in the range and destruc- tiveness of weapons.50 Nuclear weapons have altered the securityconstraints and opportunitiesof states in two ways: first,the cost of territorialaggression has now become prohibitivelyhigh, while the cost of protectingterritory against aggression has fallen greatlyfor nuclear-armedstates. Second, the threatof mutual destructionprovides powerfulincentives for states to reach accommodationin orderto regulatenuclear capability.Nuclear weapons thus paradoxically make states both more and less secure. The adjustment of states to this reality has required far-reachingchanges in the way states pursue security,changes that have run against the grain of long-established assumptions and institutions. TERRITORIAL SECURITY. The developmentof nuclearweapons has particular significancefor the Soviet Union, because the problem of territorialsecurity has loomed large in Russian and Soviet history.Compared with the other Great Powers of the European state system, the Russian empire was more successfulin acquiring neighboringterritory, but it was also subject to more frequentand more devastatinginvasions. Unlike WesternEurope, where the borders of England, France, and Spain were established early in the modern era and survived despite numerous wars, the patternof interactionbetween the Russians, various German states, and the smallernations and peoples in between was one of great fluidity.51The state that emerged in adaptation to this security environment was one that was organized to rely upon the acquisition of more land and people ratherthan on improvingthe efficiency

economic models of power that emphasize the extremefungibility of power resources. Among importantexceptions are: David Baldwin, "Power Analysis and World Politics: New Trends versus Old Tendencies," WorldPolitics, Vol. 31, No. 2 (January1979), pp. 235-251; and Joseph S. Nye, Jr.,"The Changing Nature of World Power," PoliticalScience Quarterly, Vol. 105, No. 2 (Summer 1990), pp. 177-192. 50. For theoreticaldiscussions of how the relationsbetween offenseand defense have shaped internationalsystems, see George H. Quester, Offenseand Defensein theInternational System (New York: Wiley, 1977); and JackS. Levy, "The Offensive/DefensiveBalance of MilitaryTechnology: A Theoreticaland HistoricalAnalysis," InternationalStudies Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 2 (June 1984), pp. 219-238. 51. This patternof territorialinsecurity was in no small measure the product of the region's flat topographyand the resultinglack of strongnatural defensive positions, whether against Mongol horsemen or Nazi tanks. The classic treatmentof the large-scale historicalconsequences of flat topographyin the Eurasian interioris Halford Mackinder,Democratic Ideals and Reality(London: Holt, 1919). InternationalSecurity 16:3 | 92

of its existingassets to enhance its power. It also was a state with a swollen militaryestablishment, thus able to dominate civil societyautocratically.52 The development of nuclear weapons has transformedthis territorialse- curitydilemma. Soviet aggression against nuclear-armedstates, even those far distant,would directlyjeopardize the survival of the Russian heartland. At the same time, even expansive buffersof annexed territoryand client states provide no securityfrom nuclear bombardment.53In this new world, territorialexpansion has become less attractiveas a solution to domestic problems and internationalpressures.54 Finally, the relativelylow cost of maintaininga nuclear forcesufficient to deter aggression and the inabilityof expensive offensiveforces to acquire new territoryopen the possibilityfor reducing the demands for militaryresources, thus creatingmore scope for domestic reform. SURVIVAL INSECURITY AND NUCLEAR LEARNING. A second and more subtle consequence of the nuclear revolution is the emergence of incentives for political accommodation and joint regulationof nuclear capability.55So great would be the harm of using nuclear weapons that moderation in foreign policy and substantialarms controlare in the fundamentalinterest of states.56

52. The relationshipbetween the geographicallyshaped patternof Russian expansion and the relativestrength of the Soviet state over Russian societyis argued by RichardPipes, Russia Under theOld Regime(London: Weidenfeldand Nicolson, 1974). 53. In an early discussion of the consequence of nuclear weapons, William Borden observed that, "from a strictlymilitary viewpoint Russia's vast 'securityzone' has rapidly diminishing utility."William Liscum Borden, ThereWill Be No Time: The Revolutionin Strategy(New York: Macmillan, 1946), p. 162 54. Carl Kaysen, "Is War Obsolete? A Review Essay," InternationalSecurity, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Spring 1990), pp. 42-64. See also Richard H. Ullman, SecuringEurope (Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 1991). 55. Two differentschools hold that nuclear weapons will produce accommodation and joint nuclear management. One view, perhaps best labeled "nuclear one-worldism,"is that nuclear weapons pose a fundamentalchallenge to the viabilityof a multi-statesystem, and that major structuralchanges will be necessary to bringthe systeminto adjustmentwith these new realities. See Kenneth Boulding, Conflictand Defense(New York: Harper and Row, 1963); and John H. Herz, InternationalPolitics in theAtomic Age (New York: Columbia UniversityPress, 1959). The dominant view in Western policy and academic circles holds that nuclear weapons maintained for deterrencepurposes render major war among the Great Powers unthinkableand provide incentives for arms control. The classic early expression of this position is Bernard Brodie, "Implications for MilitaryPolicy," in Brodie, ed., The AbsoluteWeapon: Atomic Power and World Order(New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1946). 56. An early statementof this position in found in Klaus Knorr,On theUses ofMilitary Power in the NuclearAge (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UniversityPress, 1966). See also Evan Luard, The BluntedSword: The Erosion of Military Power in ModernWorld Politics (New York:New Amsterdam, 1988). RobertJervis argues that nuclear weapons create a situationwhere "there will be peace between the superpowers, crises will be rare, neither side will be eager to press bargaining The InternationalSources of SovietChange | 93

As a result of these changes, nuclear-armedstates tend to come to see that theirsecurity is threatenedby war and that it depends on maintaininggood relations with other nuclear states. Since major war as a process of institu- tional change has been blocked, the much slower processes of learning (by both states and publics) eventually will cause institutionalchange.57 The characteristicsof institutionsresponsive to these new securityimperatives remaincontroversial and largelyunrealized, but would include normsagainst nuclear use, arms controlagreements, and confidence-buildingmeasures. The nuclear policies and declarations of the early Reagan administration raise doubts about superpower nuclear learning. Although force-structure decisions did not depart dramaticallyfrom previous policy, the declarations of Reagan and other officialsin the early 1980s seemed a throwback to a much less cautious attitudetoward nuclear weapons.58But this one step back fromnuclear moderationtriggered several steps toward it. These statements fed an explosive growthin peace movement activism59that undermined the legitimacyof nuclear weapons as instrumentsof statecraft.60Reagan's own radical doubts about nuclear weapons also contributedto nuclear delegiti- mation.61By the end of the 1980s, a substantial movement toward nuclear moderationhad taken place that Reagan both provoked and championed. The evolution of Soviet nuclear statecraftalso exhibitsa process of nuclear learning.For much of the postwar era, the Soviet nuclear strategy-not unlike advantages to the limit,the status quo will be relativelyeasy to maintain,and politicaloutcomes will not be closely related to eitherthe nuclear or conventionalbalance." Jervis,The Meaningof theNuclear Revolution: Statecraft and theProspect of Armageddon(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989), p. 45. 57. For a discussion of aspects of this process, see Joseph S. Nye, Jr.,"Nuclear Learning and U.S.-Soviet SecurityRegimes," InternationalOrganization, Vol. 41, No. 3 (Summer 1987), pp. 371- 402; and Breslauer and Tetlock, Learninigin U.S. and SovietForeign Policy. 58. Robert Scheer, With Enough Shovels:Reagan, Bush, and Nuclear War (New York: Random House, 1982). 59. Thomas Rochon, Mobilizingfor Peace: TheAnti-Nuclear Movement in WesternEurope (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1988); Doug Waller,Congress and theNuclear Freeze: An InsideLook at thePolitics of a Mass Movement(Amherst: Universityof Massachusetts Press, 1987); Frances B. McCrea and Gerald E. Markle, Minutesto Midnight:Nuclear Weapons Protest in America(Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1989). 60. The magnitude of this shiftis noted by observers across the political spectrum. See Robert W. Tucker, The Nuclear Debate: Deterrenceand theLapse of Faith (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1986), pp. 13, 15; and Richard Falk, "Nuclear Weapons and the Renewal of Democracy," in Avner Cohen and Steven Lee, eds., NuclearWeapons and theFuture of Humanity (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Allanheld, 1986), p. 438. 61. An intriguinghypothesis on the importanceof Reagan's personal anti-nuclearismfor Soviet- American relations has been advanced by Michael MccGwire, who argues that Gorbachev's assessment of American intentions was heavily shaped by discussions with Reagan at the Geneva and Reykjaviksummits. MccGwire, Perestroikaand SovietNational Security. InternationalSecurity 16:3 | 94

the American-has been a contradictorymixture of pacific declarations and attemptsto use nuclear threats for political and militarygain. During this period, the Communist Party doctrineon nuclear war evolved fromStalin's position that nuclear war was still governed by the class principle, to the view foreshadowed by Khrushchev and adopted in the late 1970s and early 1980s that nuclear war was species suicide, requiringdeep disarmamentand strongerinternational organization.62 Gorbachev's "new thinking"is an attemptto bring Soviet forcestructure and negotiatingpositions into line with these more recent Party doctrines.63

