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The Game Changer: Reassessing the Impact of SDI on Gorbachev’S Foreign Policy, Arms Control, and US-Soviet Relations

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The Game Changer: Reassessing the Impact of SDI on Gorbachev’S Foreign Policy, Arms Control, and US-Soviet Relations The Game Changer: Reassessing the Impact of SDI on Gorbachev’s Foreign Policy, Arms Control, and US-Soviet Relations by Elizabeth C. Charles B.A., August 1998, The University of Georgia M.A., December 2001, Boston College A Dissertation submitted to The Faculty of The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 31, 2010 Dissertation directed by Hope M. Harrison Associate Professor of History and International Affairs The Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of The George Washington University certifies that Elizabeth Catherine Charles has passed the Final Examination for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy as of June 4, 2010. This is the final and approved form of the dissertation. The Game Changer: Reassessing the Impact of SDI on Gorbachev’s Foreign Policy, Arms Control, and US-Soviet Relations Elizabeth C. Charles Dissertation Research Committee: Hope M. Harrison, Associate Professor of History and International Affairs, Dissertation Director James G. Hershberg, Associate Professor of History and International Affairs, Committee Member James M. Goldgeier, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, Committee Member ii © Copyright 2010 by Elizabeth C. Charles All rights reserved iii To Curly For your boundless optimism and enthusiasm iv Acknowledgments I would like to take this opportunity to thank those individuals and institutions who have assisted me throughout the research and writing of this dissertation. This project would not have been possible without the guidance, encouragement, and support of several mentors and friends. First, I would like to thank my incredible advisor, Professor Hope M. Harrison, for her advice and encouragement throughout this long and sometimes arduous process. I am most appreciative of the time and energy she devoted to helping me along the way, reading countless drafts, and offering constructive suggestions on improving my writing and this dissertation. Her insightful comments, ever-present optimism, and ability to keep me motivated helped me grow as a scholar and person in many ways. My committee members, Professors James Hershberg and James Goldgeier, provided critical insights on this project, gave me ideas for new avenues of research to make it stronger, and challenged me to think critically about my own work. The guidance of my committee members and professors throughout my time at George Washington has been invaluable in helping me broaden my research interests and scholarly horizons. I would like to extend a special thanks to Dr. Svetlana Savranskaya of the National Security Archive. The document collections Dr. Savranskaya has made available to researchers on the NSA website and in their physical collections provided me with vital primary source materials for this dissertation. Her willingness to share her research with others, her assistance and suggestions for areas of further research, and her encouraging words about my project helped me tremendously. I am most grateful that she agreed to serve as a reader for my dissertation defense. v I received invaluable assistance while working on this project from countless archivists, librarians, and other researchers. The archivists and staff members at the Gorbachev Foundation in Moscow, the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, CA, and the Hoover Institution Archives at Stanford University in Stanford, CA, as well as the National Security Archive at GW, provided me with astute research assistance and guidance and pointed me in the right directions. I must acknowledge the financial assistance I received from the History Department at GW and the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at the Elliott School of International Affairs at GW for various research trips and conferences. I must also thank my cousin, Bradbury Dyer, for providing me with a safe, centrally located apartment during my 2006 research trip to Moscow, as well as constant motivation and good-natured pestering about my page count. I am most grateful to Hope Harrison, former director of IERES, and Henry Hale, current director of IERES, for providing me with a much needed office space—a quite place for writing, reflection, and revising, as well as a place to chat with other scholars and professors at the institute who share similar interests. While at GW, I worked as a graduate administrative assistant at the Office of Graduate Fellowships and Assistantships. This not only provided tuition and financial support, but the office director, Geri Rypkema, offered kind words of encouragement and advice about how to successfully navigate through graduate school and about writing a dissertation. She was always there to lend an ear and to keep me motivated! I also worked at the Global Resources Center at the Gelman Library for Cathy Zeljak. The amazing staff at the GRC, including Mark Yoffe and Oksana Prokhvacheva, offered