Perestroika And Soviet National Security; Deterrence And The Revolution In Soviet Military Doctrine
Two deans of Soviet studies probe the Gorbachev revolution. Garthoff draws on a newly available Soviet military journal to elucidate the Soviet emphasis on war-prevention-in contrast to the more technical American emphasis on deterrence-and also to document Moscow's more recent acceptance that security must be mutual. MccGwire's magisterial study reaches back to 1945 but focuses on the 1980s. By then the open-ended burden of assuring that the Soviet Union would not "lose" a world war was becoming crippling. The turning point came in 1986 when Gorbachev accepted that democratization was essential to reform. More controversial, MccGwire argues that Reagan's anti-Soviet toughness, far from causing the Soviet revolution, may have slowed it.
Sign-up for free weekly updates from ForeignAffairs.com.