THE SHIFTING DISTRIBUTION OF MILITARY POWER The idea that the relative power available to actors in the interstatesystem significantlydetermines state behavior and internationalorder has been one of the centralcontributions of realismto internationaltheory.64 Both deployed militaryforces and the underlying economic resources upon which they depend determinethe distributionof power. Relative militarypower is tra- ditionallythought to be a prime shaper of interstaterelations because it is the most immediately employable power asset for protectingpopulations, controllingterritory, and coercingothers. Economic capabilityis a significant but indirectinfluence because it affectsthe quantityand quality of resources available forforeign and militarypolicy. What role has the relative militarypower of the Soviet Union and its Westernadversaries played in Soviet change? Since the Second World War, the Soviet Union has achieved overall relativemilitary parity with the West,

62. For accounts of this evolution in Soviet thinkingabout nuclear war and weapons, see Raymond Garthoff,Deterrence and theRevolution in SovietMilitary Doctrine (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 1990); Stephen Shenfield, The Nuclear Predicament:Exploration in Soviet Ideology, Chatham House Papers No. 37 (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987); Allen Lynch, Gorbachev'sInternational Outlook: Intellectual Origins and PoliticalConsequences (New York: Institute forEast-West Security Studies, 1989), pp. 20-24; Honore M. Catudal, SovietNuclear Strategy From Stalinto Gorbachev:A Revolutionin SovietMilitary and PoliticalThinking (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press International,1988); Michael MccGwire, Perestroikaand SovietNational Security. 63. The nuclear one-worldistposition is reflectedin Gorbachev's speeches. See Mikhail Gor- bachev, Realitiesand Guaranteesfor a Secure World(Moscow: Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, 1987). For furtherdiscussion see Anatoly Gromyko,Martin Hellman, et al., eds., Break- through:Emerging New Thinking(New York: Walker,1988), particularlyAlexander I. Nikitin,"The Concept of Universal Security: A Revolution of Thinking and Policy in the Nuclear Age," pp. 168-175. 64. Two of the leading neo-Realist theorists emphasize the distributionof power assets as shapers of the system. Kenneth Waltz, Theonyof International Relations (Reading, Mass.: Addison- Wesley, 1978); and Gilpin, War and Changein WorldPolitics. The InternationalSources of SovietChange | 95

providing a degree of security that previous Soviet and Russian regimes lacked.65 At the same time, the relevance of relative militarypower has tended to be overshadowed by the simultaneouslystabilizing and threatening effectsof nuclear weapons. Over the last twenty years, the Soviet Union has maintained at least militaryparity with the West. Both its conventional and strategicnuclear forcescontinued to grow in capabilitywell into the Gorbachev era. Although the Americanpolitical and defense debate at timessuggested eitherimminent Soviet peril or overwhelming American superiority,the core superpower militaryindices remained in remarkablyconstant balance once the Soviets achieved strategicparity in the late 1960s. Given this balance which was maintained as militarycapabilities on both sides steadily increased, it is difficultto attributethe end of the Cold War and Soviet retrenchmentand accommodation to a militarypower imbalance.66The real strengthof the argumentabout the impact of militarydistribution looks at futuretrends and the economic burden of continuingcompetition, issues to which we return below. The 1980s witnessed several important American initiativesin military spending and defense policy that many observers argue were decisive in triggeringSoviet foreignpolicy changes. Chiefamong these were the massive increases in peacetime militaryspending; the "Reagan Doctrine" pressure on Soviet client states; and a renewed emphasis on technologicalcompetition, most dramaticallyseen in the StrategicDefense Initiative("Star Wars"). Al- though the American spending increases and the Reagan Doctrine shored up Western strengthand raised the cost of Soviet commitmentsoutside of Europe, the overall East-West militarybalance did not tip dramaticallyin favorof the West. Potentiallymore significantfor the Soviet-Americanstrategic relationship was the Reagan administration'sStar Wars initiativeunveiled in March 1983. Although no weapon has been deployed, defenders of the program argue that it dramaticallyopened a vital new realm of militarydevelopment in

65. This situation is noted by Seweryn Bialer: "Never in theirhistory have the Russians been as secure fromexternal danger as they are now and will remain in the foreseeable future.... A Soviet Union that understands that it is extremelysecure may be less hostile to the West." Bialer, "Gorbachev's Program of Change: Sources, Significance,Prospects," Political Science Quarterly,Vol. 103, No. 3 (Autumn 1988), p. 459. 66. Fred Chernoff,"Ending the Cold War: The Soviet Retreatand the U.S. MilitaryBuild-up," InternationalAffairs (London), Vol. 67, No. 1 (January1991), pp. 111-126. InternationalSecurity 16:3 | 96

which the Soviets were unprepared to compete because of theirweaknesses in advanced technologies, particularlyin computing and sensors. As evidence forthe impact of Star Wars, its advocates point to the seriousness with which the Soviets reacted to it forseveral years afterits introduction. There are, however, several reasons to doubt that Star Wars had a significant impact upon the directionof Soviet securitypolicy. First,it is not clear that the Star Wars program was ever going to produce a weapon system of strategic significance. Second, as both Soviet and American critics have pointed out, space-based weapons are subject to a wide array of effective and relativelyinexpensive counter-measures.67Whatever its abstract technological potential,it is highlyimprobable that Western public opinion would support the kind of rapid and sustained unilateraldeployment necessary to derive advantage. The speed with which the StarWars programhas declined, both as a live deployment option in the West and as a subject of Soviet negotiatingconcern, suggests that the program had much more impact on the imaginationsof Americans than on the global strategicbalance.68 SUMMARY. Taking all three elements of power into account, the contemporary securityenvironment of the Soviet state is distinctlydifferent from earlier periods. The increased number of nonaggressive states in the Soviet Union's internationalenvironment further increases the securityof the regime in historicallyunprecedented ways. Nuclear weapons have freed the Soviet Union fromfears of territorialaggression, while making its own expansion too costly.The achievementof overall paritywith the West, although overshadowed by nuclear weapons, has given the Soviets a sense of security. The new policies of accommodationand retrenchmentare a logical adaptation to this environment. This new securityenvironment also has two significantdomestic consequences: expansionary solutions to domestic problems are foreclosed and there is more opportunityfor domestic liberalization.No longer faced with

67. For Soviet skepticismabout the viabilityof Star Wars, see Yevgeni Velikhov,Roald Sagdeev, and Andrei Kokoshin, eds., Weaponryin Space: The Dilemmaof Security (Moscow: Mir Publishers, 1986). See also Stephen Shenfield,"The Militarizationof Space throughSoviet Eyes," in S. Kirby and G. Robson, eds., The Militarizationof Space (Brighton,U.K.: WheatsheafBooks, 1987). 68. The loud Soviet public opposition to Star Wars can be interpretedas an effortto gain political advantage with the peace movements in the West forwhom the Star Wars program embodied the early Reagan strategy.As right-wingcritics of the Soviet Union have pointed out, there is no necessary relationship between the rhetoricof Soviet "peace campaigns" and the actual threats to Soviet security. (Gorbachev's adamant refusal to agree to arms limitation[START] unless SDI was curbed ended on December 9, 1987, in a morningmeeting during the Washington Summit; Oberdorfer,The Turn,p. 267.) The InternationalSources of SovietChange | 97

acute securitythreats that forcerepressive and centralizedeconomic mobili- zation of resources, the claims of the state apparatus on society's resources become more difficultto justifyand competing groups and interestsare in relativelystronger positions.69 In short, a world dominated by liberal states affordsremaining illiberal states both a need and an opportunityto liberalize.