words of vi wisdom on my project, as well as research advice, and made having to go to work a lot of fun. My fellow graduate students and friends at GW provided me with countless hours of listening, reading, editing, commenting, and commiserating about the daunting task of producing a dissertation. I am grateful to the two other Gobi girls, Yvette Chin and Malgorzata Gnoinska, not only for being amazing friends and excellent travel companions, but for being great sounding boards throughout this process. Yvette’s abilities as an editor are unparalleled, as she could often take my muddled paragraphs and turn them into lucid prose within a few minutes. Goshka’s irrepressible enthusiasm for history and research, along with her amazing ability to persevere though difficult times, has motivated me in so many ways. I must also include Raabia Shafi in this group. As office mates at IERES, we shared countless hours discussing Russia and Afghanistan, Gorbachev’s birthmark, Larry Mullen, Jr., and everything in between. I consider myself very fortunate to have found three friends and intellectual peers who share a deep love of history and the study of the Cold War. They have made my time while writing this dissertation a lot less lonely, and I am forever in their debt. Colleen Gilbert and Dan Cook, both of whom I met in my first class at GW, have become lifelong friends. Colleen read and edited numerous chapters and made me get out of the house occasionally to join the world of the living and do fun things like watch Georgia football or play softball. Dan, who finished his dissertation and graduated last August, provided me with advice and motivation to write every day and keep going. His tremendous sense of humor and words of encouragement helped me realize that I too could finish. Mary McPartland, Andrea O’Brien, Julia Sittmann, and Sara Berndt, as well vii as other friends in the department at GW, provided words of wisdom and a great network of support over the past few years. I appreciate their willingness to listen and share our experiences over some excellent Ravi Kabob. I would be remiss not to include friends and family outside of the academic world, who provided moral and emotional support, sometimes not always understanding what I was doing, but they were always there to lend an ear and provide words of encouragement. Thanks to my dad, Kim Charles, and my brother, Will Charles, for always being there. To my grandparents, Gay and Bill Charles and Bessie and George Lee, not only for their financial support which allowed me to finish this dissertation, but for helping all their grandchildren learn to follow their dreams. Ginger Self, Susan Donovan, Margaret Scurry, for making my time in Charleston great, although a little less productive than I hoped. Sadie Sherwood and Kara Skahill, for giving us places to stay when we came out to do research at Hoover, as well as being wonderful friends and the only ones brave enough to come visit me in Russia! Jennifer Reynolds and Jason Wheelock for your constant encouragement and support, as well as helping me stay sane and have a little fun every now and then. Each of you has encouraged and inspired me throughout this process, and for that I am eternally grateful. ECC Washington, DC June 2010 viii Abstract The Game Changer: Reassessing the Impact of SDI on Gorbachev’s Foreign Policy, Arms Control, and US-Soviet Relations In February 1987, Mikhail Gorbachev decoupled the Soviet arms control package, withdrawing Soviet conditions connecting an agreement on intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) to strategic offensive nuclear missile reductions (START), Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), and adherence to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM). Gorbachev untied the arms control package in order to pursue a separate treaty to eliminate US and Soviet INF missiles, and in doing so, Gorbachev changed the game. This decision led to the historic December 1987 INF Treaty, the only US-Soviet treaty to completely eliminate an entire class of nuclear weapons. Through an analysis of the processes, events, policies, and people that influenced Gorbachev’s decision making and foreign policy, this dissertation examines how, by February 1987, he was able to free himself from the old Soviet mind-set and pursue more realistic and rational policies in arms control, regardless of the potential threat posed to Soviet security by SDI. While many historians mention this delinking in the context of the INF Treaty, no one has undertaken a serious and thorough analysis of the decision to untie the arms control package, nor have scholars examined why this dramatic shift in the Soviet negotiating position occurred at this time. Using newly available archival materials from the Gorbachev Foundation in Moscow; the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California; the National Security Archive in Washington, DC; and the Katayev Collection at the Hoover Archives at Stanford University, this dissertation reassesses the impact of ix Reagan’s policies and SDI on Gorbachev’s foreign policy and internal reform efforts, on arms control, and on US-Soviet relations.
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