The Economicand PoliticalEnvironment and Its Consequences

A significantfactor contributing to Soviet reorientationis the gradual decline in its economic position relative to the rest of the world. The Soviet Union has been economically more autarkic than any other major state in the last half century,but it is still profoundlyaffected by economic developments beyond its borders. Because the Soviet Union was the premiersocialist and anti-capitaliststate in the world fromthe time of the Bolshevik Revolution, its economic decline has political and ideological ramificationsbeyond the availabilityof resources for its domestic and foreignpolicy purposes. Fur- thermore,the legitimacy of the Soviet regime was based upon a set of ideological claims about the moral superiorityof socialism and thus its position in the world declined with the erosion of these claims. Accordingly, four aspects of the Soviet Union's economic and political position in the world have caused ideological moderation, liberalization,and accommodation in its foreign and domestic policy. First is the dynamism of Western capitalism,which is not a new factorbut which has intensified.The second factoris the stabilizationof the capitalistsystem and the decline in strength of the socialist minoritywithin the West. Third is the declining appeal of socialist ideology throughoutthe world. Fourth is the decline of socialism's claims to moral superiority,which have been decisively challenged by the human rightsmovement. These factorsare summarized in Figure 2.

CAPITALIST DYNAMISM AND SOCIALIST STAGNATION The policies of Gorbachev can be understood to a considerable extent as a response to the decline in the Soviet Union's relativeeconomic power posi-

69. This point is made by Jack Snyder: "In a strugglewhose outcome is far fromdecided, a propitious internationalenvironment could provide the all-importantmargin of victoryfor the forcesin favorof reform."Snyder, "InternationalLeverage on Soviet Domestic Change," World Politics,Vol. 42, No. 1 (October 1989), p. 1. Of course, securitydemands may decline but they will not disappear. And the securityorgans, forged in an earlier environment,may persist in making disproportionateclaims, despite changes in the environment. InternationalSecurity 16:3 | 98

Figure 2. Economic and Political Environment.

Old International New International Implications for Domestic Environment Environment Soviet Foreign Policy Implications

Capitalist West Continuing Competitors Demand for is economically and capitalist-Western have more increased economic technologically vs. dynamism resources performance dynamic

Capitalist West Stabilization of prone to severe capitalism/Fading internal crisis/ vs. of Marxist-socialist large Marxist- minority socialist minority

Socialist economic Socialist economic Marxism a Declining domestic model widely seen vs. model widely seen - liability or - legitimacy of as viable as failure irrelevant/need Marxism-socialism for new ideology

New human rights Wide moral appeal vs. norms undermine , of socialism Soviet legitimacy

tion. In order to maintain militaryparity with the West, with a shrinking share of world product, the Soviets had to spend a much higherpercentage of their economic product on defense than did their adversaries. For the Soviet Union, as forall states, availabilityof resources shapes foreignpolicy goals and outcomes. When foreignpolicy objectives and commitmentsare not backed by adequate domestic resources, they must ultimatelybe scaled back or lost.70In measuring the adequacy of the Soviet state's resource base for the achievement of its aims, the most relevant calculation is a relative one-is a state betterequipped than its potential rivals? Since at least the eighteenth century,the challenge posed by dynamic Westerncapitalist states has driven the Russian empire and then the Soviet Union to successive politicaland economic restructurings.71Since World War II, the number of successful capitalist states in the world has increased,

70. For an analysis of the rise anidfall of states on the basis of theirrelative economic potentials, see Gilpin, War and Change in WorldPolitics; Paul M. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers(New York: Random House, 1987). 71. For the role of external factorsin stimulatingSoviet domestic change, see Snyder, "Inter- national Leverage on Soviet Domestic Change," p. 2. See also Theodore H. Von Laue, Sergei Witteand theIndustrialization of Russia (New York: Atheneum, 1969); Arcadius Kahan, Russian EconomicHistory: The NineteenthCentury (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1989). The InternationalSources of SovietChange I 99

presentingthe Soviet Union with furthercompetitive pressures. Capitalist states have demonstrated superior capacities to create wealth and innovate technologically.Thus the wealth and technologybase fromwhich the Soviets must draw is decliningrelative to theirtraditional adversaries. The dynamism of capitalistadversaries is not a new featureof the Soviet environment,but it continues to intensify. Over the last several decades, the Soviet Union's share of world economic resources has been declining. Although Soviet recoveryfrom the ravages of war in the 1950s was rapid, so too was that of West Germany and Japan under American protection.The slowing of Soviet growth rates during the 1960s and the virtual stagnation of the Soviet economy during the 1970s contrastswith the remarkablepace of economic growthin the Westerncap- italist countries. Debate continues about the size and output of the Soviet economy, but there is wide agreement among both Soviet and Western economists that the Soviet economy has ceased growing and has begun to shrink.Moreover, recentevidence suggests that the Soviet economy may be substantiallysmaller than had previously been generallythought, implying that the burden of Soviet defense was correspondinglygreater.72 As the number of its adversaries and their wealth has increased, and Soviet economic performancehas remained sluggish, the Soviet Union has been forced to spend ever greater percentages of its national product on foreign and securitypolicy.73 In such a world, the Soviets must extractmore from society, must dra- maticallyrestructure their economy and integrateinto the world capitalist economy,or must seek accommodationwith traditionaladversaries.74 Unable in the short term to extractmore fromthe already overburdened economy and civil society, Gorbachev sought to reduce requirements by reducing threats. Thus, the basic logic of the Gorbachev foreignpolicy was to bring burdens into line with resources by reducing the number of Soviet adversar-

72. See Aslund, "How Small is Soviet National Income?"; and Richard E. Ericson, "The Soviet StatisticalDebate: Khanin vs. TsSU," both in Rowen and Wolf, The ImpoverishedSuperpower, pp. 13-62, 63-92. 73. See Kurt M. Campbell, "Prospects and Consequences of Soviet Decline," in Joseph S. Nye, Jr.,Graham T. Allison, and Albert Carnesale, eds., FatefulVisions: Avoiding Nuclear Catastrophe (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger,1988), esp. pp. 154-161. 74. For a discussion of the range and logic of state adjustment choices, see G. JohnIkenberry, "The State and InternationalStrategies of Adjustment," WorldPolitics, Vol. 39, No. 1 (October 1986), pp. 53-77; and Michael Mastanduno, David A. Lake, and G. JohnIkenberry, "Toward a Realist Theory of State Action," InternationalStudies Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 4 (December 1989), pp. 457-474. InternationalSecurity 16:3 | 100

ies through a process of retrenchmentand accommodation. The change in economic performancehas been gradual, and thereforeprovides only a lim- ited explanation for why Soviet policy reorientationtook place in the late 1980s. Economic decline provided an incentive to retrench,but a benign internationalenvironment made it possible.

STABILITY OF CAPITALISM AND THE DECLINING STRENGTH OF ANTI-CAPITALIST FORCES IN THE WEST The declining occurrenceof capitalistcrisis and the closely related decline of politicalopposition to capitalismwithin the West constitutea second feature of the world political economy that provides incentives for Soviet change. To an extraordinarydegree, the destinyof the Soviet regime has been inter- twined with the fate of capitalism-for betteror worse. Unlike other Euro- pean Great Powers, the Soviet Union posed as headquarters for the international workingclass movement. And the Bolshevikrevolutionaries, unlike the leaders of coups or mere rebellions, held elaborate expectations about the imminentdemise of capitalism and about theirown role as the catalyst and vanguard of what they expected to be a world-wide revolutionarytrans- formation.Thus to a nearly unprecedented extent, the legitimacyof the Soviet regime was hostage to the economic performanceof the capitalist world. In the firsthalf of the twentiethcentury, the Westernworld was riven by structuralcrises and deep inequalities that pitted dominant capitalistgroups against a large and restiveworking class with socialistleanings.75 Particularly during the decade between the great stock marketcrash of 1929 and World War II, the performanceof capitalism seemed to be followingthe trajectory thatMarx had plotted-a general crisistriggering revolution. In thissituation, the Soviet Union attracteddeep loyalties from disaffectedworkers as well as intellectuals drawn to socialist ideals.76 Even in the postwar era, well- organized Marxist parties in the West-particularly in France, Italy, and Spain-continued to vie forpower and attracta substantialbloc of votes. As late as the 1970s, pessimisticWestern observers felt that "Eurocommunism" was a major threatto the survival of liberal democracy.77

75. See Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation:The Politicaland EconomicOrigins of Our Time (Boston: Beacon Press, 1944). See also GeoffreyBarraclough, An Introductionto Contemporary History(London: Watts, 1964), pp. 195-228. 76. See E.H. Carr, The SovietImpact on theWestern World (New York: Macmillan, 1947), p. 112. 77. Although it advanced Soviet geopoliticalinterests by underminingNATO, Eurocommunism The InternationalSources of SovietChange I 101

The value for the Soviet Union of these diffuse transnational political affinitiesis hard to gauge, but it is unlikelythat they provided the decisive margin for the regime's survival. However, Soviet leaders valued the international socialist movement and thought that it served to constrain the West.78Ideological allies in the West provided the Soviets with a wide range of benefits: they weakened anti-Soviet Western policy, prepared Western opinion for the wartime alliance against Germany, and provided a vocal group of apologists for Soviet mistakes and excesses.79In effect,from the Bolshevik Revolution to the waning Brezhnev years, communist ideology provided the Soviet state with a powerful "fifthcolumn" in the West. An additional Soviet asset was the fissurebetween the Westernmetropol and the colonial peripheries caused by the desires of colonial peoples for independence. The officialSoviet ideology of socialism and the rhetorical identificationwith the oppressed in the peripheryas well as in the metropol put the Soviet Union on the side of the decolonialization movement.80As peoples subjected to Westernimperialism gained independence, some in the West feared and many in the East hoped that the new states would join the anti-capitalistand anti-Westerncoalition led by the Soviet Union. Indeed, the West sufferedits greatestsetbacks and most costlydefeats, in the Chinese civil war and the wars in Indochina, when national liberationand revolu- tionarymovements were resisted by the West due to their communist ori- entation. Although the movement toward non-alignmentwas strongamong new states, decolonialization gave the Soviet Union powerful political sup- portersin the United Nations and elsewhere. In the last several decades, this politicaland economic contexthas changed greatly.The advanced capitalist societies have enjoyed relativelysustained also posed a challenge to the Soviet Union by challengingits ideological supremacy.See Vernon V. Aspaturian, JiriValenta, and David P. Burke, eds., Eurocommunismbetween East and West (Bloomington:Indiana UniversityPress, 1980); Wolfgang Leonhard, Eurocommunism:Challenge forEast and West(New York: Holt, Rinehartand Winston, 1978); and Richard Kindersley,ed., In Searchof Eurocommunism(London: Macmillan, 1981). 78. For a discussion of Western communistparties as assets forSoviet foreignpolicy, see John C. Campbell, "Eurocommunism: Policy Questions for the West," in Rudolph L. Tokes, eds., Eurocommunismand Detente (New York: New York UniversityPress, 1978), esp. pp. 541-545; and Robert E. Osgood, "The Effectsof Eurocommunism on NATO," in Aspaturian, Valenta, and Burke, Eurocommunismbetween East and West,pp. 272-295. 79. The opening of Soviet archives creates the opportunityto assess the extentand effectiveness of pro-Sovietactivity in the West. 80. The evolution of the Soviet-Third World alliance is discussed in Richard Lowenthal, "The Soviet Union and the Third World: From Anti-Imperialismto Counter-Imperialism,"in Hedley Bull and Adam Watson, eds., The Expansionof InternationalSociety (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), pp. 323-333. InternationalSecurity 16:3 1102

growth and have built modern Keynesian welfare states.81The result has been a dramaticdecline in the severityof economic contractionin the West, as indicated in Table 1. The political foundationof this stabilitywas laid in the 1940s. As the Keynesian policy revolution spread across the Western industrialworld, governmentsundertook new and more intensive formsof economic interventionand management.82These developments in economic policy led to the formationof compromises and coalitions between capital and labor, thus defusing the potential of the workingclass for revolution.83 As a result, proletarian movements in the West waned and support for socialism in the West has declined. These trendshave been reinforcedby an unambiguous awareness of Soviet socialist failings. Althoughit is contraryto the expectationsof Marx and Lenin, the resilience of capitalismhas been increasinglyrecognized by Soviet analysts. Gorbachev has observed that "the present stage of the general crisis does not lead to any absolute stagnationof capitalism and does not rule out possible growth of its economy and the masteryof new scientificand technicaltrends. "84 This

Table 1. Cyclical and growth characteristics of differentperiods (arithmeticaverage of figures for sixteen advanced countries). Annual average percentage growth rate in Percentage Output per head Non-residential maximum Time period Output of population capital stock fall in GDP 1870-1913 2.5 1.5 2.8 -6.7 1913-50 1.9 1.1 1.6 -13.1 1950-70 4.9 3.8 5.6 +0.3

SOURCE: Michael Bleaney, The Rise and Fall of Keynesian Economics (London: Macmillan, 1985), p. 96.

81. For a survey of the stabilization of Western capitalism afterWorld War II, see Andrew Shonfield,Modern Capitalism: The ChangingBalance of Public and PrivatePower (New York: Oxford, 1965). 82. For a overview of the Keynesian revolution,see PeterHall, ed., ThePolitical Power of Economnic Ideas: Keynesianismacross Nations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989). 83. The rise of postwar political coalitions around Keynesian social democracyhas been widely discussed. For its emergence in Britain, see David Marquand, The UnprincipledSociety: New Demandsand Old Politics(London: JonathanCape, 1988). For the United States, see Alan Wolfe, America'sImpasse: The Rise and Fall of thePolitics of Growth(New York: Pantheon, 1981). 84. Quoted by F. Stephen Larrabee and Allen Lynch, "Gorbachev: The Road to Reykjavik," ForeignPolicy, No. 65 (Winter1986-87), p. 7. The InternationalSources of SovietChange | 103

recognition,not unique to Gorbachev, is the product of a long evolution in Soviet thinking.85 Outside the metropol, the achievement of decolonialization has reduced the foreignpolicy value to the Soviet state of anti-Westernideology. As the strugglefor independence fades into history,Third World states have come increasinglyto pick theirfriends and enemies on the basis of economicbenefit rather than ideological solidarity.Moreover, by the 1970s the areas of the Third World still under Western colonial rule were of minor significance compared with emerging regional powers such as Indonesia, Nigeria, and Brazil, states for whom Soviet ideological support had littlerelevance. The net result of these developments is that previous assets of the Soviet Union have evaporated, or even turned into liabilities.86

THE DECLINING IDEOLOGICAL APPEAL AND LEGITIMACY OF SOCIALISM The decline in the legitimacyand ideological standing of the Soviet Union has provided furtherincentives for change. The performanceand prestigeof state socialism as an economic and political model have declined, while the rise in internationallyrecognized norms of human rightshave undermined the moral claims of socialism. All states, particularlythose with great power aspirations,depend upon, and thus attemptto cultivate,a sense of legitimacy both at home and abroad. Sheer coercion, however necessary,is ultimately an insufficientand costly means for achieving compliance.87In the modern era, states seeking to play a commandingrole in world politicsmust embody a model of economic and political success that others can admire and emu- late.88The larger the state and its global leadership aspirations, the more universal and fundamentaltend to be that state's claims to ideological and moral superiority.Thus the decay of a state's legitimacycan have far-reaching impacts on a state's internationalposition and behavior. The Soviet regime,

85. RobertP. Beschel, Jr.,"The Long-TermModeration of Soviet ForeignPolicy," in Nye, Allison and Carnesale, FatefulVisions, p. 147. 86. For an evaluation of changing Soviet views on the potentialfor and value of alliances with Third World states, see JerryHough, The Strugglefor the Third World: Soviet Debates anid Amlerican Options(Washington, D.C.: Brookings,1986). 87. Max Weber classicallystates this politicalreality: "Experience shows thatin no instance does domination voluntarilylimit itself to the appeal to material or affectualor ideal motives as a basis for its continuance. In addition every such system attemptsto establish and to cultivate the belief in its legitimacy."Weber, Ecouio;nyantd Society, Vol. 1 (repr., ed. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich,eds.) (Berkeley:University of CaliforniaPress, 1978), p. 213. 88. The importance of such "soft power" has been stressed by Joseph S. Nye, Jr.;see Nye, Boundto Lead: The ChangingNatutre of Anlerican Power (New York: Basic Books, 1990). InternationalSecurity 16:3 j 104

because of its peculiarlyideological character,has been more dependent on the fulfillmentof secular prophecies than have traditionalgreat powers. THE DECLINE OF THE SOVIET ECONOMIC MODEL. Until recently,the socialist economic model could be seen as eitheran untriedor a successfuleconomic system, with wide appeal to those dissatisfiedwith capitalism. In the first several decades afterthe Bolshevik Revolution, the progress of the Soviet Union in industrializationoutside the capitalist system was a major source of inspiration to elites in the Third World seeking development without dependency.89This meant that the Soviet Union had a major reservoirof support in the world upon which it could draw to counterthe West's military and diplomatic containment. Beginning in the mid-1970s, the stagnation of centralized economies throughoutthe socialist world seriouslyundermined the appeal of socialism everywhere.90During this period, the most dynamic forces in the world economy have been the Newly IndustrializingCountries, which have em- ployed outward-lookingstate capitalisteconomic strategiesto propel themselves rapidly upward.91 This performance,completely contraryto Soviet expectations, dealt a heavy blow to the conventional wisdom of socialist development theorythat autarky,if not socialist autarky,was the only path of economic improvement.Also of importancewas the success of Chinese economic liberalization, initiated by Deng in 1978, in stimulatinggrowth, particularlyin the coastal provinces. After a generation of application in diverse Third World settings-ranging fromCuba to Vietnamto the disasters of Africansocialism-the promise and appeal of socialism had been badly tarnished. The Soviet economy had been transformedfrom a model of success into an anachronism. And thus, forthe Soviet state, the role of socialist standard-bearerhad been transformedfrom an asset into a liability.

89. The appeal of the socialist model to elites in developing countries is discussed in Edward Shils, "The Intellectualsin the PoliticalDevelopment of the New States," WorldPolitics, Vol. 12, No. 3 (April 1960), pp. 329-368. See also Charles K. Wilbur,The SovietModel and Underdeveloped Countries(Chapel Hill: Universityof North Carolina Press, 1969). 90. For the importanceof economic performancefor socialist legitimacy, see WalterD. Connor, "Mass Expectations and Regime Performance,"in Seweryn Bialer, ed., The DomesticContext of SovietForeign Policy (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1981). 91. See Robert Wade, Governingthe Market: Economic Theory and theRole of Governmentin East Asian Industrialization(Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1990); Alice Amsden, Asia's New Giant(New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1989); FredericC. Deyo, ed., ThePolitical Economy of theNew Asian Industrialism(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UniversityPress, 1987). The InternationalSources of SovietChange 1 105

NEW NORMS OF HUMAN RIGHTS Soviet legitimacyhas also declined as new norms of human rights have emerged and been championed in the last two decades. Since its formation, the Soviet regime has drawn considerable legitimacyfrom Marxism's claim of the moral superiorityof socialism over capitalism, even though massive human deprivationshave been part of Soviet life fromthe outset. But since the 1970s the legitimacyof the regime, both at home and abroad, has been progressivelyeroded by referenceto standards of human rightsthat emphasize fundamental freedoms of expression and conscience. The salience of these norms and theirrelevance to the Soviet Union grew with the signing of the Helsinki Accords in 1975.92 Ironically,Soviet gains fromthe accom- panying internationalrecognition of its client states in Eastern Europe did not, as the Brezhnev regime expected, strengthendomestic legitimacyof the Soviet regime. Rather,American and West European interestin human rights in the region was legitimized,and dissidents gained a powerfultool to press theirdemands. By the mid-1980s,the legitimacyof Soviet political practices was under systematicassault by internaldissidents and by a powerful net- work of human rightswatchdog organizationssuch as AmnestyInternational and Helsinki Watch; periodic conferenceswere scheduled at which Soviet practiceswere intensivelyscrutinized.93 The clash of normsbetween the West and the Soviet Union began in 1917, but duringthe 1970s a concept of human rightsindependent of economic ideology emerged and subverted the legitimacy of authoritarianand totalitarianregimes whatever theireconomic ori- entation.94

92. The complex and controversialstatus of human rightswithin the Helsinki negotiations is described in John J. Maresca, To Helsinki:The Conferenceon Securityanld Cooperation in Eu4rope, 1973-1975 (Durham, N.C.: Duke UniversityPress, 1985). For more general discussion, see R.J. Vincent,Huiman Rights and InternationalRelations (New York: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1986), pp. 61-75. 93. More research is needed on the impact of the human rightsmovement upon Soviet change. One of the best sources forthe emergence of the dissidents' movementin the Soviet Union and its links to external groups is Andrei Sakharov, Memoirs,trans. Richard Lourie (New York: Knopf, 1990), and Sakharov, Moscowvand Beyond,1986 to 1989, trans. Antonina Bouis (New York: Knopf, 1990). 94. As two analysts have recentlyput it: "Increasinglythe legitimacyof political regimes (and hence their capacity to rule non-coercively)is judged externallyand internally,less by the standards of divine mandate, revolutionaryheritage, nationalism, or charismaticauthority, and more by the performancecriteria specified in internationallydefined standards of human rights." Richard Pierre Claude and David R. Davis, "Political Legitimacy at Risk: The Emergence of Human Rightsin InternationalPolitics," paper presented at the FourteenthWorld Congress of InternationalSecurity 16:3 | 106

In these circumstances,Gorbachev's "new thinking"in foreignaffairs and domestic reformscan be understood as an attemptto refurbishthe Soviet state's ideological appeal in the world.95It is strikingthe extent to which "new thinking"on topics such as nuclear weapons, internationalinstitutions, and ecological responsibilityis infusedwith a globalistoutlook.96 These ideals appeal to a large and growing segment of Western public opinion. Like socialism in an earlier era, globalist ideology seeks to put the Soviet state into the vanguard of internationalprogressivism, thus creatingallies bene- ficial to Soviet foreign policy. But, unlike revolutionaryMarxist ideology, "new thinking"offers the basis fora cooperative relationshipwith the West- ern powers.

The Cultural,Social, and OrganizationalEnvironment

Within the last several decades, cultural,societal, and international-organizational factorshave created opportunitiesand incentivesfor greater Soviet integrationinto the Western system. First, a large number of international organizations-economic, scientific,and other professional associations- provide opportunitiesfor the functionalintegration of many Soviet citizens and groups. Second, a cultural and social milieu, of American origin but increasinglyglobal in scope, exerts an assimilative and inclusive influence. Althoughmost of the Soviet people have remainedisolated fromthese forces, the relativelysmall but influentialsegment of the Soviet population occu- pying the leadership stratain Moscow has been intensivelyexposed to these sociocultural forces, which magnifies their impact. Within the last several decades, the exposure and reorientationof the Soviet elite to the norms and outlooks of this globalizing civilizationhas been a "silent revolution"-never the InternationalPolitical Science Association, Washington,September 1988, p. 2. For an overview of this evolution, see Hector Gros Espiell, "The Evolving Concept of Human Rights: Western,Socialist, and Third World Approaches," in B.G. Ramcharan,ed., HumanRights: Thirty YearsAfter the Universal Declaration (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff,1979). 95. Sylvia Woodby, Gorbachevand theDecline of Ideologyin SovietForeign Policy (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1989). 96. The ways in which the traditionalcosmopolitanism of Marxism has been infused with a new globalist contentin "new thinking"are analyzed in Kubalkova and Cruickshank,Thinking New aboutSoviet "New Thinking."See in particularthe writingsof one of Gorbachev's advisers, Georgi Shakhnazarov, The ComingWorld Order, trans. Margot Light (Moscow: Progress Publish- ers, 1991); and Shakhnazarov, "Governabilityof the World," InternationalAffairs (Moscow), Vol. 3 (March 1988), pp. 16-24. The InternationalSources of SovietChange j 107

capturing headlines, but relentlessly transformingpolitical possibilities.97 These changes and implicationsare summarized in Figure 3. Underlying these pressures and opportunitiesfor expanded intercourse withthe restof the world has been the ongoing revolutionin the technologies of communicationand transport.In the past, it was possible forcivilizations to isolate themselves from the outside world, as China and Japan did for centuriesand as the Soviet Union triedto do in Stalin's time. But since World War II, advances such as jet travel, television, and data transmissionhave greatlyeased the abilityof large numbers of people to associate over long distances.98The proliferationof these opportunitiesmakes strategiesof cul- turaland social autarkyincreasingly costly and difficultto sustain. The extent and impact of external involvement in Soviet life was graphicallydemon- stratedduring the abortiveAugust 1991 coup, when the Soviet people were mobilized by Western broadcasts of Yeltsin's call for resistance. During the

Figure 3. Cultural, Social, and Organizational Environment.

Old International New International Implicationsfor Domestic Environment Environment Soviet ForeignPolicy Implications

Information Increased Cannotkeep isolation- information Westernideas and Harderto "IronCurtain" vs. permeability images out legitimatesystem

Few Many Manyopportunities international international - and incentivesto organizations vs. organizations participate Increaseddemand fordomestic liberalization

Russian/Soviet Western Social and cultural neighbors VS neighbors participationis xenophobicand assimilativeand attractiveand chauvinistic inclusivistic accessible

97. For the most extended, recent, and theoreticallysophisticated analysis of these social and culturaldimensions of the contemporaryworld, see Rosenau, Turbullenicein World Politics. 98. For general overviews of the expansion and impact of global communicationssystems, see Hamid Mowlana, GlobalInformation and WorldCommniunication: Nezv Frontiers in InternationalRela- tions(New York: Longman, 1986); and Brian M. Murphy, The InternatioinalPolitics of New Infor- mntionTechnology (New York: St. Martin's, 1986). InternationalSecurity 16:3 1108

1980s, the leading strataof the Soviet Union switched fromsullenly resisting these entreatiesto whole-heartedembrace of them.99

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS AND TRANSNATIONAL NETWORKS The emergence of an extended system of internationalorganizations and transnationalnetworks has influenced the Soviet Union by pulling Soviet elites out of theirisolation and into the broader Westernworld. The Soviets are drawn in because the tangible benefitsof cooperative participationare too great to forgo, and the Soviet participantscome increasinglyto be socialized by the norms of theirfunctional networks and the broader Western culture that subsumes them. A huge growth in the density and varietyof internationalorganizations over the last several decades has taken place in order to cope with increased levels of complexityand interdependencepro- duced by modern technological society. These organizations carry out a multitude of increasinglyvaluable functions,such as weather forecasting, disease control, and air trafficmanagement. They create numerous opportunitiesfor individuals and groups within the Soviet Union to work closely with foreignnationals on common problems. The prominence of internationalorganizations is accounted for by the increase in the densityand scope of interactionsacross borders thathas been produced by the increased scale and complexityof modern industrialsoci- eties.100These organizations affectinternational relations by drawing otherwise antagonisticstates into a complex networkof transactionsthat become

99. The impact of new informationtechnologies on communistsystems is discussed in George H. Quester, "Transboundary Television," Problemsof Communism,Vol. 33, No. 5 (September- October 1984), pp. 76-87; and S. FrederickStarr, "New CommunicationsTechnologies and Civil Society," in Loren R. Graham, ed., Scienceand the Soviet Social Order (Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1990), pp. 19-50. As early as 1965, Ithiel de Sola Pool noted: "Most of the thingsof a positive characterthat are happening in the Soviet Union today are explainable only in terms of the influence of the West, for which the most importantsingle channel is radio." Cited in Peter Grothe, "Broadcastingto the USSR and Eastern Europe," Problemsof Communism, Vol. 29, No. 1 (January-February,1981), p. 68. A survey of formerSoviet citizens found that96 percentof middle-gradeleaders listened with some frequencyto foreignbroadcasts. See James R. Millerand Peter Donhowe, "Life, Work,and Politicsin Soviet Cities," Problemsof Communism, Vol. 36, No. 1 (January-February,1987), p. 53. 100. Explanations for the rise of internationalorganizations and hypotheses about theirimpact were firstadvanced by Britishinternationalists at the turn of the century.See Leonard Woolf, InternationalGovernment: Two ReportsPrepared for the Fabian Research Department (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1916); Norman Angell, The GreatIllusion (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1911); H.G. Wells, The Idea ofa Leagueof Nations (Boston: AtlanticMonthly Press, 1919); Ramsey Muir, TheInterdependent World and itsProblems (orig. pub. 1933) (PortWashington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1971). The InternationalSources of SovietChange I 109

increasinglydifficult to sever.101Furthermore, the participantsin such organizations come to be socialized by their activitiesin ways that diminish a simple identificationwith theirnation of origin.102 For the Soviet Union, these organizations and networks constitutewhat mightbe thoughtof as an increasinglycomplex set of "receptors"or "outlets" into which appropriate Soviet participantscan "plug in." As a factorin the Soviet's environment,international organizations have changed dramatically in the last several decades. The firstinternational organizations were founded in the nineteenthcentury and their scope was confined largely to Western Europe. Since the end of World War II, the number of internationalorganizations has skyrocketed.By the mid-1980s,roughly 300 internationalorganizations were in operation, and a great number of them are engaged in global rather than regional activities.103Before and afterWorld War II, the Soviet Union attempted to set up a system of internationalorganizations within the Communist bloc. Although some of these organizations,such as the Council forMutual Economic Assistance, performedimportant functions, the Soviets increasinglysought involvement in the more global system of organizationsassociated with the United Nations.104 SCIENTIFIC NETWORKS. Of all the linkages across interstateborders in the modern era, those involving scientistsmay be the most important.Scientific research is of great and growing importancefor all aspects of modern life: the militaryand economic health of nations is increasinglydependent upon science, so no state dares not cultivatea strongscientific research establish- ment. At the same time, science itself is one of the most transnational

101. The functionalistlogic of cooperation is developed in David Mitrany,The Functional Theory ofPolitics (London: St. Martin's Press, 1975). 102. The classical empirical study of the impact of contacts upon attitudes is Robert Angell, Peace on theMarch (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1969). Angell argues that many kinds of transnationalexperiences have a positive effecton accommodative attitudes among what he calls the "informedelites" who have significantimpact of foreignpolicy. For a critiqueof Angell, see Donald P. Warwick, "Transnational Participationand InternationalPeace," in Robert Keo- hane and Joseph Nye, Jr.,eds., TransnationalRelations and WorldPolitics (Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1972), pp. 305-324. 103. Harold Jacobson,Networks of Interdependence: International Organizations and theGlobal Political System(New York: AlfredKnopf, 1979), pp. 33-63. 104. See Peter Wiletts, ed., PressureGroups in the Global System:The TransnationalRelations of Issue-OrientedNon-Governmental Organizations (London: Frances Pinter,1982); Philip Taylor,Non- stateActors in InternationalPolitics: From Transregionalto SubstateOrganizations (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1984); and Ivo Duchacek, Daniel Latouche, and Garath Stevenson, eds., Perforated Sovereigntiesand InternationalRelations: Trans-Sovereign Contacts of SuibnationalGovernment (New York: Greenwood, 1986). InternationalSecurity 16:3 | 110

enterprisesand communities.105Scientists depend upon maintainingcom- municationwith theirpeers elsewhere, and the quality of theirwork is often dependent upon participationin internationalconferences and exchanges. Furthermore,scientists have become so importantthat they enjoy a social standing as high as or higher than any other professionalgroup. In the Soviet Union, both the need to rapidly catch up with the West and Marxism's emphasis on scientificprogress have furtherelevated the status of scientists. Because of these factors,the Soviet scientificcommunity has been more internationallyoriented and less subject to ideological control than any other segment of Soviet society.106As a result,the Soviet scientific communityhas been a major seedbed of heretical ideas and a powerful constituencyfor reform.The ability of physicist Andrei Sakharov to defy Soviet authoritiesby speaking out in favorof human rightsand disarmament during the Brezhnev era is a powerful illustrationof scientificdissent and influence.Particularly on issues of nuclear war and peace, Soviet physicists, interactingwith their Western counterpartsin organizations such as Pug- wash, have been a major counterweightto militaryand Communist party ideas and approaches.107Gorbachev's principaladviser on scientifcand technological issues, Yevgeni Velikhov,developed wide knowledge and contacts in the West while participatingin the joint U.S.-Soviet fusion research program. During the late Brezhnev and early Gorbachev periods, a wide array of Soviet and Western scientificexchanges focused upon "technical" aspects of securityhelped lay the foundationsfor Gorbachev's initiatives.108 The overall impact on the Soviet Union of this growthin opportunityfor participationin internationalorganizations and networkshas been two-fold.

105. On the inherentlyinternational nature of the enterprise of science, see Diana Crane, "Transnational Networks in Basic Science," in Keohane and Nye, TransnationalRelations and WorldPolitics, pp. 235-251. 106. Graham, Scienceand SovietSocial Order. 107. For a discussion of transnational ties and Soviet foreign policy change, see Matthew Evangelista, "Sources of Soviet Moderation," pp. 331-332. See also Emanuel Adler, "The Emer- gence of Cooperation: National Epistemic Communities and the InternationalEvolution of the Idea of Nuclear Arms Control," InternationalOrganization, Vol. 46, No. 1 (Winter1991/92, forthcoming). 108. One of the most ambitiousjoint researchprojects was between the Federationof American Scientists and the Soviet Scientists Committee for Peace and Against the Nuclear Threat on nuclear disarmament.See Frank von Hippel, "Arms Control Physics: The New Soviet Connec- tion," PhysicsToday, Vol. 42, No. 11 (November 1989), pp. 39-46. In another unprecedented step, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) set up a seismic monitoringnetwork in the Soviet Union to trackSoviet underground nuclear explosions, demonstratingto a skeptical Reagan administrationthat such verificationwas effective. The InternationalSources of SovietChange I 111

First, since the West exerts a disproportionateinfluence in most of these organizations, maintainingnon-antagonistic relations with the West is necessary if the Soviet Union is to realize the opportunitiesthese organizations provide and avoid the costs of isolation and estrangement. Second, the participationof Soviet citizens and groups in these organizationsis a pow- erfulsource of socialization into the norms and orientationsof the West. As the frequencyand density of individual and group transnationalinteraction rises, new sets of identities and affiliationsemerge. Taken together,international organizations exert powerful attractionsthat over time have reori- ented Soviet attitudesand behavior. The development of these ties should be considered a background feature ratherthan a leading cause of Soviet change. The building of these ties and theirinfluence on Soviet elites have been gradual and have served to mold attitudessupporting policy reorientation,although withoutcreating the necessary conditions to do so.

ASSIMILATIVE GLOBAL CULTURE AND SOCIETY Finally,another importantWestern influenceupon the Soviet Union is the assimilativeand inclusive cultureand societyof the West which have drawn the Soviet Union out of its isolation and into the global mainstream.Culture- human attitudesand world views, and society-relations among groups and classes-shape what people thinkof as beneficialand desirable, in contrast to military,economic, and organizationalvariables, which define patternsof costs and benefits. Cultural and social forces are more difficultto measure than economic and securityvariables, and theyare oftenneglected by power- oriented analysis, but they are neverthelessimportant. Cultural and social factorsaffect international relations by influencingthe manner in which members of a society, including the state elite, define themselvesand theirplace in the largerglobal setting.109The historicalrecord provides many instances in which such transnationalcultural and social factorsplayed a major role. For example, dynasticand aristocraticinterstate

109. Mike Featherstonedescribes global cultureas "trans-societal"processes "into which nation- states can be regarded as being embedded." Featherstone,"Global Culture: An Introduction," in Featherstone, ed., Global Culture(Beverly Hills: Sage, 1990), p. 1. Among the best recent discussions of the characterand impact of global cultural formationsare Anthony D. Smith, "Toward a Global Culture?" in Featherstone,ed., GlobalCulture, pp. 171-191; and Mary Cath- erine Bateson, "Beyond Sovereignty:An Emerging Global Civilization," in R.B.J. Walker and Saul Mendlovitz, eds., ContendingSovereignties (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1990). See also JonsukChay, ed., Cultureand InternationalRelations (New York: Praeger, 1990). InternationalSecurity 16:3 | 112

linkages profoundlyshaped the characterand stabilityof the early modern European state system. Similarly,the religious affiliationsand antagonisms between Latin Christendomand Islam significantlyshaped patternsof group conflictin the Mediterranean world for a millennium.110The secular nature of modern industrial society has not eliminated transnationalculture, only changed its character. From the standpoint of Russia and the Soviet Union, the most important feature of the cultural environmentis the extent to which the West has presenteda more inclusive (open, cosmopolitan,and integrative)or exclusive (closed, nationalistic,and discriminatory)face. In the late seventeenthcen- tury,Peter the Great as a young man was able to travelthroughout the West, particularlyHolland, freelygaining skills and knowledge. In the eighteenth and nineteenthcenturies, cosmopolitan tendencies in the West were partic- ularlystrong and the Russian elites mingled as peers with theircounterparts in the rest of Europe. In contrast,Germany in both the imperial and Nazi eras was an extremelyclosed nationalistand chauvinisticculture, presenting the Soviet Union with few attractionsor opportunitiesto participatein the largerEuropean system. The post-World War II era has been dominated by one the most open and inclusive socioculturalformations in Westernhistory. The ascendancy of the United States in this period has produced a cultureand society that are far more open than any the Soviets have experienced before. Part of the U.S. impact has been through the reconstructionof Europe along much less nationalisticand aristocraticlines. A centralfeature of the contemporaryWest is the prominence of what mightbe termedan internationalbusiness culture in which the norms of openness, predictability,and performanceprevail. The global ubiquity of Western-stylebusiness attireis an indication of the ease with which people fromdifferent backgrounds can participateand thrive within this system."1'Closely linked is the similarlypervasive commodity culture created by globally standardized and mass-marketedproducts such as blue jeans, Coca Cola, and television.112 The enormously assimilative

110. Although dated, Adda B. Bozeman, Politicsand Culturein InternationalHistory (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1960) remains the best general source on this topic. See also Evan Luard, Typesof International Systems (New York: Basic Books, 1976). 111. Susan Strange, "Toward a Theory of Transnational Empire," in Ernst-OttoCzempiel and James N. Rosenau, eds., GlobalChanges and TheoreticalChallenges: Approaches to WorldPolitics for the1990s (Lexington,Mass.: Lexington Books, 1989), pp. 173-174. 112. Francis Fukuyama, "The End of History," The National Interest,No. 16 (Summer 1989), pp. 3-18. The InternationalSources of SovietChange 1 113

capacities of this global cultureare reinforcedby the multi-ethnicand multi- racial nature of the United States itself. The United States-the "nation of nations"-has a capacity to attractand include thatno previous Great Power rooted in a particularethnic, racial, or religious group has demonstrated.113 Exposure to this attractivesociocultural formationhas had far-reaching impacts on Soviet attitudes toward their own governmentand the outside world. Perhaps most importantly,the legitimacyof the Soviet regime has sufferedby simple comparison: as Soviet citizens have learned that people in the West are wealthier and freer,the authorityof the Communist Party has been undermined. By the late Brezhnev period, the discrepancybetween the officialline and the popular perception of the West had reached an all- time extreme. In contrast to the protean richness of Western culture, the puritanicalproletarianism of the new Soviet man championed by the Com- munistParty had littleappeal to eitherthe outside world or to many Soviets, particularlythe young. The effectof these Western influenceswas greatest upon the state elite centered in Moscow, and it is these members of the establishmentwho set in motion the recentreforms. During the 1980s, the socioculturalimpact of the West on Soviet attitudes was greatlystrengthened by what has been called the "citizen diplomacy" movement.114 Prompted in part by fears of nuclear war in the early 1980s, growingnumbers of Westerners,particularly Americans, sought to reach out and establish dialogue with Soviets, both officialsand citizens, through a variety of unofficialchannels and settings. In contrastto the officialanti- Soviet posture of the Reagan administration,these activists attempted to undercutantagonistic stereotypes and createa climateof mutual understand- ing and trust.These citizen groups purveyed the view that the human race faced threatsto its survival and that a human interestin common security transcended the ideological oppositions of the Cold War. Measuring the influenceof such groups is difficult,and observerswho focus on high-level state diplomacy will tend to neglect their influence,but the great number and intensityof these interactionsand theirsimilarities with the new Soviet

113. See Ben J.Wattenberg, The FirstUniversal Nation: Leading Indicators and Ideas aboutthe Surge ofAmerica in the1990's (New York: Free Press, 1990). 114. For a discussion of the general phenomenon of unofficialdiplomacy, see D.D. Newsom, ed., PrivateDiplomacy with the Soviet Union (Lanham, Md.: UniversityPress of America, 1987). See also Yale Richmond, U.S.-Soviet CulturalExchanges, 1958-1986: Who Wins? (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1987); and Maureen R. Berman and Joseph E. Johnson,"The Growing Role of UnofficialDiplomacy," in Berman and Johnson,eds., UnofficialDiplomats (New York: Columbia UniversityPress, 1977), pp. 1-33. InternationalSecurity 16:3 1114

elite attitudessuggest that theirimpact was surelyfelt. At the very least, the systematicefforts of these citizens to subvert Cold War antagonisms re- inforcedan image that the West was benign and receptive to fundamental accommodation.

Taproot,Timing and InternationalRelations Theory

In analyzing Soviet policy change fromthe "outside in," not all of the external variables cut in the same direction. Nuclear weapons and the increased strengthof neighboringstates close offthe path of expansion that previous Russian regimes pursued. Nuclear weapons and the prevalence of liberal democracies reduce security demands, while dynamic capitalism and the diffusionof power increase them. The net impact of all these featuresof the environmenton Soviet domestic and foreignpolicy substantiallyfavors liberalization and accommodation, in contrastto so much of Russian historical experience. Externalfactors leave nothingto be gained by continued policies of confrontationand isolation, and a great deal to be gained by abandoning confrontationand joining the mainstream of Western-dominatedinterna- tional society.115 The largest cluster of external factorsshaping Soviet change stems from the complex sociopolitical and economic system led by the United States: capitalism,the Western alliance, American cultureand society,and international organizations. Their net and cumulative impact has thwarted Soviet expansion while at the same time presentingan appealing alternative.Al- though it is possible to separate these factorsanalytically, many of them are in facthighly interconnected.Given these interconnections,it is difficultto identifyone element of the systemas its core or taprootcause. Nonetheless, to evaluate the relative impact of these various factors,we distinguishbetween threelayers: deep and persistentfeatures of the Westernsystem; long- termpolicies of leading states; and recentWestern policies and movements.

115. Our argument that the Soviet's external environmenthas provided this combination of "carrotsand sticks" differsfrom Marshall Shulman's proposal that U.S. strategyshould be to hold out a combinationof incentivesand penalties. American strategyitself has only been part of a largerset of forcesthat add up to this effectivemix, and American strategyhas never been coherent and proactive enough for a "carrotand stick" policy of the sort Shulman advocated. See Marshall D. Shulman, Beyondthe Cold War (New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, 1966). The InternationalSources of Soviet Change 1 115

At the deepest level, identifyingthis Western system with capitalism is appealing because the wealth of capitalismmakes militarycontainment possible, while also softeningaggressive tendencies within the West and drawing outsiders in. But other featuresnot reducible to capitalism,crucial forit, are part of this Western system. The West has maintained militarystrength sufficientto contain the Soviet Union defensively,while the pluralistic,pacific,and open featuresof this system have made it difficultfor the West to pursue a policy to activelyand directlyassail the Soviets offensively.At the same time, the assimilative and inclusive society and culture of the West have held out potentiallyhigh rewards foran accommodatingSoviet Union. Paradoxically, therefore,as the West has become more economically and militarilypowerful, it has presented an increasinglybenign face to the Soviet Union. The second layer has been the long-termstate policy of containment. Whetherthis strategy,based on the application of the most simple principles of balance of power, would have been successful without nuclear weapons is impossible to determine. The metaphor of "containment"also misses the many ways in which the mutual permeabilityof the Soviet and Western systems has contributedto Soviet reorientation.The inabilityof the Iron Curtain to isolate the Communist world fromthe influencesof the West and the inabilityof either side to protect itselffrom nuclear destructionare as importantas the abilityof the West to frustrateSoviet territorialaggression. Thus Soviet changes are significantlythe consequence of the inabilityof modern states-even large, socialist states-to exclude influences frombe- yond theirborders. At the most proximate level are the events of the last decade, most im- portantlythe policies and statementsof the Reagan administrationand the Westernpeace movement.Many observershave been temptedto draw causal links fromthe temporal correlationbetween Reagan's assertiveness and So- viet change. Yet the broader perspective developed here undermines such claims. The Reagan administrationwas unable to depart substantiallyfrom the postwar strategyof containmentdespite rhetoricsuggesting otherwise. Furthermore,during the Reagan years an unusually contradictorymixture of signals emanated fromWashington. Even more fundamentally,for every Reagan administrationhard-line move, therewere counter-balancingtenden- cies in the West. In the United States, the popular peace movement drew Reagan towards arms control and political moderation. And perhaps more InternationalSecurity 16:3 j 116

decisivelythan the heated clashes occuringin Washingtonwas the essential continuityof European, and particularlyWest German, support fordetente. One clearlyseparate variable is nuclear weapons. Ifin factnuclear weapons have rendered Great Power war obsolete, then many of these same outcomes mighthave occurred regardless of changes in domestic regime, distribution of power, or economic performance.A true test of the ability of nuclear weapons alone to produce an abandonment of confrontationwould have been possible if the West had maintained a nuclear deterrentcapability but had not matched the Soviets across the spectrumof conventionalforce. THE QUESTION OF TIMING. So many of the external factorspoint toward accommodation that the new Soviet orientationappears greatlyover-determined. Given the number of variables that suggest shiftsto accommodation, the question may not be why it happened, but why did it not happen earlier? Nuclear weapons have existed forforty-five years and the United States has been a liberal democracy throughoutthe Cold War. However, these variables have made their presence felt in stages. State policies toward nuclear weapons have evolved, reflectingwhat might be understood as a learning curve. Similarly,the decline in Soviet economic performanceand the legitimacyof socialism, while long in the making,have been feltonly recently.Moreover, these externalfactors constitute constraints and opportunitiesthat must be perceived and acted upon; it takes time for the lags and spurts that are shaped by the dynamicsof domestic leadership. The internationalfactors we describe do not guarantee the emergence of a benign and liberal Soviet Union (or a Russian successor state), but do ensure that such a state could pursue a hostile and autarkic policy only at its peril. Even the officialsinvolved in the August 1991 coup attempt felt compelled to announce their intention to maintain existing international commitments.Moreover, the role played by transnationalnetworks and communicationsin frustratingthe coup is evidence of how difficultit would be forthe Soviet Union to returnto the past. REALISM AND LIBERALISM. Attentionto the factorsdescribed above may help answer theoreticalquestions dividing realistsand liberal globalists. For the last several decades, liberal globalists have made theirgreatest inroads against realists in the sphere of Western political economy, but realism has remained compelling because of the East-West conflict.Now that the long peace has culminated in a "major peaceful change," liberalglobalist theories have greater attraction.The factormost emphasized in dominant formsof realism-relative militarypower-clearly could not have been the decisive The InternationalSources of SovietChange j 117

cause of these changes, since the Soviet Union was at rough paritywith the West when these changes began. A relatedrealist claim about the importance of relativeeconomic performancehas more to say about these developments, but the magnitude of the changes is not fullyexplained by economic performance alone. A telling factor,nuclear weapons radicallyreduced interstate aggression between the Great Powers and created interestin more basic and far-reachinginterstate accommodation. While not inconsistentwith realism, this factoris outside of the contemporaryrealist focus on system structure and power distribution.The socioculturalvariables have transformedSoviet elite attitudes and orientations,with far-reachingconsequences for Soviet policy. These variables are not inconsistentwith liberal globalism, but have not been centralto liberal analysis in recentyears. Thus, the end of the Cold War altersthe intellectualbalance between realismand liberalglobalism, and shiftsthe centerof gravitywithin each school.

Conclusion

In recent years, the Cold War has ended unexpectedlyand peacefully.The cascade of change in the Gorbachev era has brought many significantsur- prises, but none more so than the peaceful end to Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and the peaceful reunificationof Germany.Confounding the conventionalwisdom of many in the West, the Soviet Union has responded to its crises with liberalization and accommodation rather than repression and expansion. The modern global system has produced not only a long peace, but major peaceful change. This Soviet reorientationis in significantmeasure an adaptation to an evolving externalenvironment made up of a complex mixtureof demands, opportunities,and constraints.While the sources of the Soviet crisisthat led to reorientationare primarilyinternal, the responses to the crisis,particularly in foreignaffairs, have been significantlyshaped by outside circumstances. Important sources of the new Soviet behavior lie in the world system in which the Soviet Union is positioned. This internationalenvironment has a paradoxical character: although the West has grown more militarilyand economicallypowerful, it has presented the Soviet Union with a more benign and attractiveface. With similar effect,nuclear weapons have eased the Soviets' territorialsecurity problem while producing new incentives for accommodation. InternationalSecurity 16:3 j 118

The real victorin the Cold War is not the policy of any particularadmin- istrationor the activitiesof any particularmovement, but the Westernsystem itself.The central role of these deeper long-termforces puts in perspective and shows the limitsof the designs and disputes of policy-makers.The real genius of the Westernsystem has not been its coherentand far-sightedpolicy, but the vitalityand attractivenessof its polity. The impact of the accommodatingand attractivefeatures of the West upon the Soviet Union has not ended with the end of the Cold War. Gorbachev's great dependency on foreignacceptance, support, and resources shows that Soviet reformcontinues to be dependent on outside opportunitiesand constraints.If the West reaches out to support Soviet reformand the incorpo- rationof the Soviet Union and its successors into the Westernsystem, it will continue to build upon one of the most importantand successfulfeatures of Western strengthin the twentiethcentury: its capacity to attractand inte- grate. Western support forthe Soviet Union would be a continuationof the same process that helped end the Cold War.